31 replies to this topic

[exradar]

Hey guys/girls, 

 

I have read all available info and related posts to questions regarding the VPinMAME Sound Modes; Specifically #1.

 

FROM CarnyPriest over at VPinball:

 

Sound Mode:
0 = standard built-in PinMAME emulation

1 = built-in alternate sound file support
(store the alternate sound files in a PinSound-like directory structure (incl. text files for ducking and gain),
within a new PinMAME directory subfolder ‘altsound’ and there within the machines shortname subfolder.
Ex. for ij_l7: ‘C:\PinMAME\altsound\ij_l7’
OR for an example alternate sound file for tz_94h: ‘C:\PinMAME\altsound\tz_94h\jingle\000064-load_gumball_pt_1\load_gum__LEGACY.ogg’)

[this was the initial implementation and the option was retained basically because of inertia, I think. It works, so why take it out, etc.]

2 = external pinsound

[this is the latest implementation that bridges between PinSound Studio and VPinMAME. Through PinSound Studio you get the same features and functionality of their hardware solution including individual gain controls for each channel. I have not messed around too much with the channel gains. This does require that PinSound Studio run in the background. For PinballX users, you would either just always keep it running in the background, or you will need to code a launch script in AutoHotkey to manage the different programs. PinSound Studio was not originally coded for virtual pinball users. It always starts maximized, so you would need your script to wait until PinSound Studio is active and then minimize the window. ]

3 = external pinsound + psrec sound recording
(must have PinSound Studio 0.7 or newer running at the same time:
make sure that the Windows permissions match between PinSound Studio and Visual PinMAME/Pinball,
In other words, if one is using admin permissions when running, then both need to be started with that)

 

 

Which also matches the "What's new" in the 2.7 version notes of vpinmame.

 

So I have downloaded pinsound zip files; For instance "LOTR_OST.zip" for obviously Lord of the Rings. 

I created a new folder inside my VPinMAME folder called "altsound"

I then copied LOTR_OST.zip into altsound, extracted the folder and renamed it to lotr, then deleted the LOTR_OST.zip

End result was: "..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altsound\lotr"

I started up the table, once loaded and running, hit F1 to bring up the Menu to change Sound Mode: 0 to 1

Quit the table, then restarted, but no sound other than table sound from VPX.

 

I would rather not use Pinsound Studio, because let's be honest, this is a BUILT-IN feature, and we should learn the right way! 

 

Any help would be great! 

 

NOTE: I saw a post, I am sorry I cannot remember who said it, but they mentioned that they noticed the folder structure and naming convention

of pinsound zipped files is possibly different from whatever the 'standard' structure is, and I don't know how to find the original files for the roms

so I couldn't confirm this.

Edited by exradar, 28 March 2018 - 02:28 PM.

[ludovids]

I think that if you want to use one of the soundtracks that is currently available from the pinsound community, you have to also use Pinsound Studio and set Sound Mode to 2 or 3 (not sure what the difference is between the two). That is not attractive to me either, as I don't want to have any unnecessary processes running on my VP system. You may also need to replace VPinMame.dll with the version available from pinsound, which is also unattractive  to me. (This is no longer true.) To make matters worse, wave files may be the only kind of sound files that will work with the current Pinsound Studio, taking up much more space than should be necessary.

 

For all these reasons, using Pinsound Studio is not an acceptable solution to me for using alternate soundtracks. It would be great if we could use Sound Mode 1 with flac, ogg, or mp3 sound files. I don't know if any such soundtracks are available. Hopefully someone else with more knowledge of all this will chime in.

Edited by ludovids, 27 March 2018 - 10:13 PM.

[Thalamus]

Can't talk for the devs. They might now more about this. But, as I see it, it is the guys over at Pinsound that controls how compatible their software are going to be. Right now it looks like they don't care if Pinsound is going to work in VP for the future. Understandable I guess.It is not like we add any value to their product - is it ? If we had someone that actually used Vpinmame and contributed, I believe the support would be something they would actually care about.

Edited by Thalamus, 27 March 2018 - 05:16 AM.

[Slydog43]

really sad as I have supported pinsound right from the start.  I have 12 pinsounds installed in my real machines.  It used to ve very easy and I wish I had downloaded all files before things changed.  I hope someone out there has all the old stuff.  anyone?

[exradar]

Ok Ludovids makes a GREAT point! Maybe I can rephrase my original question that I think might help.
As others have agreed, some of us really don't want to run an 'extra' program in the background, not saying Pinsound isn't awesome, but I think we'd prefer to use Sound Mode 1 if possible.
Also, WAV files are so huge and FLAC and MP3 can be so much smaller.
 
So the real question is this:
I would like to figure out how to 'replace' or 'set alternate' individual tracks, similar to Pinsound. If we directly compare a Pinsound file's folder structure and file naming convention:
     Example: "lotr\jingle\0005648759-got_jackpot_music\got_jackpot_music.wav"
Where could I find the already existing version of this 'tune' or music file? Does it only exist 'inside' the compiled .vpx file?

Edited by exradar, 27 March 2018 - 12:42 PM.

[Rajo Joey]

Jens Leiensetter (Bambi Plattfuss) has all files for altsound=1 as backup on google drive.

So if someone is interested, join the facebook group "Visual Pinball Junkies".

There you will find them.

[toxie]

I think that if you want to use one of the soundtracks that is currently available from the pinsound community, you have to also use Pinsound Studio and set Sound Mode to 2 or 3 (not sure what the difference is between the two). That is not attractive to me either, as I don't want to have any unnecessary processes running on my VP system. You may also need to replace VPinMame.dll with the version available from pinsound, which is also unattractive  to me. To make matters worse, wave files may be the only kind of sound files that will work with the current Pinsound Studio, taking up much more space than should be necessary.

 

For all these reasons, using Pinsound Studio is not an acceptable solution to me for using alternate soundtracks. It would be great if we could use Sound Mode 1 with flac or mp3 sound files. I don't know if any such soundtracks are available. Hopefully someone else with more knowledge of all this will chime in.

 

You do not need to replace VPinMAME.dll anymore, it's all builtin into normal VPM by now what was exclusive back then.

 

And at least in sound mode 1, one can use all file formats that BASS can digest (which should be pretty much any music/sound format in existence).

[exradar]

Jens Leiensetter (Bambi Plattfuss) has all files for altsound=1 as backup on google drive.

So if someone is interested, join the facebook group "Visual Pinball Junkies".

There you will find them.

 

Hey Joey, I am not on Facebook. Is there any way you could post information about these files that we don't understand?

That way we can post a resolution for all members to see.

Thanks

[Rajo Joey]

Jens Leiensetter (Bambi Plattfuss) has all files for altsound=1 as backup on google drive.
So if someone is interested, join the facebook group "Visual Pinball Junkies".
There you will find them.

 
Hey Joey, I am not on Facebook. Is there any way you could post information about these files that we don't understand?
That way we can post a resolution for all members to see.
Thanks

There are no special informations. All files work. You only have to set with F1 the soundmode to 1.
I can't share these files, because Jens does not want that.
I also don't like facebook, but have a account only for this group and another group "Visual Pinball Addicts".
But I only have a fake profile, so FB doesn't get any infos abou me.

Gesendet von meinem SGP511 mit Tapatalk

[ludovids]

So the real question is this:
I would like to figure out how to 'replace' or 'set alternate' individual tracks, similar to Pinsound. If we directly compare a Pinsound file's folder structure and file naming convention:
     Example: "lotr\jingle\0005648759-got_jackpot_music\got_jackpot_music.wav"
Where could I find the already existing version of this 'tune' or music file? Does it only exist 'inside' the compiled .vpx file?

 

The original sound files are in the rom, and there are ways to extract and replace them, but with significant problems/difficulty.

 

It would be nice if someone could download an alt soundtrack from the pinsound community, compress the wave files into a different format, set Sound Mode = 1, and then be able to enjoy the alt soundtrack. Sad to say, but Pinsound took steps to prevent it from being that easy.

Edited by ludovids, 27 March 2018 - 10:34 PM.

[robertms]

Ludovis and exradar, guys you are making a big deal out of nothing. How are you complaining about something that has been completely free and optional for you to use? I bet you Slydog has spent hundreds (thousands?) of dollars for Pinsound hardware for his 12 machines and you don’t hear him complaining. Using the mixes is completely optional and the requirements are what they are. We are lucky this stuff works with VP at all. PinsoundStudio does not require much in a way of computing power, and it is really not that difficult to implement, even if you’re using Pinball X. It will NOT impact your VPX performance, especially if you’re listing your rig as “i5-7600K OC'd to 5GHz, 16GB G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3200, EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC, Samsung 850 EVO M.2”. As to the WAV files being too large, c’mon already get a cheap secondary drive if you need to. And create a skeleton FB profile if you need the old files, someone has already done all the legwork to get them posted there. If it’s all too much trouble skip it and move on.

[toxie]

That's only partiallyy true, as the remixes/rerecordings were done 99% by the pinsound community, also for free..

[tictox]

 

 End result was: "..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\lotr"

 

 

 

you say you created an "altsound" directory yet your path example does not show this path directory?

 

if should be : "..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altsound\name_of_rom\"

 

the folder name within the altsound directory has to be the same as the rom name ( without extension obviously ) 

Edited by tictox, 28 March 2018 - 10:11 AM.

[exradar]

 

 

 End result was: "..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\lotr"

 

 

 

you say you created an "altsound" directory yet your path example does not show this path directory?

 

if should be : "..\Visual Pinball\VPinMAME\altsound\name_of_rom\"

 

the folder name within the altsound directory has to be the same as the rom name ( without extension obviously ) 

 

 

Sorry about that mistake Tictox, I edited my original post. It was correct on my machine though. Thank you for noticing.

[exradar]

Ludovis and exradar, guys you are making a big deal out of nothing. How are you complaining about something that has been completely free and optional for you to use? I bet you Slydog has spent hundreds (thousands?) of dollars for Pinsound hardware for his 12 machines and you don’t hear him complaining. Using the mixes is completely optional and the requirements are what they are. We are lucky this stuff works with VP at all. PinsoundStudio does not require much in a way of computing power, and it is really not that difficult to implement, even if you’re using Pinball X. It will NOT impact your VPX performance, especially if you’re listing your rig as “i5-7600K OC'd to 5GHz, 16GB G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3200, EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC, Samsung 850 EVO M.2”. As to the WAV files being too large, c’mon already get a cheap secondary drive if you need to. And create a skeleton FB profile if you need the old files, someone has already done all the legwork to get them posted there. If it’s all too much trouble skip it and move on.

 

I'm sorry you feel this way Robertms, but I completely disagree with everything you've said in this post.

My question is about trying to understand and learn about a program that we ALL use (at least I think most of us do). Trying to improve upon our community understanding of VPinMAME, which is free to all of us because one or more developers decided to make their hard work free to use.

I do not take for granted the Pinsound program, community posted sound files, or other peoples help with these files and programs.

But I think we should not take shortcuts unless necessary, and who knows, possibly improve upon already existing technologies.

[Carny_Priest]

Altsound=2 is the more advanced implementation of the technology. AFAIK it is the only way to play Whitestar, so if you have to use PinSound Studio for Whitestar you might as well use it for other systems.

The upsides are four channel control through the PinSound Studio UI and access to the library of original soundtracks that appear to be HQ, high bitrate samples. Probably a by-product of PinSound’s relationship with the Bally/WMS license holders.

The downsides are that another by-product of that relationship was the recoding/“encrypting” of sample ids as protection of IP. They are within their rights to demand that. Another downside was that all of the re-mixes were recoded and samples compressed to ogg from original wav to fit within the forum file size limits. There may be loss in quality (honestly I don’t know for sure). That would be the only reason I hold on to original remix sets.

I think an effort to remap mixes for altsound=1 is a monumental waste of time and effort but whatever floats your boat, Facebook.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ludovids]

I just want a simple way to replace the original sound if it is of poor quality (such as Twilight Zone), or if the music is not to my taste (Tommy. The original album by The Who is so good, whereas the Broadway version turns my stomach.) So I used the alt sound files for those 2 tables from the link at Visual Pinball Junkies, with good results.

 

If there is a particular sound file that you don't like, then according to someone at Visual Pinball Junkies, you can replace it with a sound file from a different source: They have a new coding method which only works with the pinsound board. You can get around it by copying the music into older files without the new coding method. (The number at the beginning of each folder name is the key.)

[shannon1]

I went to visual pinball junkies and downloaded the files from the google drive.  For whatever reason, they still do not work in sound mode=1 even after resetting the rom.  I have a few of the originals like Tommy and GNR, but would love to have Diner, JP, TZ, and Batman to add to my altsound folder.

[ludovids]

Did you unzip the downloaded file, then put the unzipped folder in the altsound folder? Something like: "C:\Visual Pinball\VPinMame\altsound\tomy_400\", where the unzipped folder is named "tomy_400".

[shannon1]

Yes. The only thing I changed on the downloaded file was the name to match the rom. I had downloaded GnR and Tommy before Pinsound changed and those still work fine.