Echoes of The Past – Recording Impulse Responses at a Historic Train Station

You never know where the search for new sounds will take you.

On a trip to the heart of Texas, I found the historic Texas & Pacific Railroad Terminal in Fort Worth.  

Built in 1931, the massive train station has been shut down since 1967. I knew it was a very special audio environment as soon as I heard the echo of my footsteps as I entered the empty lobby.

The cavernous art deco waiting area was pristine.  Constructed with hundreds of square feet of marble and stone, the lobby gave off a sparkling ambience that was even more breathtaking than the stone work itself. 

This is a .wav file of the impulse response of the train station’s lobby.  It rings out for several seconds and is a very bright open reverb with lots of reflections. You can download it for FREE and use it in your convolution reverb plug-in.

Take a look at the Spectral Analysis of the IR. Notice the dense full frequency reflections that are fairly even throughout the length of the entire sound file.

I didn’t have any IR sweep files with me so I recorded the impulse response using a simple loud slap. I figured a bit of old school in such a historic environment was appropriate.

It was fun to capture the sound of a bygone era (a train station) and apply it to modern technology (convolution reverb). Thanks for coming along for the ride.