Here’s the list of mode music I put together before I found this thread. Maybe a good thing, since my mind was a blank slate. I didn’t try to pick songs that were in the show, I just went through the Billboard Top 100 for ‘81-85. My Pinball Browser is out of date, so I have my work cut out for me. I’ll start with Cleland’s mix, regardless.

Follow the Compass: “Destination Unknown”, Missing Persons (‘82)
Bullies: “Wanna Be Starting Something”, Michael Jackson (‘83)
Where’s Barb: “Don’t You Forget About Me”, Simple Minds (‘85)
Monster Hunting: “The Warrior”, Scandal (‘84)
Get Me Out: “Love is a Battlefield”, Pat Benatar (‘84)
Operation Mirkwood: “Rock the Casbah”, The Clash (‘83)
Turn Up the Heat: “I’m on Fire”, Bruce Springsteen (‘85)
Lure Dart: “Harden My Heart”, Quarterflash (‘82)
Quarter Hunt: “Pac Man Fever”, Buckner & Garcia (‘82)
Morse Code: “De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da”, Police (‘81)
What Mama Says: “Words”, Missing Persons (‘82)
Save Will: “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, Yes (‘84)

Honorable mentions:
“Urgent”, Foreigner (‘81)
“Heat of the Moment”, Asia (‘82)
“Some Like it Hot”, Power Station (‘85)
“The Boys of Summer”, Don Henley (‘85)
“Never Surrender”, Corey Hart (‘85)
“Photograph”, Def Leppard (‘83)
“I Wanna Know What Love Is”, Foreigner, (‘85)

I’m playing the stock 1.02 software, and I almost feel like a heretic for wanting to make an alternate mix. This is my favorite out-of-the-box pinball music by a long shot. But Stranger Things is way too good to have just one set of music. I’m already thinking about getting a 2nd for location play.

I finally stepped away from the game long enough to install Kevin Cleland’s mix. I really love the choices on this one, and it’s worth it for the High Score and End of Game music alone. Perfect choices for those and the 5 mode changes (especially for Where’s Barb and Save Will).

I’m going to spend some time on two aspects of Stern’s audio that I don’t like: the instructional speech, and the sounds that take me out of the game. For a location game, I understand why Jim tells us what to do constantly. But for a home game, I want to replace those with some fun callouts from other characters. As far as “sounds that take me out of the game”, they are:

- Mystery Lit (I think this is from Wheel of Fortune)
- the “thunk” for hitting already-lit Demodog targets (I’d rather hear nothing)
- the Iron Man sounds for hitting drops in the Upside Down
- Extra Ball award (I know, it’s from AFM)

Basically, I want to hear scary or electronica sounds most of the time.

cabal I really got into the German series “Dark”. I watched it subtitled in English, but I wish I knew German so I could enjoy it in the native language. Any way, the music from “Dark” is awesome, and it’s very complementary to Stranger Things. I may try to do a Dark mix just for fun. Highly recommend the show for people who like Stranger Things. Just be prepared to be really depressed (I liked it for that, I don’t like feel-good shows).

The many-worlds subplot (e.g. alt Martha) leaves the door open to more seasons. I hope that happens. You’re right, “depressing” is not the right word. The central theme is existentialism: people try to prevent something from happening, and that act actually causes the thing to happen. Basically, all human effort is futile. That thought can make you happy if you view it the right way.

The funny thing is, I pay closer attention when I’m watching subtitles since I can’t multitask. I did have to pause sometimes to go to the show’s wiki. “Who is this again?” It was challenging to keep up with 3 sets of the same people. I enjoyed the series more the 2nd time I watched it, since I knew everyone.

I’m envious of you for having that treat ahead of you. I promised myself I’d wait 4 years before I watch it a 3rd time.

I started making some changes to the instructional callouts tonight - these are the ones that always make a game feel repetitive to me. Plus, all of this stuff is either on the instruction card or indicated on the playfield. This is all building on Cleland’s already excellent image, so I hope it’s okay for me to post this here.

0x2C1 - Hopper: Left outlane ball save is lit
> Joyce: This thing has had Will long enough.

0x282 - Hopper: Complete the Demodog targets for a Demodog attack!
> Mike: maybe we can call you El, short for Eleven

0x4DA - Hopper: Hit the targets to light Demodog attack!
> Hopper: I call them the don’t be stupid rules, because we’re not stupid

0x42B Knock down the drop targets to battle the Demogorgon
> Hopper: You let me do the heavy lifting up front, you save your strength until below

0x47C - Hopper: complete the bottom lanes to light mystery > TBD

0x31C Hopper: Enter your initials > Eleven: Bitchin’

0x45E - Hopper: Ball Saved! > 0x43C - Dustin: Grrrrrrr

Understood, I’m definitely making a one-off for my own game. I’m mainly thinking of the thousand times I heard “Drone targets light war machine multiball” when I owned Iron Man. Come to think of it though, hearing an alternate callout a thousand times might not be all that great either.

We can also adjust the volume on specific callouts to zero. I might do that instead. I’m used to games having an adjustment for instructional speech, but that’s missing here.

Right, like the one that ends with “a boy his age, he’s probably just playing hookie.”

BTW I should have mentioned that I’m mainly interested in sharing the addresses of these callouts, so that people can do what they want. I have no intention of posting an image. It sounds like there are just a few of us geeking out on Pinball Browser, but it’s really not hard at all once you know the sound locations - that’s the hard part.

The “Morse Code” music in the official code is actually really good. I pulled that back in, along with the official theme music. I love all the other changes, though.

These work great for me. You don’t need 32GB, but it’s just $7 per SD card vs $5.27 for the 16GB.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N16CDX3

It’s not really different than any other reversible mod. In fact this one is the easiest to reverse - just pop the original SD card back in. Now if you’re talking about sound quality and background noise in a scene, then I agree 100%. An out-of-context quote from a memorable scene can be great, but if it has background noise or music it’s not going to sound right. STH has a lot of unused callouts in the code, and I’m only using those. I wish there was more Eleven, but she never was much of a talker.

There are a couple of them in the code (11 and Lucas).

The best thing about bookmarking sounds in the code is that you get to name them.

0x123 - drippy roar
0x147 - ending with wet noises and spike
0x205 - Hopper: errrrraugh!
0x1B0 - Demogorgon complaining of boredom

I’ve been vibing on the end-of-game music so much I finally did some research and found the artist, Flynn Hendry. @cleland, did you add the kids’ dialog to this? It’a perfection with the dialog; I just wanted to find more music like this.

F526F268-B580-4D92-903B-09D52C56BFEA (resized).jpeg

Cleland replaced the main theme with an electronica version that actually sounds very good. I just like the original a bit more.

The synth-heavy soundtrack really helps anchor the show in the early-to-mid-80’s. Tangerine Dream and bands like them were big then. Enjoy this scene from Risky Business, with “Love on a Real Train”:

I’m even more invested, I added a bunch of callout and sound mods on top of Kevin’s music mods. I’d love to have a row of IC-enabled games, but I’m not giving up my personal STH mix for that.

I don’t think the latest Pinball Browser supports that version of code.

I think you picked a great mode for it. I like the song enough that I may actually try it for the main multiball - but I doubt it will work as well there.

Worrying over what season a song happened in is getting into hardcore “nerd fight” territory. I could care less about that, if a song fits the theme and works well with a mode.

You guys all just need to get a Metallica pin!

You won’t be disappointed.