8 replies to this topic

[AveragePinballFan03]

This is sort of a half rant, half call to action about something that's stood out to me in many of the EMs and early solid states that exist here. I hopped on the VPX train a couple months ago, and not long after, my growing interest in pinball as a whole turned into a genuine hobby. Now, I noticed pretty early on that there were some audio discrepancies in many different tables when comparing the real machine with what VPX has to offer. First, there's the ROM sounds in early SS tables, but that has to do with VPinMAME's audio emulation, which is a completely different subject. What I want to talk about is the different kinds of bells and chimes used across both EMs and early solid states. In simple terms, both the quality and accuracy of the sounds used in VPX is all over the place. For example, the sounds of the chimes used in Gottlieb EMs are definitely the best of the bunch, and in my opinion, the only set of chimes or bells that are completely fine the way they are. However, there's a certain level of immersion lost when I hear those same chimes in not just a Williams table, but a Williams table that still used bells. This is one of the more extreme cases, but the number of tables out there with the wrong chimes or bells is not . Also, the sounds for each of these chimes or bells usually fall into 2 groups; they're either good, but not quite representative of the real thing, or they're in the categories of subpar, accurate but not high quality, or sounds I have never heard come out of a pinball machine. There's even some cases where the respective chimes or bells used on a certain table do not have any existing recordings within VPX. I don't want this to be longer than it already is, so I'm going to get straight to the point now. With the quality and quantity of tables only going up as time goes on, I feel like better sounding bells and chimes across the board for the tables that use them should be a given. I'm not saying that recording good sounds or making sure every table is using the right ones is trivial. In fact, I could make another topic about the 2 main reasons for why I agree if I wanted to. Regardless, I apologize for the wall of text, but this is something I've had on my mind for a while.

[Urko]

How about offering your services then to produce some sounds for authors.

[wiesshund]

Well, simply put, we dont really have a good library of publicly available chime and bell samples.

 

There is really only 1 set of samples, that i consider as sounding realistic.

And they are a rather old set.

And unfortunately they wind up getting used on everything.

 

Do you have real sets of bells and chimes, and the ability to sample them well?

 

You really need 2 samples per chine/bell

with both samples being allowed to ring out

 

On sample with the mic dead center

and one sample with the mic canted about 30 degrees off center.

[AveragePinballFan03]

Do you have real sets of bells and chimes, and the ability to sample them well?.

 

Unfortunately not, I would definitely help out with this if I could

[wiesshund]

Sadly, while i have the means to record them, i don't actually have them.
And one would probably need several different kinds to make a proper library.

[jpsalas]

I have tried to sample a few of them from the videos on YouTube, but usually there are too many noises, music or speech, which makes the samples no good.

[Sir Random]

Sound in any game is very important. For my XL5 table, I found 3 chimes that were in the same key as the music (for 10, 100, 1000).

I used AVS Audio editor to remove noise, added slight reverb and echo to 2 of them and I altered the pitch to create a 4th (10000). The difference is slight, but I notice far less 'noise' when they all play together.

I timed the ding-ding-ding-ding-ding of 50, 500, 5000 & 50,000 to match the tempo of the faster music (this results in a backlog of 'dings', but I believe no score should be left behind)

The bonus countdown timing is also sympathetic to the music's tempo.

I also used 2 synthesized sounds for FX which are both complimentary to the music and chimes.

The result is music and scoring can all go off together without it sounding like a car crash (hopefully).

 

In contrast, I used a shrill Bell sound for Skillshot which is not in tune with the others, so it stands out on it's own and won't go unnoticed. It can only happen once per ball so it doesn't affect the overall soundscape. 

 

Harmonized sound makes people relaxed and happy, Off-key sound makes people alert and agitated, so your table sounds WILL affect the mood of the player (like movie incidental music).

 

If anyone wants these nuanced bell sounds they're in my XL5 table as

Bell_10_XL5, Bell_100_XL5, Bell_10000_XL5

(Bell_1000 was okay as it was)

 

 

I guess the reality is that table authors will do whatever they feel is necessary to portray their vision.

If we had off-the-shelf perfect chimes, then every table using them would probably sound exactly the same and people would cry out for difference

[hmueck]

If we had off-the-shelf perfect chimes, then every table using them would probably sound exactly the same and people would cry out for difference

Isn't that what's the case on the real machines?

[Sir Random]

 

If we had off-the-shelf perfect chimes, then every table using them would probably sound exactly the same and people would cry out for difference

Isn't that what's the case on the real machines?

 

Well, the physical nature of chimes means they are affected by the environment, like the cabinet size/shape/contents and whether the machine is standing alone or beside other machines. Digital sounds come from a speaker, so the same sound file will always sound exactly the same on every table when played through a cab, or through headphones.