PinVol - Audio volume manager for virtual pinball cabinets

For setup instructions, please see http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/PinVol.html

PinVol is a little helper program that makes it easier to control the audio volume on a virtual pinball cabinet. It does several things that are useful in a pin cab environment:

• Hotkey volume controls: PinVol lets you control the master Windows audio volume level using hotkeys of your choice. You can assign keys that are mapped to your cabinet buttons, so that you can adjust the volume level with cabinet butons rather than by fiddling with the speaker volume knob.

  If you're using a controller that has a "Shift" button that allows you to assign two meanings per button, you can make the volume controls nicely inconspicuous, but still readily available, by assigning them to shifted buttons.

• Joystick button volume controls: alternatively, if your cabinet buttons are connected via a joystick interface, you can assign joystick buttons as the volume controls.

• Per-table volume levels: PinVol keeps track of which Visual Pinball table is loaded, and remembers the last volume level for each table separately. Whenever you load a table, PinVol automatically restores the volume level from the last time you were playing that table. This helps equalize the volume level from one table to the next. Once you've set the levels for the tables you play, you won't have to keep making adjustments every time you switch games, since your preferred level for each table is automatically restored when the table starts. A separately adjustable Default Volume level is used for tables that don't have their own PinVol settings yet.

• A separate master volume level: PinVol has separate "Global" and "Table" volume levels. The individual table volume levels described above are stored as percentages of the global level, so you can easily make EVERYTHING louder or quieter simply by adjusting the global level. The per-table memory is still there to equalize the level across tables.

• Surround Sound Feedback (SSF) support: if you have a 7.1 surround sound system, PinVol lets you adjust the volume levels for each of the surround channels independently, to optimize the volume balance for table sound effects. As with the other volume level settings, this is stored on a per-table basis, so that you can adjust each table for the best sound. To use this feature, you must first install EqualizerAPO, a separate program (also free and open-source) that you can get from SourceForge.net. This feature was added in January 2021 courtesy of mrloofer.

• Night mode support: PinVol keeps a separate Global volume level for night mode, so that you can switch to quieter play with a single button press. When you want to go back to normal play, just press the button again, and the previous Global volume level is restored. If you're using a Pinscape controller, PinVol will automatically sense when you engage Night Mode on the Pinscape unit, so you don't even need to assign a PinVol button for Night Mode in this case.

• Multiple sound card support: if you have separate sounds cards for the backbox speakers and in-cabinet effects speakers, you can control the volume level on both at the same time with the one set of buttons. You can choose which sound cards are included in the volume controls.

• PinballY integration: PinballY sends PinVol information on the title of each game it launches, which lets PinVol display the friendly game title instead of just the filename.