Tips for Applying Horn Sounds to Diesels

Evening all,

To start off, I am very used to going into the config file and swapping out the horn asset on locomotives. After downloading all the horn packs from sites like CPS and TBS, I have quite the library of newer horn sounds. Recently, I've been brainstorming how to distribute the RS3L three parts I've gathered to the Santa Fe engines I bought from Jointed Rail. I have most of the main fleet: SD40s, SD40-2s, F45s, and SD45-2s. The drive to find different horns is that most of these units share the same recording by default. Another disclaimer, JR members have already stated in one of my previous threads and in product reviews that pretty much it is up to the buyer to change the horns if they please. With that out of the way, does anyone have tips for enhancing the variety of the way diesel locomotives sound in Trainz, such as for modeling companies like Santa Fe? For more context, I have been watching DARTrider's videos about modelling classic railroads for inspiration. He's changed some of the horns on the Jointed Rail units seen in the videos. Thanks!

Personally I’ve done a couple things to increase my variety, the first being with some SP reskins of bdaneal’s SD9. I basically took a bunch of hornsounds I found and put a different one on each loco regardless of how prototypical they were or weren’t, but I’m assuming that’s not what you’re going for. The second thing I did after the fact, and that was take a look at the horn meshes on the individual locomotives (5 chime or 3 chime) and just give the locos a corresponding horn from that era, regardless of prototypical accuracy. I say this with the assumption that you’ve run out of unique recordings for the specific hornsounds you’re using?

Nah, I have lots of recordings, just no clear idea for distributing them. I've had some luck with eyeballing the horns on real units and putting appropriate recordings on the models since I first made this thread.

Ohhhh I see. In that case maybe you could pick a specific hornsound and then draw from a hat of locos, or something similar. Personally I’d put my favorite recordings on the locos I like more but that’s just me. You could even mix it up and attach a different mesh to a certain loco or skin so you’d have an excuse to put something other than an RS3L on it. Not sure if that helps at all, but it’s 1:40am and my brain is currently in low battery mode so I apologize for any lack of usefulness.

On a related note however, I’m now curious as to which sites I could go to that have exclusively 3-part horns and/or whistles? Aside from TBS and CPS as you mentioned.