165 replies to this topic

[mjr]

I've posted a new version of PinVol, now with support for independent per-table control of the secondary audio device volume.

 

http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/PinVol.html

 

I was looking for the original announcement, and I see that I only mentioned this in the Pinscape thread.  It's actually not Pinscape-related other than by parentage, so it might be of interest to other cab builders.  If you haven't seen it, PinVol is a little program that lets you assign hotkeys to set custom audio volume levels in each VP game you play.  The custom levels are saved for each game, and they're automatically restored every time you return to a game.  I built this because I got tired of having to fiddle with the volume controls every time I switched games to adjust for the big differences in volume levels from table to table.  It's one of those dumb little nuisances that's so much nicer once you automate it.  Check out the page above for much more detail, and of course downloads.

Edited by mjr, 12 May 2017 - 06:38 AM.

[Thalamus]

This tool and PBXRecorder by GtxJoe is a must have IMO. Thank you mjr !

[Umpa]

Thank you this is great!

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[Rajo Joey]

That will be a great help.

Gesendet von meinem SGP511 mit Tapatalk

[Vizzini]

Very interesting. I'll play with this on the weekend. Thank you!

[Joppnl]

Hello Mike,

 

great program, good thinking, this version does the job very well (with previous version I had sincere ball-stutter until first key-press) and excellent thought to be able to set the volume individually per table also.

 

I do have something however I'd like to ask you to give it a thought:

 

Would it be possible in a next update to "pass through" the pressed (volume-)keys?

 

This is why:

 

I'm using a Keywiz button-keyboard interface. It's output is fixed (I know...it should be possible to flash-program this unit but that does not work).

 

However: my 2 volume buttons generate a "m" and an "n" when pressed.

But...when I'm busy with my VP, adding software, renaming files etc and when I press 1 of these 2 keys on my keyboard  I do miss these characters in what I want to type.

 

So...I have to exit the pinvol program (it starts up with Windows automatically) and retype again.

 

I guess it would be nice to have a checkbox in the setup wether or not you can enable/disable if you want the characters to be passed through to the o.s. 
The volume will change with it then while typing but that would be no problem.

 

What would you think of that Mike?

 

Thank you for this wonderful program! 

[mjr]

Would it be possible in a next update to "pass through" the pressed (volume-)keys?

 

This is why:

 

I'm using a Keywiz button-keyboard interface. It's output is fixed (I know...it should be possible to flash-program this unit but that does not work).

 

However: my 2 volume buttons generate a "m" and an "n" when pressed.

But...when I'm busy with my VP, adding software, renaming files etc and when I press 1 of these 2 keys on my keyboard  I do miss these characters in what I want to type.

 

So...I have to exit the pinvol program (it starts up with Windows automatically) and retype again.

 

I can see how that would be inconvenient!

 

I used the "hot key" scheme because I was thinking in terms of key encoders where you could program something that wouldn't overlap with regular Windows apps, like Alt/Ctrl/Windows key combos, joystick buttons, or the high-numbered "F" keys (F20, F21...).  I didn't consider that there might be some cases where you couldn't do that.

 

Let's see... it doesn't look like there's any way to convince the Windows Hot Key system to allow the keystrokes to pass through to other apps, but Windows has at least three other ways for apps to intercept keys system-wide, so I can probably change it to one of the other schemes that does allow pass-through.  (You know, from a security perspective, why did Microsoft think it was a good idea to provide so many different ways to write key logger software???  But I guess it's good for us in this case, so I won't point it out to anyone.)

 

I'll put it on my to-do list.

[Joppnl]

Thank you Mike for your detailed information...welll...of course I should use your Pinscape controller board    !! 

 

Which I will use in future but the plan was only to use it for the nudge and plunger system because all wires are already wired to the keywiz.

 

But...only if it's not to much hassle for you to re-program it ..

Thank you!

Edited by Joppnl, 25 October 2017 - 07:40 PM.

[mjr]

Thank you Mike for your detailed information...welll...of course I should use your Pinscape controller board    !! 

 

Which I will use in future but the plan was only to use it for the nudge and plunger system because all wires are already wired to the keywiz.

 

But...only if it's not to much hassle for you to re-program it ..

 

I think it's doable, and I think you're right that it would be an improvement anyway if PinVol didn't block all of its key assignments from other apps.  

[Joppnl]

Hello Mike,

 

And...did you finish your course with the KeyLogHackTool-guys already?? They must know how to pass through the characters 

 

Last days I finished my PMD setup and I noticed that the sound of the PMD channels is sometimes not balanced to the backbox volume, I guess it's the auther who put in louder or softer table object sounds.

So....what do you think about PinVol which can handle that? Is that possible?

With PMD there are 6 channels: backbox, PMD front and PMD back (*2 as it is stereo)

What if PinVol could use a matrix where the user could define the keys and the associated channel(s) to control the volume??

Something like this:

 

The character for up/down is put into the sheet as the user types in the character on the keyboard.  In the matrix you can define which channel(s) will be changed with that key. 

It can be all channels (like the general windows volume) or a mix of other channels.... The user can put a + sign into the matrix to define the controls.

What do you think of that??  (and remember.... 1 fool can ask more then 10wise men can answer  )

 

Edited by Joppnl, 30 October 2017 - 06:06 PM.

[mjr]

Last days I finished my PMD setup and I noticed that the sound of the PMD channels is sometimes not balanced to the backbox volume, I guess it's the auther who put in louder or softer table object sounds.

So....what do you think about PinVol which can handle that? Is that possible?

With PMD there are 6 channels: backbox, PMD front and PMD back (*2 as it is stereo)

What if PinVol could use a matrix where the user could define the keys and the associated channel(s) to control the volume??

 

 

Interesting idea.  I'll have to look at the Windows APIs again and see what kind of control they give you globally over individual channels like that.  Applications can certainly control individual channel levels at the mixer stage, but I haven't paid any attention to whether the APIs let you control the channel balance globally.  It seems like a common enough requirement, so hopefully it's possible, but it's not always safe to assume the easy and obvious stuff is possible with Windows.

[Joppnl]

At this moment I'm using 2 programs for volume control of each channel (may-be it helps you in your research) :

 

1st is APOequalizer:  sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/

this runs on the background to do the controls

 

2nd is Peace :  https://sourceforge....r-apo-extension

With this program it is possible to have control over each channel ..but not by with "hot-keys" which means I have to start this program and as soon as I touch it it becomes active and stops the VPtable or when using PBX it will 'hide' somewhere and it's hard to find (or not at all).

Both programs are open source so I think the code is accessable so may-be it can help you but I understand it's a huge change to the original PinVol so thank you anyway for whatever update (and even so for the original Pinvol, great small program :-) !
 

 

 

[mjr]

At this moment I'm using 2 programs for volume control of each channel (may-be it helps you in your research) :

 

1st is APOequalizer:  sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/

this runs on the background to do the controls

 

2nd is Peace :  https://sourceforge....r-apo-extension

With this program it is possible to have control over each channel ..but not by with "hot-keys" which means I have to start this program and as soon as I touch it it becomes active and stops the VPtable or when using PBX it will 'hide' somewhere and it's hard to find (or not at all). 

 

Thanks - those look like good references.

[Joppnl]

Hi Mike...back again...

some good news:  now that I have 2 sound cards running (1st for backbox speakers and 2nd for all pmd-stuff) with PinVol I'm able to control both as primary and sec. device GREAT!

So, for me no need to change the pinvol program.

About the pass through of the keypress : would be handy but I'll install a KLZ25 which you made perfectly programmable for some obscure keystrokes which won't be used in normal use so...that would be a work around as well.

 

Thanks again for the great PinVol program!

[ordovice]

Has there been any further investigation into controlling the surround channels with this?  With the PMD setups showing up it would be great to be able to adjust even the VPX type levels going out the rear if not the direct speaker channels themselves.  

[mjr]

Has there been any further investigation into controlling the surround channels with this?  With the PMD setups showing up it would be great to be able to adjust even the VPX type levels going out the rear if not the direct speaker channels themselves.  

 

Not yet - it's on my list, but it'll probably be a while before I get to it.

 

(In the meantime, if anyone else wants to take a crack at it, the program is open source and everything's on github.)

Edited by mjr, 11 December 2017 - 06:52 PM.

[fwiler]

Has there been any further investigation into controlling the surround channels with this?  With the PMD setups showing up it would be great to be able to adjust even the VPX type levels going out the rear if not the direct speaker channels themselves.  

I think the solution is just use another sound card (just a small $10 external usb sound card) for the backbox and leave the pmd on the internal sound card.

[mjr]

 

Has there been any further investigation into controlling the surround channels with this?  With the PMD setups showing up it would be great to be able to adjust even the VPX type levels going out the rear if not the direct speaker channels themselves.  

 

I think the solution is just use another sound card (just a small $10 external usb sound card) for the backbox and leave the pmd on the internal sound card.

 

Quite right, that's exactly the setup I use and exactly what I had in mind for the separate primary/secondary audio card level controls as currently implemented.  So if you're willing to add the second audio card, you can have this working exactly the way you want today.  That might even turn out to be the permanent answer.  I haven't formulated any ideas of how the UI would look for something more multi-channel oriented.  That might just be inherently too complicated for a simple keyboard interface, which is one of the big priorities for PinVol.  If it starts needing a big UI that looks like a recording studio control panel, it might make more sense to put that in VP instead.

[DJRobX]

The big problem with using two sound cards is that you then cannot route bass.   Lots of us have setups where there is only one subwoofer.   The subwoofer plays sub-bass from all channels. 
 

And yes, the only way I can see to implement surround volume attenuation from your tool (similar to how you currently control separate audio devices), is to plug into something like EqualizerAPO.   Peace is just a more advanced UI ontop of EqAPO.   

The gist of it is that there is a config text file.   The tool would need to append some commands to attenuate the desired channels to the appropriate level.   It's something like:

 

#Front (ROM) channels

Channel: L R

Preamp: -10db 

 

#Back (Table) channels

Channel: RL RR SL SR

Preamp: -6db

 

So its actually not terribly hard to do, just need to make sure not to clobber the whole file that has the user settings, just always re-write the end of it or something. 

Edited by DJRobX, 13 December 2017 - 07:40 AM.

[GInsonic]

I am just testing Equalizer APO and VoiceMeeter using built-in functions and VST plugins, looks promising for now