The Soundsystem

The Miniatur Wunderland appeals to all senses; especially the auditive background of scenarios makes them believable. The only drawback is that it is very complicated to transfer the prototype sound to model. Completely different sounds are used in various places in the Wunderland. For fire engines on tour we needed a completely different system than for the stage of Atze Schroeder. All in all, three systems were developed which we’d like to introduce in the following paragraphs.

For small moving objects with a relatively small action radius, we use a special kind of MP3 player. These players, especially developed in our workshops, are directly connected to the light control system and thus can play up to 99 different sounds per player. A small amplifier is integrated on the PC board and allows for two loudspeakers in stereo. By using an SD memory card, it is even possible to change a sound very fast without having to disconnect the player from the layout. More and more small actions are now equipped with this kind of player and can play the approbiate sounds.

Sometimes we not only need sound for an action but also a small video which has to be displayed on a small LCD display. Here, MP4 players come to hand which were modified for us. The modification includes triggering the players using our light control system. This way, not only the good sound but also interesting pictures can be heard and seen at the miniature action scenes.

Every now and then we have to ask us how we can equip small objects like CarSystem vehicles and ships with sound. There was absolutely no space in the vehicles since these are completely filled with batteries and micro-controllers.

So some other solution was desperately needed. The fire engines of the Knuffingen fire brigade was not that much of a problem, since the fire engines were built to a Hamburg prototype. These switch on their horns only when approaching a crossing. Here we used our MP3 players which are triggered by the CarSystem. The American fire engines were a different thing. They have their horns on permanently and even play different melodies. Since the vehicles are moving all across the layout, we couldn’t use the static MP3 players. They are not able to simulate moving sounds.

After long research at manufacturers we found a computer-based solution which enabled us to exactly trace the moving fire engines. The system is based on sound adapters which normally are used in recording studios. These sound adapters offer up to 64 outlets of which each one can supply it’s own sound signal.

However, this system doesnt’allow for an exact tracing of vehicles since one has to control the volume of the sounds depending on the relation of the vehicles to the various outlets. In addition, the routes of the vehicles are not always identical – sometimes the vehicles have to stop or drive a detour so that it is not possible to use a static program.

Help came to us in form of a small software developer team located in Berlin, Germany, who programmed a tool that helped us to overcome the above mentioned problems. This tool basically allows to acustically position an object somewhere in a room ( like surround sound in a cinema ) and change this position in real time. With the data dekivered by the CarSystem it is now possible to exactly trace every vehicle on the layout and equip it with virtually endless numbers of sounds. Another advantage of this system ist that now it would be possible to distribute sounds all over the layout. So far, we refrained from this as we had to state that our visitors feel disturbed by sounds where the source can not be located visually or where the logical connection is missing.