A word on sound

Many questions these days are about sounds and the fine grained setup you can do with TILT!Audio.

First of all there are 2 types of sound packs:

  • Old style in directories
  • Altsound: all in one directory together with a csv table.

Features of both formats are slightly different, but mostly one can categorize sound effects in:

  • background music (or simply music)
  • voice callouts (or just voice)
  • special effects (or just sfx)
  • jingles (play over a music and music continues)
  • singles (play once and terminate the playing music)

In addition to that there’s volume control that balanced the volume of music, sfx, voice, jingle and single.

Gain

First there is a gain, that allows to raise or lower volume level for each sound effect. Normal level is 50, but it can be adjusted from 1 to 100.

So if some sound effect seem to be too low, you can just go to the web UI and raise the gain.

Here is one difference between directory sound packs and altsound packs:

While in both cases each sound effect has its individual gain, the directory style also has a default for a category: gain by type!

So if you want to raise volume level for voice in general, just use the sliders GainByType in the webUI

Change default gain for a category
Continue reading “A word on sound”

Demo videos

This page collects all demo videos that shows TILT!Audio running on different machines. All these video are also available on my youtube channel

Customer video: TILT!Audio on Twilight Zone
Customer video: The Addams Family with TILT!Audio and pin2dmd
Customer video: TILT!Audio on HS2, LAH and STTNG.
video curtesy of Greg G.
Customer video: TILT!Audio running on TZ
Customer video: TILT!Audio on Terminator 2
TILT!Audio on LOTR (Lord of the Rings)
Customer video: TILT!Audio running on monopoly
Customer video TILT!Audio installed on HS2
Very funny – custom menu sounds

More on youtube: just search for tiltaudio.

Assembly of rev 2.8 / 3.0

A few notes on the assembly of the latest boards rev 2.8 and 3.0

Fully populated board

The picture shows a fully populated board for both data east and WPC.

Same picture but highlighted in green what is data east (whitestar) only, highlighted in blue what is wpc only.

From the label on the PBC it should be clear, how to mount the parts. But for some there is different orientation possible or it is not clear where to place pin1.

Resistor networks / pin headers

RN1 / RN2: these are resistor networks used as pull up so there is a pin1 connected to 5v.

pin1 is marked with a dot.

Resistor network pin1 marking must match the orange arrows see picture below.

If you use double row header with polarization slot, be sure it point to the right direction (34 to edge of pcb, 20 to inner pcb, see arrows

pin1 markers for resistor networks, polarization slot for headers and gnd for the e-caps

E-CAPS / SMD

Also note the gnd side (upper side in this picture) for the e-caps.

Last but not least the smd ICs all have their pin1 upper left. You will notice the small dot in the upper left corner (resp the notch for the 574)

DC DC converters

The dc dc power converter modules are sometimes with fixed voltage 12v / 5v sometimes adjustable. If you got the adjustable one, don’t worry I have already adjusted them to 5v or 12v resp. So no need to do anything on your side. If you accidentally push one of the trimmers, you need to carefully readjust to 5v or 12v to not risk to fry the raspberry pi or the amplifiers.

Optional OLED

Oled display with GND left

One more comment on the OLED display: you can always add one on your own if you did not include one in your order in the first place. Two type are supported: 0.96” with SSD1306 controller and 1.3” with SH1106 controller. Just be sure that you buy one with the power connectors starting with Gnd, Vcc, … from left to right. I’m mentioning this because you get different ones as well. Best fit would be for example: https://www.amazon.de/DollaTek-seriell-SSH1106-Display-LCD-Modul/dp/B07QJW9FHJ. It has the Gnd connector on the left, so it will work fine.

Speaker WIRING for WPC (old mono)

Old wpc games only have a mono sound with 3 speakers wired like this:

Old style wiring with wpc, only mono / one channel

With TILT!Audio you get full stereo plus sub woofer channel for the cabinet speaker (2.1 sound). Therefore the speaker wiring needs to change:

Each speaker has its own pair of wires connected to J504 / 505

As the backbox right speaker in such games is only a tweeter, I would strongly recommend to also exchange speakers in the backbox.

KEYPINS molex connectors

3 of the molex connectors have a key pin (a pin that needs to be removed). It is easy to remove it before soldering. See images below which pin to remove:

GENERAL

Some general advice and hints:

  • dc dc converters must have the correct orientation (see picture above)
  • the raspberry pi header need some distance to leave enough room for a pi3 with all its USB / network connectors

Images courtesy of Mike L. Very much appreciated.