Lokprogrammer and Loksound 5: Any Tutorials on How to Use?

[tehachapifan]

With all the apparent added abilities to edit and modify sounds with LS5, anyone aware of any tutorials on how to actually make changes? Nothing appears very intuitive.

[RBrodzinsky]

Matt posted a few YouTube How To videos a few years ago, but they weren’t much. There are a bunch of templates in the Files section of the groups.io LokSound forum, and a bunch of experts there willing to give advice (but never seen much of a tutorial). Phil Dunlap’s unofficial LokProgrammer manual comes the closest.

[tehachapifan]

Thanks, Rick!

For clarification, I'm fairly-well-versed in making basic changes in the Loksound Select series of decoders. It's the more advanced capabilities with Loksound 5 that I'm not familiar with.

For example, how does one take, say, a certain compressor from one sound file and put it in another. I'm under the impression you can do this, but maybe not.

....I suddenly got the feeling I may have asked this before. Going to look.

[carlso]

tehachapifan,

You are correct, you can move a sound file from one slot to another. I have been trying to tweak the sounds in my new LS5 Micro with Challenger sound file installed but was not having any luck getting the proper "steamboat" whistle, only some wimpy ones. I used every whistle # into proper CV and never found it. I was ready to give up until I called SBS4DCC and asked Bryan. He walked me through the procedure and I found it to be rather easy. As you might expect there are some booboo's to avoid. You know, I couldn't find the info in the ESU manual either. I think their manuals are worse than Digitrax, if that is possible.

Regards,
Carl

[RBrodzinsky]

Yep, it can be done. If I can remember to, I’ll set it up in the  morning and document the steps

[tehachapifan]

Thanks, guys!

[davefoxx]

I could use the education, too.  I added an entire song into one of my V5.0 decoders, but I fumbled my way through it, it took most of an evening to do it, and I now can’t remember how I did it. 

Thanks,
DFF

[reinhardtjh]

tehachapifan,

You are correct, you can move a sound file from one slot to another. I have been trying to tweak the sounds in my new LS5 Micro with Challenger sound file installed but was not having any luck getting the proper "steamboat" whistle, only some wimpy ones. I used every whistle # into proper CV and never found it. I was ready to give up until I called SBS4DCC and asked Bryan. He walked me through the procedure and I found it to be rather easy. As you might expect there are some booboo's to avoid. You know, I couldn't find the info in the ESU manual either. I think their manuals are worse than Digitrax, if that is possible.

Regards,
Carl

I don't know if you noticed, but ESU put out a V2 of most of their recent steam files, including the Challenger just a couple days ago.  The whistle might be better.  I don't recall if the Bulletin for the file said why it was V2.

[carlso]

John,

Thanks for the information. Actually I just realized that I loaded the Big Boy file and it is V1,R1. No big deal as I believe the Challenger & BB file are one in the same? ? ? If I knew what they corrected or added with a V2 R2 file I might download it. BTW, there is an excellent UP 844 steamboat whistle available in the depths of the decoder. Bryan pointed it out to me, so I added it to the whistle sound slot.

Carl

[RBrodzinsky]

The big caveat to watch for is that the installed LokSound sound templates pack are all at the lower (V4 - 8 bit 15625 kHz) sound quality, not the newer LokSound 5 (16 bit / 31250 kHz).  I've mixed and matched horns, though, with no issue - very difficult to hear the sound difference in an N-scale loco

[RBrodzinsky]

COPYING A SOUND SLOT BETWEEN PROJECTS

Note:  Highly recommend reviewing the unofficial LokProgrammer manual by Phil Dunlap (https://groups.io/g/Loksound/files/ESU%20LokSound%20v4.0%20Programmer%20Software%20User%20Manual,%20v1  ) before proceeding, starting at Page 23.  While written for V4, everything still valid for LS 5

First, always check the Sound Library to see if there is already the sound you want in the template package!  Then, it is as simple as selecting an empty sound slot in the upper left area in the first image, then selecting the sound in the upper right.  Finally, press the left arrow button

To start - have both projects, source and destination, open

This image shows a custom V4 file, with unique drive sounds (for an RDC - file from SBS4DCC). 
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Here is the destination project.  Note the sound file names in the lower right -- you won't have to do anything with them, but this is how we will know this works
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In the source project - double click on the sound slot (or right click and select Edit). The sound slot diagram will appear (in this case Drive Sound #2)
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Select everything in the diagram by dragging the mouse across all the items (including the Mute box) and press Ctrl-C to copy all

In the destination project - double click on an empty sound slot - the only box that will show in the flowchart will be Mute.  Highlight it, then press Ctrl-V to paste.
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Note that the lower quality d1.wav file is now shown in the lower right sound file panel (all the sounds used in the sound slot copied!).

Click the mouse in a blank area of the diagram to get the sound slot properties, and enter the new name for the sound slot.

[tehachapifan]

Thanks, Rick!

Going to take me a bit to absorb this and then I'll play around with it. I have noticed that, once a file is loaded into a loco, much of this is no longer enabled upon readback (like the library doesn't display the same...you don't get the lower right box). This will require me to save changes differently, as I tend to leave sound files in their original format by not saving changes when I upload it into a loco (if this makes sense).

[RBrodzinsky]

Thanks, Rick!

Going to take me a bit to absorb this and then I'll play around with it. I have noticed that, once a file is loaded into a loco, much of this is no longer enabled upon readback (like the library doesn't display the same...you don't get the lower right box). This will require me to save changes differently, as I tend to leave sound files in their original format by not saving changes when I upload it into a loco (if this makes sense).

Yeah, but that only works when you don't make changes to the sounds themselves.  If the sounds are changed in anyway, you MUST save a new project.  Actually, I keep a full file for each loco, with all the final CV adjustments, as well, so that I can load everything for THAT SPECIFIC loco into LokProgrammer.