Mr. Tantrum's Guide to PinSound

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a shot. It should be the right format. I edited it in Audacity then exported it as a 16-bit .wav file. I did the same thing to replace one of the existing songs in the mix, and that one plays fine in the game.

If it doesn’t play using the steps I outlined, open the file in Audacity and re-save it. Maybe something went wrong the first time

I'm extracting a new sound package right now, so I won't be able to get to it until tomorrow. I'll definitely keep you guys posted.

Could be working fine, and just luck of the draw. I’ve got 4-5 tracks in my Game Over folder in my GNR, and I’ve had the same one play 5-6 times in a row.

LOL!!! It turns out that's exactly what happened. When I was testing it last night, it just happened to randomly play the same track three times in a row, so I falsely assumed it wasn't working properly. When I tried it again this morning, it played my new track the first two times and then the old track the third time.

Is there any specific method required for naming the songs within the folders? On the mixes I downloaded, I noticed that most of the song titles have a number before them such as "06-Paradise City". I'm assuming this is simply a reference to the track number on the album and doesn't have any bearing on how the PinSound board recognizes it.

And if you really want to get pedantic, only the numerical part of the folder name is important. The actual text that follows can be whatever you want. Shorter is better though

There's not a pre-existing list like "slingshot is #121, R Ramp entry is #122..." (I guess there could be, if someone takes the time to document it) but what you do is have the PinSound board record a log of all of the sound calls as you play a game (or, better, as you stand over the machine with the glass off and trigger each of the sounds by hand.)

Then you load that log (a text file with a .psrec extention) into the old non-Pro version of PinSound Studio and you can "play back" that game log either step by step or in real time, and you can see on-screen which folder each sound trigger looks for.

Unfortunately, it seems the new PinSound Studio Pro doesn't include that playback functionality yet, so I assume for the time being we have to use the old version to view playback logs, and then the new Pro version to add the shaker calls. (I've installed the shaker kit and updated the firmware on the board, but haven't yet fired up the new PinSound Studio Pro to do any shaker work.)

Ah, this explains why I was confused by the PinSound Studio Pro software. The limited functionality seemed odd, but I guess that's because they haven't migrated all the features over yet.

LOL. Ok, you did! I totally misread that sentence. And Apologies for the portentous post!

Yikes. Don’t Pinside on the subway, kids.

No worries. I cleaned it up for you.

I'm a writer, it's part of my job

ok now that is funny. At least they didn't write "beamer-upper"

I've finally got my GnR mix exactly how I want it. I'm super happy with the way it turned out. PinSound is such an amazing product!

So to continue the discussion from the Getaway thread, was wondering about download speeds. As mentioned, whenever I use Pinsound Studio to copy the file to my USB, the upload on my Pinsound card is within a minute. I just tried copying a new orchestration directly onto the USB (bypassing Pinsound Studio) and the download took about 10 minutes. Have others found the same thing when using Pinsound Studio to download the files to the USB directly? Thanks.

Are you using Windows? When you transfer directly, Windows scans each file for viruses, and is dog slow about it. In addition, Windows10 caches filed so the transfer isn’t corrupted - but it takes 10 times as long. When you use an application to transfer, none of that occurs and it’s much faster.

Thanks. I was referring to time it takes for the Pinsound card to load the new file not to copy the file to the USB.

I tried loading the same file onto the USB using the Pinsound Studio feature. It appears to do the OGG conversion before loading the file into the Studio program. So when you load it onto the USB, the Pinsound card loads the file within a few seconds. It does take Studio quite a bit of time to do the OGG conversion. So I guess it is a trade off of time in front of your computer vs time waiting for the card to load the file.

Be interested in seeing what others have there Pinsound + card levels set at. This is for Getaway. Thanks.

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Saw this idea on facebook, USB extension cord. No longer have to remove backglass etc to change USB. I bought a 10’ foot extension, no delay in sound to Pinsound card. $5 fix!

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Thread below has a bunch of solid PinSound tips. Might even see some things there four and a half years before someone else puts 'em on Facebook.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinsound-card-reviews-anyone

Installed new pinsound+ in my Getaway this evening, with new speakers, all I soured by this thread. Stunning difference.

One issue I have, it won't boot up mr_tantrum BabyDriver orchestration.

Even if I drop it stand alone in the usb in audio, it says it's not there.

It came with it on the usb from pinsound, but never sees it. Techno works, sounds amazing.

But others don't work, any tips that I could check? Tried a re download..

Thanks for the inspiration and mixes !

Thanks mr_tantrum

I have now completed the firmware update, downloaded from https://www.pinsound.org/help/pinsound-plus-help/ for Pinsound+

Diagnostic txt file shows latest confirmed, Baby Driver is on the stick, but diagnostic looks like this (not showing Baby Driver) How odd.

I tried Baby Driver ZIP into boot of drive (not audio folder), rather than unzipped into audio folder. Kicked off conversion please wait.."Error During Zip Extraction"

I tried original, ZIP into boot (not audio folder) Kicked off conversion please wait.., then "Error During ZIP Extraction" I notice the ZIP files is gone from the root, when i pull the USB and plug into my Mac. So its obviously tried to give it a go.

Deleted diagnostic file from Stick, temporarily. Rebooted in machine. Sound didnt work. I assumed Pinsound+ needed that diagnostic file to be there in some shape or form, but I wasn't sure, so I put it back, tested, worked. Took it away, it then obviously ran a diagnostic, as it created the missing file on the USB. I dont know about that..

Dumped John Wick in audio folder, unzipped. Restarted machine. Processed sounds through the 30%, 40%, 50%... Hadnt previously heard the call outs for progress. Now JW and BD are there and playing.

Not sure what I did differently, maybe that firmware, coupled with a boot without the diagnostic file (it was the same one I popped back in..)

I added GetawayHS2-v1_EStroh_Outrun (thank you Eric!) by unzipping and adding to audio folder. It doesnt see it. Tried the diagnostic file removal approach above. Doesnt see the new audio from Eric.

Added Erics work as ZIP to root. "Performing audio extraction"...Then "Error During Zip Extraction"

Added Erics work again, this time in Audio folder, unzipped. "Performing audio extraction"...and then through the 30%, 40%, 50% call outs.

But right now, for my machine, I seem to ave to add zip to root, have it fail extraction, unzip into audio folder on card, run it in and it will do the extraction and go through the 10%, 20% etc...

I'm not really sure..I'll try a few others, see what happens..

HARDWARE MODEL
------------------
PLUS

HARDWARE REVISION
------------------
3.5

HPS EXTERNAL VOLUME
------------------
92%

INTERNAL FIRMWARE REVISION
------------------
0076

PACKAGES
------------------
GetawayHS2-v10_FullTechno_CustomCallouts_MrTantrum (active)

PINSOUND FIRMWARE VERSION
------------------
19.12.2

AMPLIFIER VOLTAGE MEASURED: 26537mV (expected range: 11000mV - 26000mV)
[lowest amplifier voltage measured: 26355mV / highest amplification voltage measured: 26790mV]

Yes, bit odd. I'll stick with it ..keen to do a Chemical Brothers mix for Getaway..

Trying to read about dipping(?), as that seems the thing that blends fx and music well.. very noticeable when on the machine and the music completely dies to play the effect.

I do... I dont see any mention of it in Studio. Is ducking achieved through config files somehow, that are dropped into the folder structure? I cant find an example of one, thats all.

Being from England, you may enjoy my Clash orchestration

I can’t directly speak to the recent Pinsound studio, but the config file does include a setting which dips Music down to the percentage you specify when a callout/Sfx plays

I do like it!! I need to spend more time playing with that orchestration as default though! The big question really is...Should it stay or should it go...

Thanks for this, had a read.

I'll need to do some testing.

Question is do you create a file called config.ini and dump it in the route of the orchestration with those settings

ducking_jingle = 10
ducking_sfx = 80
ducking_voice = 65

Or does the file need to be called something else.

Extreme testing needed. If changing gain in studio creates these files for you, that would be good to check example of gain.txt

I'll report back if I get a chance to pinch a Windows machine from one of my kids!

I see a config.pinsound but cant seem to open it or read it. just a jumble of symbols ?

Thanks, not the best as one of my first.

So quick test shows that if i change knobs on right Global settings for each music types, and save, those settings come back when i reload.. same with changing gain for individual tracks. It doesnt create a file in each of those sound type folders tho, so it must be all in the root config.pinsound file

Still cant see that ducking would be controlled in Studio as previously mentioned.

I notice in Endprodukts orchestration, it shows differing gains in Studio and also set knobs on the right for global levels that are different to defaults. I did find WAV folder specific configs too. EG in Music/0789935717-bonus_music there is the file AND a config file...

I cant get into the config file to see if ducking is in there, wonder how one reads a config.pinsound file..

Thanks Mr Tantrum. I'll do some more reading...

Is it worth hunting down a copy of the previous version in your opinion?