I worked concert security for 13 years and cant hear worth a shit anymore.

That being said I really like bells over chimes. Most chimes are clunky whereas bells seem to ring true

--Jeff

As Jeff said Bells to me ring true as well.

A Gottlieb with 3 bells is the best, followed by Williams 2 bells.

The more the merrier!

Ken

Some late 60s/early 70s Williams games have both.
Alex

If pinball chime bars were made based on their acoustic quality then they could be really great.

Unfortunately they're just stock aluminum and sound terrible. Ring of the aluminum bars contain the elemental frequency but are tainted and full of off pitch under and overtones with persisting subsonic irritations. The bells don't contain as many off pitch and brain piercing attributes.

I'd love to get some quality brass bars actually tuned to the proper frequency. But that's some real $$ and not original.

I have limited experience as I only have Stern Stars with chimes, but am I crazy to plan to upgrade the chimes to something better sounding? I was thinking bells, but could also probably build a better sounding chime set by adding in xylophone bars or something.

Even though I have limited experience, I can say for sure that I like having at least one game with chimes when compared to some of the electronic sounds of a few of my other games. It's a refreshing change.

Jim

I added a chime unit to my MonsterBash earlier this year. I really like the sound of the chimes myself......

http://www.youtube.com/embed/hE0XmlXncYM?autoplay=1&rel=0

Not bad after adding some new rubber washers to the chime bar posts. I think that is probably true for most chime units. They can sound horrible if the old foam or rubber dampening is decayed or gone.

Most bells sound pretty nice. I do have a fixed mount on a bell in My Williams Jungle that is fairly annoying sounding. It has more of a loud clunk than a ding sound. I think if I drill out the original fixed mount and replace it with a bolt like most bell units it should sound better. It needs to give a little.

Chimes or bells can sound great but you often have to play around with them to get them to sound like they did when they were new.

Alex

My Gottlieb chimes sound a bit better than my Williams but that isn't saying much. I've rebuilt them with new rubber parts and at one time experimented with adding different size pieces of felt under the bars to tame the subsonic overtones. They sounded a bit better but I ended up taking out the felt. What's worse than an aluminum bar chime? Maybe a 2" box end wrench dropped on concrete.

I like the idea of using xylophone bars. If I'm lucky then maybe I can come across a decent sounding one at a garage sale or flea market for cheap. I'd need to make some new mounts for the xylophone bars. I could keep the original parts for the pinball chimes and return it to stock if the experiment fails or decide to sell.

Hmm... Thanks for the ideas guys.

I was also thinking about doing another experiment. That is to put a free-floating strip of leather just above the nylon hammers. I am wondering if the leather might tame down the clank-clank-clank of nylon striking aluminum.

Here's some interesting stuff:

http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/robotic_xylophone/

Most of the chimes on my Bally and Williams EMs are OK, but kind of rattly. Whereas the chimes on my Gottlieb Solar City and especially Joker Poker are music to my ears. The bells on the early Ballys and Williams sound nice, but I still prefer Gott's chimes.

I wish I had a way to record the sounds of the 2 bells in my old Williams Casanova from abt. 1967, the bell at the back of the cabinet floor must be set as close to being perfect as you can get, the bell sound resonates another 10 seconds or longer after the bell was energised. It really reminds me of a tuneing fork for this bell.
I really do like that bell, no complaints at all.

I remember my 1969 Gottlieb Target Pool had a big bell in the back, I guess it rang for the 1000's position. I remember it sounded very nice and you knew what it meant.

Bells on EM are my pick!

Pro_Pinball_chimes!.jpg

For whom the bell tolls!

Normally I just give straight answers, but for this my answer is "when both are used together." Example, 1973 Gottlieb Pro-Football.

Time marches on. Casanova bells sound great

20130713_155011.jpg

Bells or chimes, or bells and chimes, I still prefer either or both over the electronic noise that replaced them.

1970 Gottlieb Baseball - chimes and also bell sounds when you hit home run. Great game and sounds. Shame about the artwork.

I have 2 gottlieb EM's and the chimes sound great.

3 Williams and 1 Bally and the chimes sound like crap.

I think part of the tone difference is the plastic box under the chimes that Williams and Bally use, makes them sound kind of hollow to me.

Gottlieb's have a similar attachment, but it is much smaller so the chimes sound crisper.

Bells are cool, and LOUD!

A combo of both would be killer.

This is what I have noticed, too. However, I worked on a Bally Hi-Lo Ace last night with a smaller plastic box and rubber washers, and it sounds better than it's big box counterparts, but still not as good as Gottlieb's.

Also. bells and chimes are only as good as the cabinet they are installed in, and from what I've seen, Gottlieb is a much better constructed instrument.

I prefer the sound of chimes. Even better is a combination. My gottlieb Golden Arrow has the three chimes and also a 6" bell/gong. I love what that adds to the sound of the game. I have had only one Bell only game and I had a hard time distinguishing between the bells. The difference is much more evident with chimes for me. It really tunes me in to how I'm scoring.

I had a Williams Grand Prix that I added three bells to the chimes. Sounded great!

Some bells can be a bit much. I have a few that I had to wedge some cloth behind to tone it down because it sounded like a fire bell. Both games only had one single bell. With that said, I prefer chimes. Nice, clean, rebuilt chimes sound like a xylophone. They can sound horrid if the spacers are all worn out like many WMS I come across.

I'm rolling thunder pouring rain
I'm coming on like a hurricane

The bells apear to be rather heavy, the house cat runs when I fire my old Williams game up, my wife can hear the bells from down the road, what else could you ask for over 45 years ago in an working machine?

Funny how so many people did nothing but complain about when companies integrated video into their pins, saying "it's not pinball." But there was no where near the hate when electronic sound was introduced, replacing "real" sound units.

This is exactly what I felt when I played my first SS game, as not only was the sound gone, but so was the feel, and I went on to ignore most 80s pins. I no longer enjoyed pinball as much, until the DMD games came out, when I finally felt that all the new gameplay features made up for what they had done.

I guess I'm glad I didn't really grow up playing pinball. I see them all for what they are and have no prior experience to make comparisons with. I like all eras of pinball machines and love playing them all.

THat said, I really feel like I was born about 20 years too late. I would love to be a full time EM pinball tech!

There were a few SSs that I really loved, like the Black Knight clan, but for most, the sound effects were pretty lame, and sometimes downright annoying.

Laser Que comes to mind, fun pin very annoying sound

Genie!!!!
Cool game but the sound makes me want to kick puppies!!!

Hey, keep that low. I'm trying to sell one!

I thought about converting it to chimes, but I don't mind Genie's sound.

That's why I converted mine to chimes.

Sorry.