I've been thinking of getting once since October, but still having second thoughts -

First, does the board come with the sound package you ordered it for? Because trying to make your own from *standard* ROMs seems oddly incomplete. Some examples -
1. How do you create waves that only part loop? (Example - original ROM musics with 'intros'. Like WCS's drumbeat leading into main music.) You can't loop PART of a wave file/MP3.
2. Stripping them from M3 / 'Bridge' seems very poor, since it won't move past a music that loops unless you manually tell it to - this would require then having an audio software package on your system to edit the sound file down to a perfect loop.
3. The 'lists' file that they give you to download is missing a LOT of games. (Apparently, of all the games I've looked at, only WCS was in there. No JY or RS..)
4. Folder names - there's some horribly misspelled folders in the 'folder zip' files available for games. Most recently I was looking at JY, and saw 'player_on_is_a_soft_nudge'. Seriously, what's a soft nudge? It's "Player one is top notch". For all four players this is there like that. (And that's just one example of many).

Edit to add: No mention on any of the speaker upgrades whether the amp is expecting 4ohm or 8ohm speakers.

So not being able to easily change between games for STOCK sounds - based on what has to be done above - has put me off on getting one for now.

Ah, okay - this is good to hear then, it would explain some of the things I've seen.

Before I send in any corrections, is there any reason to names folders with two keys? (i.e. in JunkYard, there's "000245-sameas-000243-laser_shutdown", as well as some others. Not sure if this is in error, or if this is something special the PinSound board does with it.)

Okay, fantastic.

Curious -
Does anyone have one in a TZ yet? If so, could you PM me? I would like to see (hear) something.

Thanks!
-Mike

Sounds good!

Would you mind doing an experiment for me?
To explain - I'm curious how the 'multi channels' works as opposed to the original sound board. This 'test' will show whether more 'voices' can be played, or if they're still chopped off. (And oddly, this is my biggest question now that everything else was answered..!)

Set up:
1. Set PinSound board to original sounds.
2. Set game to start a new game on a long-start press.
3. Play a game and get onto 2nd or 3rd ball.

Record:
1. With ball in shooter lane, press and hold start button WHILE shooting the ball into the slot scoop. (At the same time).

On the original board, Rod will start the "You open this door with the key of imagination.". However, as soon as the ball hits the slot switch, Rod will get cut off when the sound for the slot starts. In theory, one of the board's selling points (quote: ''multi-tracks (the PinSound board can play many songs at the same time, unlike legacy sound board, which is more limited)'') means that in a case like this, Rod would continue speaking as the slot machine spins. So, I'm curious to see if/how this is affected.

Interesting. That may actually hesitate me from ordering right away, until i can see/hear one in TZ in person.

Mainly because my TZ has been with me for 18 years, and I *expect* how something will sound - i.e. the situation I described above. If that changes, it may make the logical developer/person in me cringe or feel out of place, since... well.. it's not supposed to do that.

Yup!
With experience with old 'SID' chips and the like, I'm 'familiar' with things getting cut off like that, and am curious how my subconscious would handle something playing more tracks than it should.

Thanks!
-Mike

I.. uh.. don't have one. And the desire to put on in my TZ is.. ultra-low at the moment.

However, point to you, it's a good one - one I hadn't considered. :mrgeen:

This would be awesome. Like others have mentioned, I'd probably get used to it, but knowing that it can (could - assuming some FW/upcoming FW change) be put back is nice.

(And the only reason for that long 'example' is because that's the only sure-fire way I know how to make it happen in the game - other than randomly shooting crap. )

Voice wouldn't be that difficult, just costly. There are plenty of voice actors online that will take jobs. The downside is that you would need to have them record ALL of the voices - otherwise the difference (between 'new' and 'original') would be greatly noticed.

"Enter". "Up" "Up" "Up" "ESCAPE!!!" "GET DOWN!" "GET DOWN!" "GET DO-" "Enter."

And on newer games, where you have the count-down sound to wait or hit the start button, it can be a random - "Hurry Up!" "Go!" "Push It!", and then the saved would be "OK."

That would make me laugh too hard. I'd look for excuses to play around in the menus..

60 to 120 seconds? Holy crap!

Backlit with rainbow LEDs, too!

Like I mentioned in an email about a year ago to the Pinsound guys - "Because that's how the game was originally.".. On some pre-DCS games (like TZ), certain sound-effects used the same channels as voices. I've owned and played that game SO MUCH that if it starts playing both at the same time, it'll set off some kind of 'that's not right, not correct' feeling.

And yeah, it's ALL in the player's (owner's, buyer's, etc.) personal preferences. Unlike other board upgrades (replacement hi-power DMD bits, the +5v reboot fix, etc), this board doesn't offer any technical fixes to game limitations, except sound, which is again, all in the player's preference.

Easy question. Don't like them, unless the game was originally designed for 'em. Don't have any of those in any of my games. (Trick statement, since I ONLY own TZ at this point.)

However, I understand what you're trying to point out, and yes, again, that's why I said it is personal preference only. Color DMD and a shaker motor doesn't fix anything broken, or make anything technology or maintenance-free on the game, it's all for the player's preference.

I LIKE the original sounds, it's what 'I grew up with', and to me, the game doesn't need any remixes or new sounds, etc.

When I have a really bad first or second ball, I'll restart my game as I'm plunging the ball. Rod will start to say 'You have just crossed over into..' and then get cut off by the slot machine noise. Apparently, the pinsound board has more voices, and so doesn't cut him off. No thanks. My current audio board works fine so I don't need to replace a bad / missing board.. and if it doesn't perform *exactly* like the original (added features are fine..!) plus the cost, this is out of my interest range.

(As a side note - referencing cost.. think we could have saved about $15 and NOT had 'light up' trimmer resistors? Was the back-lit controls really necessary, or just some bling? )

Honestly, I will admit - it depends on the game. Another game, like WCS, I very may well put in a ColorDMD. (However, it would be low on the priority list, so it would be a whilte before I tried it.)

My TZ, it's gotta be original. (However, I do NOT go so far as to printing out coil wrappers, for gosh sake..!)

Let me know what you do with IJ's original sounds. Always interested in hearing how original mixes do.

This is why I have no desire to get the board, yet. To me, it's ''natural'' for the sounds to get cut off. I'm old, I grew up with the games that way, that's what I expect. One voice at a time. hearing two voices overlap to me is just too unnatural, and would break my rhythm. (No, no scientific reasoning, just personal preference. )

Ah, really really good then!

You can't use a ROM file. You need a ZIP file of the original mix files.

(Reading the original ROM would be a nice feature, but I doubt they could do that, even with it done in MAME, etc.)

I'm still holding back until they at least have a mode to accurately reproduce Pre-DCS boards. i.e. Same # of channels, no overlapping voices, etc.

Sorry- I should have used a more familiar term - hardware voices. I.e. 1 CVSD, 1 DAC, etc.

The thing I don't like about the Pinsound, and would make the game sound abnormal would be when voices (actual quotes) start talking over each other. Sure, getting cut off sounds bad, but to me, two talking over each out would be worse. I dunno, I'm old-fashioned.

Yeah, it's more widespread. It's *everything* in the game. I'm not too familiar with DCS, but with pre-DCS, there's one channel that reproduces voices and some static sounds. So if an audio is playing, and a higher-priority one is commanded to play, the sound OS will kill the one that was playing and immediately start the new one. In SOME cases, having the audiio voice isn't an issue (i.e. Rod Serling talking over the Slot Machine sound effect would be okay. Normally, Rod's voice will get cut off by the slot machine sound effect.) But in some cases - like TZ (for example, since I'm most familiar with that game) playing the 2nd Lock sound ('Don't Touch The Door, Don't Touch The Door') and shooting up to start multiball right away, you'd have two seperate sound bits saying the same thing at just offset time.

In short - I'd like it to *faithfully* reproduce the board it's replacing first, then look into new features.

But I'm not trying to be negative - lemme tell you, some of the remixes I've heard out there are effin' awesome. I'm a tradtionilist, so if I ever need to, I'll just buy the old boards ya'll take out.

So...
Uh..

How do we order one? Really?

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