Author Topic: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine  (Read 18563 times)

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Offline swinks

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Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« on: May 06, 2012, 07:55:37 PM »
Here is a piece equipment that could be used for a custom re-theme of a old worn out pinball or to customise your old early eighties SS pinball with some more modern sounds. This system can operate from switches activated once a target or access switch has been activated. Check out the Ghostbuster pinball as the owner / designer states he uses 2 MP3 players one for music and one for sound effects.

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10628
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Offline swinks

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« Last Edit: July 23, 2016, 09:07:19 PM by swinks »
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Offline Brettski

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2016, 11:50:21 PM »
That's great Swinks,

I am looking at getting a couple of MP3 triggers but finding them in Australia is hard and with the conversion not as cheap!

Found them here... https://oceancontrols.com.au/AUD-002.html

Do you know of anywhere else in Australia to get these?

Cheers: Brettski... :)

Offline Brettski

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2016, 11:57:09 PM »
Just found this which looks interesting, cheap but ok to test and play with!
I might get one and let you know how it goes, in six months when it arrives LOL.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MP3-Voice-Module-SD-TF-Voice-Broadcast-Trigger-Player-Speaker-for-MCU-SCM-/252402704038?hash=item3ac45f9ea6:g:L5cAAOSwiLdV9rps

video
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMwMTE1MjY4MA==.html#paction

Brettski... :)
« Last Edit: July 24, 2016, 12:07:44 AM by Brettski »

Offline swinks

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2016, 08:22:00 AM »
thanks for that   ^^^, bought one of the $12 units to play with
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Offline Brettski

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2016, 12:34:56 PM »
No worries mate!

I ordered 2 to have a play with.

I have a Charlie's Angels and have sounds and call outs on mp3 from the show which would be cool to see how it goes on a real pinball.
It was done in a Visual Pinball game by someone and sounded good on the simulator and after seeing how the guy did Ghostbusters I thought why not!

I am also looking for a machine to re theme and this would be great for that, just have to wait and see how good this product works.

Another idea was to add some bowling sounds to Strikes and Spares, good thing is it is completely reversible. It seems the trick is to add secondary switches.

Cheers: Brettski... :)

Offline swinks

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2016, 01:33:16 PM »
I was wondering if the voltage is ok that you just solder the 2 sound wires to the same points on the existing switches - save alot on buying extra switches.

but with the mp3 trigger, you could have one unit just playing full songs on random if possible and then the other board dedicated to sound effects.
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Offline Brettski

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2016, 02:09:43 PM »
No you can't just use the existing switches, well that's the theory anyway as it already carries current that could effect either device (MPU or Trigger).

This was my main concern when I first started looking into it and as you will see the Ghostbusters dude used secondary switches..

Shame I know but looking at what GB dude did and some creative thinking I am sure we could come up with some good results. I am old school but these optical switches might also be useful (the ones found in more modern machines)

Something to think about anyhow, I will be interested to see what you come up with and I will share what I do with it as well.

Cheers: Brettski... :)

Offline swinks

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2016, 02:33:14 PM »
some more info on the sparkfun kit

creator link
http://robertsonics.com/wav-trigger/

quick info


a bit more in depth


system used in a Goonies Pinball project

in the comments he said that he just piggy backed the wires to existing switches.

original retheme Ghostbusters pin project

t=146.018687
and he stated this about piggy backing switches
"Not only would that have been more difficult, but there would be a greatly increased risk of shorting the audio circuit with the switch matrix. The 2 don't mix so that's a big no-no."


on his website he compares MP3 Trigger and WAV Trigger

"The MP3 Trigger has been out at least 5 years now, and it’s been a great product. In that time, however, many similar solutions have been introduced – all based on the VLSI MP3 decoder. Indeed, if you’re willing to spend time writing code and experimenting with Arduino libraries, you can get pretty close to the functionality of the MP3 Trigger for less money. And with the advent CPU’s faster than the lowly 8-bit PSoC, you can probably even get higher bit-rate audio. While the MP3 Trigger still may make sense if you want a practically zero-effort MP3 player solution, the truth is that there are lots of ways to play single MP3 tracks from a microSD card available today.

The problem with all VLSI-based MP3 players is that because the VLSI device is a hardware decoder, it can only process a single MP3 stream at a time. Translation: you can only play one track at a time. If you want to play a second track, you first have to stop the first. You can’t even crossfade, cause that would require playing two tracks during the overlap.

Another big problem with all MP3 player solutions is audio compression! The only reason to compress is if you have limited memory or a small pipe. With microSD cards, neither is an issue. And the overhead of decompression is a pain, requiring special hardware (VLSI) or software, as well as a license. And as soon as you want to mix even two MP3 tracks, it gets complicated fast.

Now there’s the WAV Trigger. As far as I know, there is currently nothing else like it out there. It’s the same size and price as the MP3 Trigger, but blows it (and all other VLSI MP3 players) away in terms of capability. With the most recent firmware update, it supports up to 14 simultaneous uncompressed CD quality (16-bit, 44.1kHz, stereo) tracks, with trigger latency clocking in at around 8 msecs. It has built-in support for individual track volumes, smooth fade-ins, fade-outs and cross-fades, and the ability to start and play 14 tracks in perfect sample sync. In addition to a much richer serial control protocol, its trigger inputs can be individually programmed for active high or low, level or edge triggered, contact closure or logic level control. It has a true line-level stereo output and an on-board 2W mono amp to drive a speaker directly. It has a cross-platform utility to create and generate the init file used to set many programmable options. And the serial interface even supports MIDI, enabling the WAV Trigger to be a true 14-voice polyphonic sampling instrument.

I fully anticipated that sales of the WAV Trigger would cut into those of the MP3 Trigger. Why would anyone purchase the MP3 Trigger when they could get the WAV Trigger for the same price? Other than play an MP3 track, there’s nothing an MP3 Trigger can do that the WAV Trigger can’t do better, and the WAV Trigger can do so many more things.

Yet evidently, the MP3 Trigger continues to outsell the WAV Trigger by a significant margin. I can only assume it’s that people either don’t yet know about the WAV Trigger or don’t really understand what it’s capable of. Or perhaps they just don’t need it. Maybe I misread what people are doing with embedded audio players. It’s true that you have to convert MP3 audio files to wav files, and maybe that throws people if they just want to grab MP3 files off the web and copy them to a flash card.

In any event, I hope this changes. With the power of an ARM Cortex-M4 available, there are lots of features still to add to the WAV Trigger. But the practical thing to do is to wait and see if people want it first."




I keep adding to this post but the WAV Trigger is very cool

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/wav-trigger-hookup-guide
« Last Edit: July 24, 2016, 03:18:52 PM by swinks »
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Offline Zedman

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« Reply #9 on: July 27, 2016, 01:56:30 PM »
MP3 trigger board also needed an output mod to integrate with an an amp. Just get the WAV trigger, it's much better. Z

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk

Offline swinks

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MP3 trigger board also needed an output mod to integrate with an an amp. Just get the WAV trigger, it's much better. Z

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk

Cheers Z

I just ordered 2 WAV Triggers, have you used one?

If yes I would like to ask you a couple of questions?

cheers

Jady
« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 06:11:35 PM by swinks »
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Offline Brettski

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2016, 10:07:32 PM »
I just received two of the elcheapo chinese mp3 trigger devices from ebay and they seem to work quite well!

I used a 5v phone charger to power it and loaded 9 sound bytes from the Charlie's Angels tv show onto it and connected a basic set of powered pc speakers.

I plan to use this in a mod for my Charlie's Angels pinball machine to add a bit more nostalgia to it. :)

Here is a video!

https://youtu.be/S_aTJjtqrlU


Cheers: Brettski... :)

Offline swinks

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #12 on: September 09, 2016, 11:09:01 PM »
thanks for sharing, just got one of these as well yesterday, will test soon.
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Offline Brettski

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Re: Creating custom sounds for your re-theme machine
« Reply #13 on: September 12, 2016, 06:22:17 PM »
Ok I am half way there!

I have made a housing for the device, the first pic is the first attempt but I later mounted it into a box and used a 9 pin serial socket and have a cable ready to connect to the loom.
Now to mount switches and make the loom to connect to the box.

Also this device plays WAV files as well as MP3, not bad for $11 :)

Cheers: Brettski... :)
« Last Edit: September 12, 2016, 06:35:43 PM by Brettski »