This sample is an original five-chime train-horn-style chord synthesized in Python from sine-harmonic stacks. No microphone or third-party audio was used. The five fundamentals are 311.13, 369.99, 415.30, 493.88 and 622.25 hertz, approximations of D-sharp4, F-sharp4, G-sharp4, B4 and D-sharp5 in a K5LA-like voicing. Each bell is a harmonic series with a midrange formant, a short pressure-rise attack, a nearly flat sustain with slow flutter, and an exponential release. A few cents of detune lets the bells beat across a slight stereo spread.

The file lasts about thirteen seconds: a two-second long blast, a short rest, two 0.8-second short blasts, then a five-second pass-by. For the pass-by, a virtual source moves in a straight line at 32 metres per second, 18 metres off the listener at closest approach. Instantaneous frequency follows the Doppler factor c / (c + v x / r), where c is 343 m/s, v is speed, x is along-track position, and r is slant range; level falls as 1/r and a low-pass cutoff drops with distance.

Musicians and game designers can use the short blasts as stingers or interface confirms, the long blast as a transition or title hit, and the pass-by under a grade crossing or roadside scene. Being synthetic, it can be pitched, layered or filtered without a recorded room in the file.

A brief safety note: a real locomotive or industrial horn can injure hearing at close range. Do not try to match this sample with a live horn indoors, and wear hearing protection near the real devices.

Real-world portable train horn guns, cordless train horns and battery powered train horns, as made by Horn Guns, use compressed-air trumpets tuned to similar chords, driven by a small compressor and battery rather than a locomotive air line. This file does not reproduce any commercial product; it is an invented, game-ready chord in a related style.

"Five-chime horn chord with pass-by (sample)"
by horngunnotes

2026 - Licensed under
Creative Commons
Attribution (4.0)

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