I have heard both, but not experienced a live version of either. The Creeping Death system would actually be ok if they abandoned their pursuit of volume and could change the sound for something less abrasive. It is a proportional system, which is good, but sounds like a V8 hotrod on steroids.
The RC Command system at present (as far as I am aware) only covers the IR system and battle sounds, it doesn't provide engine sounds. As I understand it they are developing an engine sound system.
However, it is a fully functional proportional engine sound system that is the golden chalice for all systems. It is not easy to achieve, and here is the reason why. The main board takes signals from the tx, so, if you push the stick forward then it needs to take that signal and firstly translate that into powering the motors. It would also need to extract a 'sound' from a sound file and send it to the amplifier, and the amplifier sends it to the speaker.
This may sound simple enough, but let's say that you push the stick forwards and the tank generates a 'rev the engine and engage first gear' sound. Now, you decide that you don't want to go forwards, you want to go backwards? The system has to generate a decelleration sound, brake sound, change down sound, change gear into reverse sound, and then a reversing engine sound...at which point the user may decide to push the stick sideways...?
Although the speaker is generating what appears to be constant sound, it isn't. The Elmod system has 40 sound bites for normal engine running alone. They are each around 0.2 seconds long. If you play one sound bite it is tiny. What the system does is monitor the tx stick, and if it is pushed in a particular direction then it plays one sound bite after another (randomly believe it or not) so that the user cannot hear the joins.
Why are the sound bites so short? It is because if the tx stick is moved then a different sound is sent to the amplifier. If the sound bites were say one second long then the last one would keep playing until it had finished, and then start the new one. This would cause a conflict between the tx stick position and the sound being heard in relation to what the tank was doing.
The engine start up sounds are several seconds long, this is possible because until that sound has finished playing, the tx controls are inactive.
You can add to that the fact that the Elmod system is 5 channel polyphonic, and that means that in addition to all of the engine sounds, you get track squeak, braking squeaks, gun fire, mg etc etc. They can all be heard at the same time and independently. The main gun is also linked to the IR and muzzle flash so it all works together.
Tiger v2 Elmod Sound Files Updated
What Elmod have achieved with sound is way beyond what the Tamiya units do, however, the Elmod unit is still lacking when it comes to getting power to the motors.
This is why I have doubts that RCCommand can build a budget proportional sound system as they claimed. It is horrendously complex, and it is only the likes of Benidini and Elmod that have solved it. Their systems cost rather more than the RC Command units, and they have been in the development process for years.
For a budget sound system, I would go the Creeping Death route, but they need to change the engine sound to something more like a real Tiger 1, as it isn't programmable. What is interesting is that Tamiya proudly claim that their sounds are taken from a real King Tiger at Saumer. Anyone who has heard the Tiger 1 at Bovington which is running the same KT Maybach engine will know that it sounds nothing like the Tamiya?
That's enough rambling from me...I have to figure out how to get real Tiger 1 sounds onto my Elmod chip!!
Rob G
