Sound Volume Control & Mute

[paullibke]

I own multiple Bachmann locomotives equipped with SoundTraxx. Is there a way to control the volume of the sound, and/or a way to mute it entirely.  I have too many sounds running at once and would like to mute some of the locomotives that are not being currently operated.  I am using an NCE DCC system.

[Hunt]

To control all sounds -

CV 128 Master Volume Control
CV 128 is master volume control. Programming CV 128 = 0 will turn off all sounds so when the locomotive is powered up - no sounds.  You will have to program CV 128 to factory default value or the volume you want, to turn on sound. Sound will not automatically start with speed step one.

Function 8 (F8)
Toggle to turn all sounds on/off
F8  defaults to sound on when DCC system turned off and back on.  Thus locomotive does not power on with sound off.


CV 113 Quiet Mode Timeout Period
When the Quiet Mode Timeout Period is set to a non-zero value, sounds become active only when the decoder is addressed.  When the locomotive has been stopped and all functions have been turned off, the sound effects will turn off automatically after the timeout period has elapsed as set by CV 113.

Sound Value decoder does not support CV 113 Quiet Mode Timeout Period.

[paullibke]

Thank you very much, Hunt.

[Trainman203]

Cv 128 is very useful to get all of your engines to be at similar overall volumes.  The Spectrum 4-4-0 is exceedingly quiet compared to other sound equipped Bachmann steam engines, which need to be turned down to not overwhelm it.

The volume of the steam sounds of both the bachmann soundtraxx and sound value decoders are not realistically balanced with each other.   The whistle is by far the loudest sound on a steam locomotive.  Before you do anything , turn whistle volume cv 129 up to 255.  In descending order, the next loudest is the chuff which should not drown out the whistle.  The next would be the bell, which should barely be audible over the chuff at speed.  The others are background sounds.

Cv 113, the timeout clock, is wonderful.  The omission of it, the headlight dynamo, and the coupler crash from the Sound Value decoder was a very poor decision in my opinion.

[paullibke]

Thank you very much, Trainman203.  I'm learning a lot here.