Always have had issues with the headphone stations. I find turning down the game volume to basically zero seems to help control the volume a little better on the card. The headphone jack has never really worked. Guess this is why they give them away free sometimes.

The Pinsound brothers should look at a fix for the headphone station or provide better instructions on how to use them properly.

They work ok.
They are just not as linear as you might want.

just installed in my LAH today and so far amazing!!!!! One question i cant for the life of me figure out how to switch packages, when i turn my volume all the way to the left it does nothing, and if this matters doesnt actually go to 0 volume i can still hear music. thanks in advance.

It’s a double tap on the turn down not just once otherwise you just lowered the volume.

By the way be sure to update to the latest firmware.

let me try this now

No dice

If it fdoesn't go to 0 and/or you still hear sound then you didn't read the instructions

It clearly states that you must go into the standard settings(A) and find: "min vol override" and set to NO.

Once you do that you will be able to go down to 0

That option doesn’t exist in data East unless I’m missing it that instruction was for Williams.

I just dropped the 3 sound packages in as zips and letting the card do it’s thing will
See if that helps

FYI Pinsound + is double tap, Pinsound is single turn in case you have an original pinsound board.

Thanks to Mr. Tantrum’s knowledge, I have implemented a custom sound mods on my TSPP. Game-changer. Love it.

Update on my issue worked great after dropping the packages in as zips

I just put Pinsound+ in my GNR and really like it. I do agree here though that somehow flashers get triggered that didn't before. For example, in my game over sequence, a couple of flashers in the backbox go off for the duration of the song I put in. Maybe it's a Data East thing? Is this normal?

It's weird. I found someone posted on the pinsound community board with the same issue, but there were no replies. At least I know I'm not the only one. I ordered the Data East power booster. I could probably use it anyway. Maybe it's all related.

Has anyone here had a problem when using the headphone station?

I have a headphone station attached to my IJ and I am able to adjust the volume up or down with no problem. When I attach headphones to the headphone jack I still get music/sound from the pinball speakers. I have made sure the headphones are plugged into the headphone jack correctly and no fix. I have also tried booting up the game with the headphones plugged in on boot up, as well as the headphones plugged in after boot of the game and I continue to have the same issue.

Is there a setting on the board that I am missing? Headed to Pinsound website to check out FAQ's now.

Yes Mr Tantrum you are correct on the mute switch on the board and I attempted the switch just now.

I did flip the switch and am having the same issue. I did a reboot of the system as well thinking that may change the issue and it did not. So, basically when booted on "mute setting off" I still get cabinet sound and when booted "mute setting on" for headphones I still get cabinet speaker sound.

I did update firmware about a month and half ago so I believe I will be good there.

I have only tried the one set of headphones, which were purchased new and I do get sound from the headphones.

I put in the question in on Pinsound Q&A and waiting to hear back from Pinsound guys.

Could you provide a picture of you board and the connections to it?

Finally getting around to finishing my GNR mix, and this new folder naming convention for mixes vs the original format has me dead in my tracks.

I installed the PinSound Motion Control Shaker kit, updated my PinSound v1.3 firmware to the latest, added the headphone station while I was in there, and now when I boot the PinSound robot lady voice says she can't find a sound mix.

My current mix is the original (or "old") format - sound directory names have 6-digit intros (e.g., 000123-jackpot_sound) and I guess in the new format they start with 10 digits, so I'm assuming that's it. So I fired up the latest PinSound Studio Pro, and it won't open my mix, says "Incorrect sound package: no config.pinsound file found".

Did a little looking, and apparently it's looking for a "config.pinsound" file. I redownloaded the "legacy" (original DE sounds) GNR mix from PinSound-Community (which has been updated with a "config.pinsound" file), dropped that file into my mix, and now PinSound Studio gives me "ERROR: sound package not valid"

So... where to now? Where/how do I create a valid config.pinsound file for my mix?

(I also put in a sheet of PDI glass while I have the machine open and out, so the day's not a total loss, but this thing is pushing my buttons.)

You have to upload it to timothy.

Just upload it to the community.

Email them or message PinSound about it.

They will add in the proper config file for you.

They are very good about this and fix files fairly quickly.

Ugh. That's unfortunate, for a bunch of different reasons. (I sent a support email with my question through their website yesterday and a direct email to [email protected] this morning with no response.)

What's the "secret sauce" that locks a config.pinsound file to one GNR mix, but not another? Meaning, can I rename my folders with the new naming convention, drop in the config.pinsound file from the community's legacy GNR mix, then open it properly in PinSound Studio? (Alternatively, I suppose I could move my sound files into the legacy mix's new format structure, assuming I could match up the correct folders between the two, and be good to go.)

And once I've got a proper config.pinsound file one way or another, can I still do all of my file moving/naming outside of PinSound Studio with no issues? I never did any file edit/moves with the original PinSound Studio, but used it EXTENSIVELY for playback of .PSREC files - losing that functionality now is just brutal, crippling the ability to easily determine what game triggers were playing which sounds (and which triggers were calling sounds that were missing) but that's a bridge I'll have to cross once I sort out the missing config.pinsound file.

So many questions, so little documentation.

They use a proprietary system to make the config files.

You have to convert over to the new system to take advantage of the shakers and to use the new version of pinsound studio as well as offerings in the future.

Like it or not you have to submit your files and have them upgraded.

If not, you have already figured out the work around:

"Alternatively, I suppose I could move my sound files into the legacy mix's new format structure, assuming I could match up the correct folders between the two, and be good to go."

That’s what i suspected and why I asked for a picture. The headphone mute function only cuts out the speaker connections, not the line out(white and red rca connectors). If you want to have an external amp/sub connected you have to connect it through the speaker connections with an appropriate converter(Pinnovators). Otherwise the sub/amp will keep playing even with a headphone connected.

Yes, sub was plugged in.

You both are correct. Unplugged the line out connectors at the board and plugged headphones back in and it does cut out the cabinet speaker sound. I may just alligator clip the sub to the subwoofer at the bottom of the cabinet and see how it sounds, that way I can have the choice of listening with or without headphones.

Thank you both for getting back to me.

Trying to download the original mix for CFTBL. I can download the custom mixes ok. Has anyone else has the infinity processing or have the original sound file to share?

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Probably just internet problems.

Their server is super slow.

That was the ticket. I was able to get in just now and got the email link immediately.

Can you have more than one mix on the same USB drive? Or do you need one on one drive and the other on the other?

You can have as many as you can fit. The way to switch between them is well documented.

Thanks! I knew how to switch and installed one for someone but just got my own. Thought you could only have one per USB slot. So this is awesome. Thanks!

I have 5 in my dr who. 3 in STTNG.

Just keep in mind the more mixes you put on the usb stick, the longer it will take to boot up the card to become ready.

Thanks everyone. Got three on there. Which so far for Creech is perfect. What an awesome product even with stock speakers. Blows stock away.

With the right selection of mixes your game will ROCK! lol.

I love my pinsound. I think many games will benefit.

My 13 doctors mix for DW is really nice.

Hopefully they will make an adapter for Gottlieb machines, this would be killer in a Freddy.

Thanks for the confirm, guys - that's what I did today. (I renamed my existing old-format folder names with the new 10-digit folder name intros, rather than going the other way and moving my .wav files into an existing 'new' structure.)

So after a tedious afternoon of stepping through the mixes file-by-file in three windows (my mix (old format), the original machine mix (old format) and original machine mix (new format)) it's ready and even works with the few test shaker events I added. (In this post I'll spare you my Windows folder renaming issues and the pain caused by the original mix having so many copies of identically-named sounds in different folders.)

First off, thanks again to Mr_Tantrum for the thread. I've been working on my mix for over five years, and in the absence of complete documentation from PinSound it's nice to have at least some of this stuff in one place.

And now, the questions! (Tagging julien42 and Endprodukt as well in the hopes they can share some insight, as they've done some great reorchestration work and seem to have had access to some configuration and usage information that wasn't widely distributed.)

1) Ducking. With the new firmware/format, it doesn't seem like these settings are being picked up when I play. These settings used to be in the config.ini at the root level of the USB drive. Do I need to move this config.ini into a different folder level, like into the mix's folder in the audio folder, or are these settings incorporated now into the config.pinsound file? (If so... how to edit them? I don't see any ducking options in PinSound Studio Pro.) Ducking the music during SFX and voice callouts really makes a huge difference and the loss of that is super-noticeable right now.

2) PSREC files. Not currently being able to create and playback these is a huge loss. The only machine I've yet worked on with PinSound is a GNR, and the original legacy mix downloaded from the community site is a mess (many different files using the same filename and so many non-descript folder names) and stepping through my own PSREC was by far the quickest and easiest way to sort out exactly what file/folder is being called by the board for each sound event. (For example, the original GNR mix has seven files in different folders all named "lotery____LEGACY.wav".) There are also several sounds being called by the machine that weren't present in the downloaded mix at all - the old PinSound Studio would note those in a list as missing sounds during playback - and without that playback functionality there's no way of knowing that missing sounds are even being called, so no way to track them down and add them.

(Haven't investigated, but until PSREC functionality is restored, I wonder if the board can be flashed back to the 'old' firmware to record a PSREC. Yes, this would mean I'd have to maintain two versions of my mix (one in the old 6-digit format (with no shaker calls) and one in the current format), keep the old and new versions of PinSound Studio installed, and reflash the board every time I changed. It's a cross I'd be willing to bear... but hopefully won't have to.)

Anyway, the question, and this I guess is more for the PinSound guys - is this coming back soon?

3) Custom rules. These have been mentioned by the PinSound guys in more than one of their firmware update notes, but I've never seen any documentation on them. The only thing I've seen is a rules.txt file in a mix by julien42 with the following contents:

#GNR
0 preload 123 124 125 126
199 stop 198
rom gnr_300

Any insight? Or better yet, an actual list/description of what rules.txt can do? (And whatever it does, does it still do that with the new firmware?)

4) Shaker. Simple enough - set a start strength, duration, and end strength, tied to whatever sound file you select. But is there a way to set the shaker to shake for as long as a sound is played, rather than a pre-determined duration?

I think I have a ton more questions, but this wall of text is wally enough. Thanks to everyone for their help so far.

Excellent Guide.... Thanks Mr_Tantrum for all the advice. I acquired a T2 with a Pinsound board and was blown away at how awesome it sounds. A few weeks back, I picked up one of my Dream Games J*B only to have the sound board take a shit. I Ordered a Pinsound Board for it, installed, and updated Firmware, only to realize there are no enhanced packages currently available for it yet... Only the Original Mix. Unfortunately J*B isn't a highly produced game and God only knows how long it'll be before the community makes a custom or enhanced original mix for it.

I absolutely love the original J*B soundtrack and would like to try to Re-orchestrate & enhance it myself. Good news is that all the files on the original mix are currently in .wav format. I Downloaded PSStudio and Audicity, and will be working on the mix over the next few weeks/months. Reading through all 11 pages can be quite overwhelming for someone relatively new to the whole customization of sound packages.... With that said, aside from "Normalization" and converting the Original Mono sounds to Stereo, what are the easiest and quickest Audicity Adjustments that you recommend to instantly get the best Sounds for my J*B sound files?