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Tracks

The audio system in MPF is very similar to a sound mixing board that you control via configuration settings and events. It is divided into tracks (similar to channels on a mixer), each of which has its own properties such as name and volume. With the release of MPF 0.50, there are now multiple types of audio tracks supported by the audio system, each with specialized features.

Track types

The following types of audio tracks are available in MPF:

  • standard - Standard audio tracks are the most commonly used and have a variety of playback features to support most pinball audio needs. Standard tracks have a setting to limit the number of sounds that may be played simultaneously. If a standard track is busy playing its limit of simultaneous sounds, pending sounds can be added to a queue where they wait to be played until the track can play them. Several settings control a sound's behavior when a track is busy. Sounds are audio assets and can be played by standard tracks.
  • sound_loop - New in MPF 0.50, sound_loop tracks are optimized for live looping music control driven by events. This specialized track type can synchronize playback of multiple looping sounds simultaneously in layers and supports gapless switching to a new set of loops. Sound loops are designed to build music that dynamically changes based on events in your game. Sound used in sound_loop tracks must be loaded in memory (streaming sounds are not supported). Sound loop tracks use sound_loop_sets which are special groups of sounds to control the playback and looping of audio files.
  • playlist - New in MPF 0.50, playlist tracks provide a comprehensive set of music playing capabilities that include named playlists (lists of sound assets), playback mode (sequential or random/shuffled), crossfades between songs/playlists, and more. Playlist tracks use playlists which contain a list of sounds (audio assets) video or audio files that can be played back sequentially or in random order and can be set to repeat or stop after all sounds have been played.

Note

All tracks can be a ducking target regardless of the type of track.

Example track configuration:

sound_system:
  buffer: 2048
  frequency: 44100
  channels: 2
  tracks:
    music:
      volume: 0.5
      simultaneous_sounds: 1
      events_when_stopped: music_track_stopped
      events_when_played: music_track_played
      events_when_paused: music_track_paused
    sfx:
      volume: 0.4
      simultaneous_sounds: 8
      preload: true
    voice:
      volume: 0.6
      simultaneous_sounds: 1
      preload: true
    loops:
      type: sound_loop
      volume: 0.6
    playlist:
      type: playlist
      volume: 0.6
      crossfade_time: 2s

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