You can reduce any sound by using Audacity, it's quite easily. (download your file, then go to effects, and amplification, then reduce the sound by moving the little arrow).

The documentation is not so good, because all the information are written in different places. But you can find it all on their website.
Beside this, the program is really very easy to use. Actually the way a pinball machines play sounds is very straightforward, so Pinsound Studio is a very simple program. It just takes very little to learn how to use it.
Also the hardware set up and use is simple, but the documentation is even worse.
Anyway, once the hardware is up and running and the software mastered in half hour, then the real challenge start: to create an entire soundtrack for a pinball takes long time and dedication. As everything in music, it takes a lot of experimentation, trial-and-error, etc., especially setting the volume of the samples right relatively to each other: all super basic stuff in electronic music programming.
Basically the task is to replace the original samples with new ones. The biggest majority of the samples are sound effects and calls (easily a hundred or more): leaving those unchanged makes the whole job much faster. The actual music samples (main music, multiballs, modes, etc.) are much less (say 20), so only focusing on music is the way to go in my opinion to get a new brilliant soundtrack (with the original sound effects and calls, which leaves a flavour of the original thing).

this was posted a while back:

and this was interesting but I haven't tried it myself:

Lots of cool functionality that is unfortunately not documented very well.

didn't know either about ducking voice. nice one.
Pinsound definitely need to create a new comprehensive manual, and add extra functionalities in the software.
This board is already amazing but has potential for more growth.
Also, its success depends on how many soundtracks will become available. The easier to use, the more stuff will be produced.

Cheers mate,got it

even loaded up a new boot.wav, so now i got Attitude for bootsound now

I finally got around to recording my custom mix for Guns N Roses. Will likely upload the mix shortly to pinsound. Video doesn't capture all the music since I have multiple tracks for main music, etc but it's a very good representation. Very happy with the card and now with the data east issues fixed, I can def recommend getting this. If you have a music based table, it's a must have. Upgrade your speakers too (mine are pinball pro). Enjoy.

Okay, here it is. Judge Dredd with an Outrun soundtrack. It has been uploaded onto their forums/downloads page, but it's not showing up yet, so I imagine it has to get approved first?

I don't feel it's completely tweaked, and there are some custom rules I want to implement into it (to allow a different song for each mode, some modes share a music file), but it's useable and mostly awesome in it's current state. The video is just to give you an idea of what it sounds like, not to show everything I changed.

These are the songs I used:

Lazerhawk - Fight To The Top
Dance With The Dead - Andromeda
David Hasselhoff - True Survivor
Fred Falke - Bare Knuckle
Lost Years - Nuclear
Mega Drive - Maniac
M-O-O-N - Hydrogen
Vector Hold - Gridlock
Lazerhawk - Another Chance (you probably wouldn't even notice this one unless I pointed it out to you)

If you like these songs, PLEASE head over to bandcamp.com and support them. These are mostly independent artists who don't have a lot of bank, and this is a great way to directly support them. Also, one of them is an active pinsider

I spent a lot of time chopping up the bits and pieces of these songs that I thought fit the game modes the best, but there are a few spots where it doesn't feel totally perfect, and a few songs choices I might change up, but until I figure out the custom rules that's going to be put on hold. I only changed/added one voice file and it's Karl Urban saying "I am the law" for the end of game/match screen.

If anyone takes the time to do any fixes/updates to this one, let me know! Anything to make it better is awesome, and we're a community, so we should be helping each other out to make these things great.

P.S: Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on with that multiball bug either lol. And yes, I'm aware some of the sounds are too loud, and some of the sounds cut out the music...they are fixed in pinsound studio, but don't get fixed on the machine...not sure what's up with that.

surprised you didn't use anthrax as one of the tracks:

Cool song, but it doesn't fit with the theme I was going with at all haha.

Please do

What is going on with the frozen MKII screen? Do you not worry about monitor burn (if you added pause function)?

I did like the mix.

It's actually the desktop background for my mame machine. The cabinet has been designed to look just like MK2 and I leave a picture on there as a backdrop so it seems "on" all the time.

Here is a video of the mame machine in action. It's a must have if you grew up with arcades!

"I see says the blind man".
Unfortunately, all my arcade games were sold over 10 years ago, including my Exidy gun games and T2 Arcade.

Here are my Doctor Who mixes. I just finished a new one. Doctor Who Meets Metal.

Doctorin' the Tardis

Doctor Who Meets Metal

beautiful fresh music! well done!

Doctor Who Pinball Machine with Doctorin' the Tardis Music

Simply Awesome

Downloading "the Tardis" as we speak! Lovely work.

Thanks. I just uploaded the Metal version to the Pinsound site. While I was updating the Doctorin' the Tardis version with a Youtube link, it appeared to take it offline and put it back into the queue for approval by them. Sorry about that. Hopefully they will get it back online soon.

I've got some ideas to make a few more. I love the variety and the ability to switch mixes whenever I want.

Be careful with this; if you fold the backbox down and the cable doesn't have enough slack you can break the usb plug on the board.

Also, be careful, when you fold down the backbox as you can't play anymore so your pin is useless.

Hey pinside I need a little help with my pinsound I installed on my T2. So I loaded the latest firmware to the USB drive and then loaded Terminator_2_1991.zip from pinsound to the drive. Once installed into the game the only sounds that played were sfx file. So I went back and downloaded again to the USB drive and back to the machine. This time all I got was music. So then I decided to start completely from the beginning Firmware update, T2 file, so on and so on....Now all that happens is the pinsound loading tone starts. The first tone is complete then the second and third tone sounds broken up not complete. Then the voice "Technical Error"

I have tried the downloads using a Mac and a PC same problem. The only other mod on the game is a anyPIN NVRAM chip if that helps.
Yes, I did send an email to pinsound with this issue just waiting for them to get back to me. But if any of you have any idea on what I should do next please let me know.

Try unzipping the folder, and converting all the sounds to wav, put the folder on the usb (and make sure the zip isn't on there), and just load it up

Got it to work. That took forever converting the files. I guess the more I do it the better I'll get. Now I'll have to work on some of my own sounds for the game. Thanks for the help.

Just installed the stereo kit. Sounds great! Amazing to be able to eq the backbox speakers and the cabinet speaker independently! Amazing result!! Anyway, my left backbox speaker only plays highs, while the right speaker plays a much wider spectrum. Is it supposed to be like that with stock speakers? Or is my left speaker damaged?

I installed one in my Tommy yesterday. It sounds great and is an amazingly great product--kind of a ColorDMD equivalent for sound. I ran into a few problems which I resolved by reading this entire topic and emailing Nicolas at Pinsound to get it correctly installed and working. I thought I would share a few things I learned. Note that it is fairly complex and there is not a lot of documentation, so if you are not technically inclined I would recommend finding strong in electronics to help you.

1) It takes up to two hours to convert downloaded files on the USB memory stick. The Pinsound board is shipped with a decent memory stick. If you can hear it (see #3 below) it will tell you what percentage has been converted. My first mistake was not giving it enough time to convert. After the conversion is done, you have to reboot your game for it to recognize completion.
2) After the conversion, you must leave the memory stick plugged in when playing the game--this is the storage for the sound files
3) If you can't hear it through your speakers, plug a set of ear buds into the 3.5mm jack.
4) The connector for the data ribbon cable on the Pinsound board is correctly marked for the "red stripe". Note that the cable can go either way. Make sure that cable it is correctly oriented connected to your CPU board.
5) You can either put a zipped file on the USB and it will unzip it. If your computer is a MacIntosh it will unzip the OST file, which will also work. But either way you still have to go through the conversion step (#1, above).
6) The Pinsound amplifier for your pinball speakers is extremely dependent on the "unregulated +12 DC volts" coming into the Pinsound board--check this with a digital volt meter. My Tommy was at 9.92 volts measured at the Pinsound connector. I brought it up to 11.2 DC volts by replacing the large bridge rectifier on the Data East power supply board, replacing all of the (4) C4 electrolytic capacitors, reflowing any solder connection that looked thin or cold on the back side. This is probably necessary for all Data East systems, but you don't have to add an external power supply or buy a replacement board.
7) Even with the power supply cleaned up, it is still range dependent on the game volume control (which for Tommy is inside the coin door on the right side of the cabinet).
8. It sounds good through stock speakers. I probably won't spend the additional $150 for a new set of speakers (for my $50 ears).

After that--wow! It totally changed the playing experience for me on Tommy. I highly recommend it for music oriented games like Tommy or Guns and Roses. I don't know if or how it will ever be made to work for certain Stern Games such as AC/DC--but if anybody can figure that out the Pinsound engineers will. I haven't played around with creating my own sound files, and probably never will. It's worth it to hear the pre-packed community sourced packages.

Hope this helps.

Nate

Any update when shaker support will officially be added? My DESW is sitting here with the shaker mounting and Stern compatible wiring ready to go. I have a feeling something is already in code to control and external drive transistor and the necessary magical software commands, anyone feel like sharing?

Thanks Nate for your review and feedback, we are currently working on a new FAQ and manual.

@Tekman: we've entirely rewritten the code to support external devices (like shaker, smoke machine, whatever you want), we will release it in the next firmware.

Meantime, the next release of the PinSound Studio will be available with Visual Pinball support: you will be able to play your favourite VPinball tables with any PinSound compatible sound package.

Nope. It was just in an earlier version that is not supported anymore. It was simple on/off switching with sounds. Very simple but effective. I use it in my IJ and T2. It needs some serious work to do though and as mentioned you need an older firmware. Pinsound guys don't support it. AFAIK the official version will be PWM driven which is cool for additional effects.

Best

Any of you guys using headphones with this? If so, how are you connecting them? I see a kit on the website but it seems like I can prob buy my own stuff right? Also - any way to get bluetooth headphones to work on this?

I have the headphones kit. It's basically a long jack cable with some plastic pieces to stick under the cab. You then hold the cable on those plastic pieces. You can do it youself. Simply using a long cable it's enough really: you plug it in Pinsound and let it out from the backbox grate: that's it.

Trying to find out how well this board would work in TZ. I would like to have all original sounds. Is this product easy to set up this way? THX

Thanks - I see the output and yes it looks like it just takes a normal audio cord that plugs in. Anyway to install this OTHER than drilling a hole through the bottom of the table? I can feed it behind the display but for my headphones to connect to it, seems like I need to drill to get it out of the cab.

Have it in mine, and yes, easy to set up. Just remove old board with connectors off, screw it in, replug the connectors and ready to go. On the community forum, download all the TZ file (trust me, they are great) but keep them all zipped (don't let you computer unzip them). Pop all the .zip files on a usb in a folder marked "audio", plug it into the board, turn on your TZ and go have lunch. Takes sometimes 20 mins to unzip everything. The lovely lady will keep you updated as it goes. WHen you return, start the game and enjoy the sound. You don't need to upgrade the speakers, but I did (especially the subwoofer) and it gets even better. Just turn the volume to 0 and back up again to change the sound-track if you want to.

Enjoy!

Its not a stereo cable. Keep that in mind. It's 4 pins.

So you can't just buy a normal stereo cable to hook into the pinsound card? Would you mind linking me the product I need to buy to plug into the pinsound card (which I then plug my headphones into the other end for sound)? Just want to make sure I buy the right cord

I got one as a xmas present for my Dad's Tommy. It is awesome. He always complained the music in that game was not from the band, pinsound fixed that.

You can, but you will lose the "mute on plug" feature with a standard stereo cable (it will be muted all the time, even if no headphones are plugged in this cable).

OK - well I def want the mute on plug feature. Not sure I quite follow what plug to get then or are you saying the cord is only exclusively sold on at pinsound? I don't have a problem with that but the shipping and timing alone (due to it be international) could be a lot just for something like this. Feel like I should be able to get this at local elect store no?

....and is there a way to use this without drilling through the bottom of the cab?

Lift bottom cab speaker enough to route under the grate... Then re-tighten.
Go through airhole in back of cab..
Go through coinslot in door..

Many ways to get out of a pin.

It looks like a normal stereo plug, but with three black stripes instead of two. No idea if its easy to find.
About the hole in the cab, no need at all. Just let the cable OUTSIDE the backbox (from the grate on the backside - unscrew it a bit to let some space for the cable). Thats it. Obviously to hide the cable let it run behind the backbox and under the cab (outside!). Use some tape to stick it to the wood.

Anyway: you can simply plug normal headphones in Pinsound and play pinball! The speakers will be muted.

Great news about the VP plugin. Please can you post here when it is released - thanks! :0)

So the original sounds are on the community for the board? Are they separate from the modded ones? THX

I just put a pinsound board in my Indy 500. Updated the firmware as well. Problem is that wrong sounds play and wrong timing of music all the time. Any ideas?

For any of you running a pinsound board on your judge dredd, I finally got around to checking and it's up on the site for download now: http://pinsound-community.org/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=153

My SWDE mix is about finished. I'm going to let a couple of people test it and then I'll upload for everyone to enjoy.

Yes, legacy mix is the original and they are on the forum

Just wanted to pop in and say I finally heard a T2 with a Pinsound board for the first time today. Incredible! The sound was fantastic! Made the game seem modern with the clear sounds and the added LFE which was great. I would love to own this game now. Seriously, great mod.

Has there been a Getaway or Demolition Man put together with the same quality as T2 yet?

Hello, I finished my TZ mix and would like to create a video. Do you have any suggestion on how to shoot a video with decent sound? I would like to use the line out of Pinsound, because recording from the air is not that good really. Can I connect the iPad somehow to Pinsound?

Luppin, I just used a HD Sony Video camera mounted to a boom mike stand above the TZ machine to shoot the game play video and sound. I think the sound quality was pretty decent. I also used another camera to shoot the DMD.

thanks. but I think the best would be to connect directly to the Pinsound output, don't you think? actually I can use a camera for the video, and at the same time record the Pinsound output audio. Then I will use an audio editing software simply to add the audio to video and syncronize them. What you think?