Request Improve the audio quality of each table

I don't know if the original sound effects/voices/music,etc. sound this bad in real life, but I'd really be interested in an overall improvement in the sound quality of, well, everything. I don't care if it takes up more space on my iPhone/PS3/whatever.

The sound effects/music are a HUGE part of the game! Right now they sound like they're compressed, low quality.

BOP seems to have somewhat decent audio quality...though it could be better. Most/all of the other tables though....yikes....

starck said:

I don't know if the original sound effects/voices/music,etc. sound this bad in real life, but I'd really be interested in an overall improvement in the sound quality of, well, everything. I don't care if it takes up more space on my iPhone/PS3/whatever.

The sound effects/music are a HUGE part of the game! Right now they sound like they're compressed, low quality.

BOP seems to have somewhat decent audio quality...though it could be better. Most/all of the other tables though....yikes....

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My only real problem with the audio is the weak mechanical sounds which Farsight said they will be overhauling them in the June update.

Well, having owned at some point most of the games in TPA... they really do sound like that in real life! The process of going through amplification and the cabinet speakers may give them more weight, but they are just as grainy and lo-fi. I think Bride of Pinbot uses those limitations to its advantage and makes it a part of the sound design (has my favourite music too).

As I understand it, TPA uses the original sound roms, so the low quality is inherent in the source data. At most they could apply a little EQ or ambience processing to make it sound more like it is coming out of the cabinet's speakers. Most likely nobody has the original sound recordings to recreate all the speech and music at a better quality anyway. I guess they are in the ex-WMS vaults somewhere, and even if they could be obtained, making them usable by the game's original rom would be a mammoth undertaking.

I would prefer that FarSight leave the ROM sounds exactly the way they are as that is what they sound like when you're standing in front of a real pinball machine. For instance, when I play Tales of the Arabian Nights at Pinballz, then come home and play it on my Xbox 360 with the sound only coming from the front speakers (stereo sound), I get the exact same experience sound-wise as I do when I'm playing the actual table.

FarSight is going for authenticity and therefore should leave the original ROM sounds untouched and unaltered although I wouldn't mind if FarSight implemented a filtered sound option for those who want the original ROM sounds to take advantage of their surround sound system, but all tables should have the original ROM sounds enabled by default.

As for the mechanical sounds, they can use an overhaul, but FarSight said they are already working on that and should be rolling out the upgraded mechanical sounds within the next month or two.

PiN WiZ said:

As for the mechanical sounds, they can use an overhaul, but FarSight said they are already working on that and should be rolling out the upgraded mechanical sounds within the next month or two.

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Really? Good to know. That's one area I would definitely be happy to see improved.

Let's hope they get the mechanical sounds to sound as they should from the player's viewpoint. They should be slightly dulled by the glass between the playfield and the player's ears. Pinballs are damn noisy with the glass off!

Fuseball said:

Well, having owned at some point most of the games in TPA... they really do sound like that in real life! The process of going through amplification and the cabinet speakers may give them more weight, but they are just as grainy and lo-fi. I think Bride of Pinbot uses those limitations to its advantage and makes it a part of the sound design (has my favourite music too).

As I understand it, TPA uses the original sound roms, so the low quality is inherent in the source data. At most they could apply a little EQ or ambience processing to make it sound more like it is coming out of the cabinet's speakers. Most likely nobody has the original sound recordings to recreate all the speech and music at a better quality anyway. I guess they are in the ex-WMS vaults somewhere, and even if they could be obtained, making them usable by the game's original rom would be a mammoth undertaking.

Click to expand...

This is very interesting and informative, thank you. As a kid, the most I can remember about the sound from pinball machines was just how loud they were.

I have also noticed, along with BOP, Funhouse seems to have slightly better audio quality as well. I think what you mentioned might be right- Williams realized their limitations at the time and took advantage of what they could. (That being said, can't say that the music in Funhouse is my favorite - but that's all part of the experience!).

EQ'ing slightly might help, especially where more 'weight' (e.g., bass) is needed. Or, if the audio files are compressed to save file space, they could simply use a more 'lossless' version. Though I doubt the original files took up much space to begin with, given the technology...

Anyways, this was interesting- thanks for your input. I'm an audio guy, so that's why the question arose, and that's why I made such a 'picky' statement- I'm picky.

I hope they fix this as the ps3 version's sound is pretty much mute.

One thing does make me wonder though- okay- sure many of these tables are old (well, relatively).

However, RBION was released in 2004 and is by far the newest table in the pinball arcade. How come the audio quality on that table isn't any better than TOTAN, etc?

I decided to do some basic investigating:
-On the iPhone the app, with all current tables downloaded (7 total now) is 126mb. A LOT of that is going to be for the retina display graphic images.

Furthermore, according to the ROM list for RBION, there are 5 audio ROMs:
-1 'Sound' ROM, 512kb
-4 'voice' ROMs, 8mb each.

Total, there should be ~32.5mbs of audio files for JUST RBION. Given the size of the app with SEVEN tables installed, I personally think there's some sound file conversion/compression going on here which might be killing the SQ- especially for a table made in 2004.....





Reference for the stern/RBION rom data:
http://www.sternpinball.com/APPENDIXES/Appendix-A.html

You know what...put on a good pair of headphones (or, even better, use a good pair of speakers and amplifier, if you've got them). For simplicity, let's just use a good pair of headphones. Right now, I'm doing my critical listening using a pair of Etymotic HF5's.

-Play Pinball Arcade's version of TOTAN.

Then, plug your cans (headphones) into your computer, and play this TOTAN video of someone playing the real table. It's essential that you make sure to increase the quality on the video all the way up to 1080p HD. (ignore the mechanical sounds for the time being- he has the glass off of the table and those sounds are artificially amplified because of it).

http://youtu.be/OWwYNpowchE?hd=1

Now, go plug your cans back into your device of choice and play a quick minute of TOTAN on Pinball Arcade again.

Notice anything?


The following is my opinion- I am by no means the end-all-be-all opinion on this. But, here's what I think:
Besides the fact that there's a video camera/(not the best microphone doing the recording), I think the difference is pretty obvious. The sound effects from the Pinball Arcade have less dynamic range (especially on the high end- can't tell about the low end, probably because of the youtube camera's mic limitations at low frequencies).

Furthermore, the voice effects on that real TOTAN table are clearer, cleaner, easier to hear, and have less distortion, when compared to the Pinball Arcade's version.



That being said, I'll agree, it's not like the sound effects are 'high definition' to begin with- the table was released in, what, 1994? However, in my humble opinion, the SQ in Pinball Arcade leaves something to be desired when compared to a good youtube video of the real thing.

Okay, here's a version of Cirquis Voltaire from the same guy, same camera, etc. Again, remember to increase the video quality all the way up to 1080p.

http://youtu.be/cxidaSevKco?hd=1&t=3m2s

Now, go play Pinball Arcade's version. The sound dynamics are gone. Again, especially in the higher frequencies. Listen carefully to youtube version: the imaging of the sound effects, the localization present in some of the sound effects, etc. You can hear WHERE the sounds are coming from. In the Pinball Arcade, I barely have a sense of the audio imaging at all. Everything is sort of mushed together.


All in all, the real version just sounds more dynamic, realistic, and higher quality- less distortion and noise as well. Again, this leads me to believe that the files have been converted improperly from the original ROMs, have been compressed, or have failed to compensate for the lack of the use of the DCS sound system. Remember, we may be playing the original ROMs, but we're not using the original hardware. This may need to be compensated for?

Hmm...look what I stumbled upon....
RE: The DCS system:
The sound in the games approached hi-fidelity, at least for the time period. The Bally and Williams flipper pinball games employed a base cabinet speaker that presented the lower frequencies and backbox speakers that presented the higher frequencies to the player. The cabinet speaker help fill the room with the bass sounds of music while the backbox speakers deliver the voices directly to the player.

Bally/Williams introduced the DCS sound systems starting with Indiana Jones that used two amplifiers. One amplifier drives the base cabinet speaker and the second drives the backbox speakers. The system has an electronic crossover, separating high frequencies to the backbox and low frequencies to the cabinet. This increases the total power available and the ability to do frequency adjustments to filter out the highs for the base cabinet and filter out the lows for the backbox speakers. (http://www.pinballsound.com/)

To me, it sounds possible that whatever digital software that is now emulating these sound effects does not correctly take the speaker configuration outlined above into account. It was called dcs for a reason. I bet the sound roms were mixed by the audio engineer specifically for the DCS 3 speaker setup and digital system/decoder.

If this is true, perhaps this is why the sound seems off. I'm just guessing here, but it's an educated guess.








(Again this is all my opinion. Not here to start any arguments. Just wondering if it was something farsight could look into. I don't mind having a larger game file if it means there will be high res. audio to accompany my high res. graphics.)

I'm just glad I can hear the table music at all. At my local arcade, half the machines have the sound turned way down so that the combined noise of 40 tables in the same room doesn't deafen patrons within 5 minutes of entering. In another room, the shiny new AC/DC LE is of course cranked up to 31, and for some reason the TZ in the opposite corner is also at high volume. (This leads to interesting effects: Powerball Mania is more intense when "For Those About to Rock" is playing!) But for most of the rest of the tables, it's very hard to pick up on the music or really any audio cues whatsoever.

I'll take your word for it that the sound is inferior, but I don't think it's badly so.

Further evidence for my point:

Here is a website which has a quite a few Medieval Madness sound clips. They sound, rather good. Damn near perfect voice recordings, actually.

http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/Williams/games/medieval/mm_sounds.html


This is what it SHOULD sound like.

Great research there starck. What you say about the DCS system makes a lot of sense. The backbox speakers are far smaller than the big cabinet speaker. Same was true of the pre-DCS DMD games but I'm not sure if they drove them with the same separation of bass and treble.

I'd be interested to know how those MM recordings were done. Direct from the sound board or with a microphone.

The DCS sound emulation was always a weakness of PinMAME, which I believe was the basis for the emulation in TPA.

I was under the impression that the sound engine on those early Stern DMD games, such as RBION, was less refined than the WMS DCS system. I'm very much a Bally/Williams guy so I'm not 100% sure when the sound on the Stern games was upgraded.

The MM clips do sound impressive. The TPA sounds seem to me a bit overdriven, as if the sound is ready to break up.

I think 'overdriven' is a good way to describe it. Either way, some work needs to be done on the sound reproduction for both versions I have of TPA: iOS and PS3 (and probably all versions, I'm guessing).

I'd recommend you guys check out Chris Granner's website to check out some m3u (streamed MP3) files of his previous work as comparison. It's strange how some tables sound so nice and yet Whirlwind for example is completely different from the source from Chris Granner.

http://www.cgmusic.net/archives.html

Rudy said:

I'd recommend you guys check out Chris Granner's website to check out some m3u (streamed MP3) files of his previous work as comparison. It's strange how some tables sound so nice and yet Whirlwind for example is completely different from the source from Chris Granner.

http://www.cgmusic.net/archives.html

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Wow, this is a great website. THANK YOU. Hopefully someone from farsight will take note of this. There's a huge discrepancy in the actual quality of the sound files, and what we hear on the pinball arcade.

Very cool.

Awesome. Wouldn't it be amazing if Farsight could get all the tables to sound that good?

I'd pay an extra dollar per table if they sounded that good.