its early on with this project, I was going to wait until its completed, but not sure when that will be, so Ill give you a sneak peak. I've been using a sound system in one of my model planes, and over time have become friendly with the guy who makes them, helping him with various things. I got thinking about the 4 foot fireboat I have, and how cool it would be to have a sound unit. So, to cut a long story short, I knew he had a plane sound with twin Merlin's for a bomber, and I use a merlin for my P51 Mustang model. After a serious amount of pestering, I got him to modify one of the 5 stock sounds on his Boat sound unit, using the twin Merlin sound from the planes. It took some work, getting rid of the propeller sound on the start up and shut down sequence. I ran it for the first time last night, but forgot to take spare batteries, and a small screwdriver to adjust the settings, so couldnt change the settings, in particular, the volume was set way too loud, losing some of the clarity of sound.
This is pretty close to the real engines, which where v8 meteor, this sound is an actual recording of the v12 Merlin, its doubled up, and staggered, so you can hear the two engines running. It has start up and shut down sequence, it isn't clever enough to read reverse unfortunately.
Its a speakerless system, using transducers instead of speakers, which are much louder, smaller and lighter. They rely on vibrations, they are epoxied to the hull, and the whole boat becomes the speaker! Its the first time I've done this, and its pretty new on the market for boats, planes have been going for a few years. I've realised that whilst I put them above the waterline, I didn't account for the roll of the hull, when one (there is one on either side) goes below the waterline it muffles the vibrations, and causes a funny sort of gurgling noise, ah well, like I say, its early days! Still a bit of tweaking to do, but you get the idea.
Stock sounds are Turbo cat diesel, Johnson outboard, evenrude outboard, mercule v8, steam. They also have aux sounds, such as ships bell, steam whistle, horn, seagulls etc. I think on my system the Johnson is dropped in lieu of the twin merlin sound.
Have a look at
www.mrrcsound.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkJUHe1tR_w 
