Electronic "Mechanical" Siren's Birth

[Skip Goulet]

Skip,

I lived in Cincinnati during my first year in grad school(1976). In reality, we lived in a small 'burb which was located in Hamilton County. Early in my time there, I drove down and found the firehouse and asked about membership. All they cared about was whether or not I could respond during "day time" hours. Even though I was in school and had no more than two classes on any one day, the schedule was too hectic for me to be beneficial to their coverage problems. I was heartbroken! Especially after I learned that vollies can run red lights AND sirens in the Ohio. "Too bad," the Chief said to me, when he had to turn my offer down. "You would have been the first college graduate in the history of the department!"


Steve

I've made one trip to Cincinnati. That was in August of '99. I flew from here to Chicago and took a shuttle down to Merillville, IN, where I rode with my friend Tim Fantin to the PCS Internat'l meet in Lancaster, PA. That was quite a trip since I had never been in the Midwest. We ended up spending about 5 hrs in Cincinatti. Carl Woerner, who owns C-W Coach (he deals in used hearses and coach-type ambulances) hosted a group of us who showed up at his place on the way to PA at a big pizza place. I found it amazing that as big as the place is we only heard sirens going once or twice the whole time we there. One was a fire/ems response down the street from the pizza place. I wouldn't mind making the trip up there again sometime.


When I was on my vol. fire dept in Lubbock, I was the only member who had a college degree or even college hours. Since we were located only a couple of miles from the then-Reese AFB (now a jr. college campus), 80% of our members were airmen. All of them had high school education but none had any college except the college-level courses they received in the military.

 

[CHIEFOPS]

Sorry....but I take exception to your remark about Kevin!! He owns B&M and he's the one who knows what was or was not used on Emergency! He actually worked on a number of the episodes. I do agree, however, about what you say about the Interceptor sounds that are dubbed in. Those are in fact Interceptors sounds, with the siren being used in the manual mode when it was recorded.

I made no remark, I just believe he's mistaken. While Super Chiefs were mounted on a lot of the ambulances featured in the show, and while he may have supplied his sirens for sound recordings, the primary siren used for Engine 51, both the Crown and the Ward, are definitely not Qs and I don't think B&Ms either. They may have mistakenly inserted a B&M sound clip into a response from time to time because we all know they were terribly inconsistent, but that PA-1 in automatic mode in the top of this thread sounds very much to me like the Engine's mechanical siren.


I maintain the same thing about the Squad's siren, what's routinely heard is not an Interceptor, though I have heard one in manual 2 or 3 times that I can remember, one was leaving the station, one was leaving a scene for the hospital followup run. The rest of the time it's some siren effect run manually in a loop, the same as in Adam-12.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I made no remark, I just believe he's mistaken. While Super Chiefs were mounted on a lot of the ambulances featured in the show, and while he may have supplied his sirens for sound recordings, the primary siren used for Engine 51, both the Crown and the Ward, are definitely not Qs and I don't think B&Ms either. They may have mistakenly inserted a B&M sound clip into a response from time to time because we all know they were terribly inconsistent, but that PA-1 in automatic mode in the top of this thread sounds very much to me like the Engine's mechanical siren.

I maintain the same thing about the Squad's siren, what's routinely heard is not an Interceptor, though I have heard one in manual 2 or 3 times that I can remember, one was leaving the station, one was leaving a scene for the hospital followup run. The rest of the time it's some siren effect run manually in a loop, the same as in Adam-12.

Boy have you got a lot to learn!

 

[rofowacker]

Wow making a clip of the siren tones was tougher then though! Where do you guys make or demo sirens? Living in a smaller town it I had problems finding an area to spin them up and let them scream, or maybe I am just to nice. Ended up doing it in the bay of the fire house, but you get the idea of the sound difference. I have been playing with the pitch and growl of the Xecutor and it sounds alot better outside, i will need to re test and re video here as soon as I find a suitable location.

 

[DalmatProd]

RA-Thanks for the 2 files!! I greatly appreciate all the effort you put into producing both clips. My gut feeling is that I'd most likely go with the first one ( the PowerCall, I believe). It just has that real smooth sound.


Thanks, Steve


PS I sent a pm to you the other evening. Did you receive it

 

[Skip Goulet]

RA-Thanks for the 2 files!! I greatly appreciate all the effort you put into producing both clips. My gut feeling is that I'd most likely go with the first one ( the PowerCall, I believe). It just has that real smooth sound.

Thanks, Steve


PS I sent a pm to you the other evening. Did you receive it

I like the sound of both of these, but I really like the longer roll down on that Alpha. The EQ2 I had on my '92 Type II Ford ambulance had a decent roll-down, but I think this one even beats that.