Pinball Modding Group
Beaming your Pinball to another dimension
Reviews
Cactus Canyon Audio Kit - Upgrade Kit
Gaming Play Score: 9.3
The original speaker set in the Cactus Canyon or general speaking, in the WPC95 pinballs, are not the best and it’s just a pity, what kind of sound you get out of these grapy boxes. But especially the music plays such a very important role a game because its responsible to create a unique and deep atmosphere and the player is getting much more involved into the whole game play.
There are a some nice suppliers for complete speaker systems out there and at the beginning of the project, I decided to use the PinballPro sound system, which you can also see on the pictures where I compare that one with our set. Now, that we finally finished the Audio kit in all its facets, we were looking for something better, which also best fits to the Audio kit itself and we created an Upgrade Kit for the Audio Kit.
The Audio Kit - Upgrade Kit consists of the following parts :
2x front speakers with 80 watt and each with a radius of 13 cm aka 5"
1x subwoofer with a magnet of 1200g, 250W and a radius of 20 cm 8"
1x fixing set
Installation Time : 30 minutes
André Banderas
Cactus Canyon Audio Kit
Gaming Play Score: 9.3
Did you know that all Bally/Williams pinballs with the exception of Pinball 2000 don´t have any stereo sound in contrast to DataEast aka Sega ? That is a fact that I have never understood and especially for the Cactus Canyon, which was the last WPC 95 pinball built in October 1998. The sound and the music is just great and it really hurts my heart not having any stereo sound, but why don´t we have stereo sound ? There are 2 reasons for that :
1. A lot of sound files were recorded just in mono
2. The front speakers are running just on one line
Ok, understood ! When we modified our A/V board to be able to use the internal speakers for the "Cactus Canyon Gaming Station", Domino asked me one time what will happen when we do NOT plug all the usual cables into the board, so I tested that out and I told him that everything is still running...mmhh...and then we asked us again : for what do we really need the A/V board ? For the video part, we already used the "Cactus Canyon Color Kit", which is directly connected to the "Cactus Canyon Gaming Station", so we just need the amplifier part of the A/V board and the development began...
After some testing with diverse hardware parts, we finally got our setup, uninstalled the A/V board and replaced it with our Audio Kit and the sound difference was just amazing - even with the original speakers ! So here are the advantages of the kit :
A/V part Advantages
1. No need to modify your A/V board according to this HowTo
2. The A/V board will completely be replaced with the Audio Kit
3. You have a replacement A/V board which you can sell or keep it as a replacement part
Sound Advantages
1. You have separate volume controls for the 2 front speakers and 1 regulator just for the bass.
In contrast, PinballPro can only control the relation between sound volume and the bass !
2. You will get better sound from your original speakers
3. No disturbing "mhmhmhmh" sounds anymore
4. If you replaced the original speakers with e.g. the Audio Kit - Upgrade kit, see above, you will get a fantastic sound !!
5. We are using separate lines for the left and right channel for STEREO !
Yes, you read right ! We have now a STEREO pinball and that´s great, but STOP...didn´t you write that most of the files are in mono ? Yes, that’s right and this was the reason why I edited a lot of these sound files, converted them into stereo and partially added also 3D effects. As an example : when you get an extra ball, you see the guy looking right and left and each sound effect will only come out on its corresponding speaker. Or the tumble weed is flying away from left to right and I modified this sound so that it will start from the left box and is going over to the right box...and I did a lot of 3D sound effects exactly in that manner ! You will surely get the best effect when using e.g. a Bluetooth headset, which I am using on my pinball.
The audio kit consists of the following parts :
1x CC Audio Kit
1x Power cable
4x screws
4x spacers
1x line in cable
2x speaker cables
1x "Cactus Canyon Extended Edition" (CCEE) software with Audio support
Installation Time : 30 minutes
André Banderas
Cactus Canyon CvA Strobe Kit
Gaming Play Score: 9.6
This is the "Cowboys vs Aliens" Strobe Mode Kit for the Cactus Canyon Extended Edition Software. I love the CvA Mode, which was taken from the pinball "Attack from Mars", but what I always missed was the strobe flasher. That was the reason I went to my team mate Domino and asked him how we could realize that. After discussing some ideas together, where we also had in mind to use the strobe PCB of the AfM pinball or even developing something on our own, Domino got at last the final idea : Let´s take a flasher cap, a LED module and test that out. So we used different flasher caps and started with white, but that was way too strong, it blended the player and I was dissapointed. There were also too much reflections on the middle ramp. Then we started to use red, blue and finally green flasher caps and the green one was the perfect color.
After having our setup, I informed Eric Priepke, developer of the "Cactus Canyon Continued" software, about our idea and asked him if he could implement that into his code, and his answer was : "I don't like the strobe idea. I dread the idea of you adding it to the game anyway despite my objection". That was the reason why I had to do the corresponding changes myself and are now implemented in the "Cactus Canyon Extended Edition" software. Funnily enough, that mod became one of the most wanted mods ever for the Cactus Canyon, because it just fits perfectly into that game play and till now, nobody did regret the step to buy it. You also have a new option in the "Game Feature Settings" menu where you can dynamically enable or disable this mod.
The Plug´n´Play kit consists of the following components :
1x green flasher cap with a strong LED module, which is glued and fixed inside the cap
1x wiring harness (soldered at the flasher)
2x screws
1x cable pressing tool
1x "Cactus Canyon Extended Edition" (CCEE) with CvA Strobe Mode support
Installation time : Around 20 minutes
André Banderas
Cactus Canyon Shaker Kit
Gaming Play Score: 9.4
In general, the best playing experience will be reached on a pinball when you get feedback in 3 different areas : Visual input via animations, sound feedback via your speakers and motion feedback via a shaker. Not in all pinballs make a shaker sense, but definitely in the Cactus Canyon pinball ! Just imagine how cool it will be hitting bart in the saloon, the head is moving and also the whole pinball is shaking or you shot down a bad guy and the pinball gives you shaker feedback...that idea was just great and Domino was responsible for the realization of that project. We started in checking out some already existing motors like the shaker from Stern, from DataEast and finally Williams when we visited Freddy’s Pinball Paradise. Surprisingly for us, the worst one was the shaker from Stern and it didn’t stand our high expectations. The other ones were not bad but not perfect, so we decided to develop our own Shaker and after around 3 months of development, we did our first test and it was just great !
But to directly test it on the machine, I asked Eric if he could adapt a little bit the code so that we were able to test it in the pinball. Our suggestion was to use the knocker position but Eric refused that with the words "the knocker is for the knocker. Basta", and when he has more time, he will implement something. On the other hand, we had a good deal for a bunch of motors and we couldn´t wait so long, so I decided to change the code myself and implemented the Shaker support, which is now part of the "Cactus Canyon Extended Edition".
The shaker will be activated in the following situations :
Section 1: Drop Targets
1. Hitting drop target in Quickdraw mode
2. Hitting drop targets in Showdown mode
3. Hitting drop targets in CvA mode
4. Hitting drop target in Gunfight mode
5. Hitting drop targets in Ambush mode
6. Hitting drop targets in High noon mode
7. Hitting drop targets in Boss fight ("You killed my brother")
8. Hitting drop targets in Goldmine mode -> Bandits
Section 2 : Animations
9. Killing a bad guy in bank robbery mode
10. Shooting into the mine
11. Destroying the saucer in CvA mode
12. In the extra ball animation, when the bad guy gets the ball on his head (I LOVE that one !:-)
13. in tribute feature
Section 3 : Other
14. Hitting bart in the saloon
As you can see, we are using the shaker a lot in the game and it just fits into the whole game play. The shaker kit is surely a plug´n´play kit which consists of the following parts :
1x Motor kit
4x screws to fix the motor kit plate
1x PCB to protect the motor in case of high voltage or current
2x screws to fix the PCB
1x connection cable to the PDB
1x cable pressing tool
1x "Cactus Canyon Extended Edition" (CCEE) with Shaker kit support
Installation Time : 45 minutes
André Banderas