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Any idea how to turn down the music in the 11th hour? I can't hear the voice for it.
I have the same problem, in fact I read in the PDF manual supplied with the 11th Hour download that pressing the left and right arrow keys adjusts the balance between the voice and music, however it seems that’s not functioning. However, I have since lost the in-game music completely! Although music, sound, and voice work everywhere else in the game, I’ve reinstalled the game but the problem persists, I’ve contacted tech support about this, will post if I get any joy on how to adjust these settings.
Hi K1ttenface,

I have found an answer/workaround call it what you will, I too faced the same issue and had read in the PDF manual about the arrow keys changing the sound levels, however for me in-game they did not seem to be working, for others with their set up and a different OS to mine, maybe they are getting a result with this? I had in fact lost the in-game music but still had voice, even though I had no result in-game pressing the arrow keys somehow they had an effect as next time I loaded the game I had lost the in-game music, but I've not been able to replicate this again.

I have however since discovered a nice workaround to the issue, which is working for me. I'm running Win XP 32bit OS and by going to volume controls and changing the 'SW Synth' volume bar this raisers and lowers the in-game music but not the voice. I load up the game completely then Alt-tab out and change this setting as the music is still playing for me Alt-tabbed, if you don't want to do that, setting the SW Synth bar at about 2 or 3 is a good setting. Don't forget to change this setting back to a better level when not playing 11th Hour! If you don't have this option in your OS I can only imagine there must be something to the equivalent in your OS.

Hope that works for you and goes some way to improving your experience of the game.
Dude, WELL DONE! Thank you for this. The SWSynth setting works for me, as well. Now I can hear the voices and music.
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eXistenZ_Born: Hi K1ttenface,

I have found an answer/workaround call it what you will, I too faced the same issue and had read in the PDF manual about the arrow keys changing the sound levels, however for me in-game they did not seem to be working, for others with their set up and a different OS to mine, maybe they are getting a result with this? I had in fact lost the in-game music but still had voice, even though I had no result in-game pressing the arrow keys somehow they had an effect as next time I loaded the game I had lost the in-game music, but I've not been able to replicate this again.

I have however since discovered a nice workaround to the issue, which is working for me. I'm running Win XP 32bit OS and by going to volume controls and changing the 'SW Synth' volume bar this raisers and lowers the in-game music but not the voice. I load up the game completely then Alt-tab out and change this setting as the music is still playing for me Alt-tabbed, if you don't want to do that, setting the SW Synth bar at about 2 or 3 is a good setting. Don't forget to change this setting back to a better level when not playing 11th Hour! If you don't have this option in your OS I can only imagine there must be something to the equivalent in your OS.

Hope that works for you and goes some way to improving your experience of the game.
Awesome! This work around worked for me as well. This is what I love about the GOG community.
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eXistenZ_Born: I have however since discovered a nice workaround to the issue, which is working for me. I'm running Win XP 32bit OS and by going to volume controls and changing the 'SW Synth' volume bar this raisers and lowers the in-game music but not the voice. I load up the game completely then Alt-tab out and change this setting as the music is still playing for me Alt-tabbed, if you don't want to do that, setting the SW Synth bar at about 2 or 3 is a good setting.
This fix is possible on Windows 8/8.1/10, but it requires a few more steps.
[ I've only tested on Windows 10 64-bit, but it should work on Windows 8 and possibly 7 if Microsoft handled MIDI the same way]


Problem: The 'SW Synth' has been locked down in Windows, preventing you from modifying the volume.
Solution: Download an application that has a MIDI mixer.

I use:
http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

If that link is dead (I think they have bandwidth issues), Google 'Coolsoft Virtual MIDI synth'

After installing it, download a sound font, such as:
http://www.synthfont.com/SoundFonts/FluidR3_GM.sfArk

Extract it with:
http://www.synthfont.com/sfArk.zip

Now configure CoolSoft (Open the application called "Configure VirtualMIDISynth"):
* Press the '+' button on the right side, navigate to and select your soundfont ('FluidR3_GM.SF2' if using the example above)
* On the 'MIDI Mapper' tab, set the Windows MediaPlayer Device to CoolSoft
* On the 'Options' tab, check the box to "Automatically open the MIDI Mixer while playing"
* Hit "Apply" and "OK" buttons on bottom


When you open "The 11th Hour", a mixer should pop up. Move the master slider all the way to the bottom, and then up a tiny bit (to 3% or4%). Some non-MIDI sound effects (like the wind/rain at the beginning of the game near the front door) are still loud, but the soundtrack is softer and most dialog is understandable.

I hope this helps!
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ODINITE: snip
Thanks for the detailed instructions. What was an annoyance in 7th Guest was making 11th Hour almost unplayable. Now that I'm using CoolSoft, the ingame music is funky--starting & stopping, but I can hear the dialogue so much better.
I was running into the same problem in Windows 10. In that OS there is no "SW Synth" option as far as I could tell. However, you can adjust the volume for the app itself, which gets listed as "Trilobyte Windows95 Player." Adjusting this seems to affect the music, but not so much the voices in the cut scenes.

To get to the right settings in Windows 10, right click on the sound icon in the system tray and select "Open Sound Settings." Then scroll all the way down and click on "App volume and device preferences." This is where the "Trilobyte Windows95 Player" option will appear. With this window open, open the 11th Hour. Then alt tab to your sound settings window to adjust the volume as necessary.