Guide 3.4
Intermediate, 6 min read. Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on .
In short
Tape sound turns the focused desk's trades into sound, so you can hear the flow while your eyes stay on the book: buys play bright notes in your right ear, sells hollow, lower notes in your left, and bigger trades play longer figures, up to a ringing four-note arpeggio for a block. Switch it on with Tape sound in the LEVEL 2 cog, with Enable audio and Sound effects on in Settings, Audio. Trades are weighed in dollars, with a $1,000 silence threshold and a $20,000 big print by default.
A scalper's eyes are busy: the book, the chart, the order bar. Your ears are free. Tape sound lets you hear the tape speed up, hear which side is taking, and hear a block trade hit without looking at the column. The idea and the sound design are inspired by Aggr.trade, the open-source trade-flow tool by Tucsky, whose tape sound many traders know.
Before you start
Every trade is weighed by its dollar value, price x size, so the same settings work on a $2 stock and a $20 one. Then:
| Trade | Sound |
|---|---|
| Under Sound min value ($1,000) | Silence. |
| Under Big print value ($20,000) | One short blip, a little louder and longer the bigger it is. |
| From the big print value | A two-note figure: up for a buy, down for a sell. |
| From 5 times it ($100,000) | A four-note arpeggio. |
| From 25 times it ($500,000) | The arpeggio with a long, ringing top note. |
Only the focused desk plays, so you always hear the stock your hotkeys trade.
| Stock price | Silent below | Blip | Two notes from | Arpeggio from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2 | 500 shares | 500 to 9,999 shares | 10,000 shares | 50,000 shares |
| $5 | 200 shares | 200 to 3,999 shares | 4,000 shares | 20,000 shares |
| $10 | 100 shares | 100 to 1,999 shares | 2,000 shares | 10,000 shares |
Open Settings (Ctrl+,), then Audio. Enable audio and Sound effects must both be on, and Volume above 0%: at 0% everything is muted. Click Apply.
Tape sound has its own volume (next steps), so the Volume here mainly sets your voice callouts and sound effects.
Click the cog in the LEVEL 2 panel's title bar. Under Time and sales, tick Tape sound. It applies at once, no Apply needed.
Sound min value ($) is the smallest trade, in dollars, that makes a sound. The default $1,000 lets you hear almost everything on a small cap. If a busy stock becomes a constant buzz, raise it to $2,500 or $5,000. This is separate from the tape's Display min size, so you can hear flow you have filtered off the screen.
Big print value ($) is where a trade stops being a blip and becomes a figure. Set it to what counts as a meaningful order on the stocks you trade: $20,000 suits most $2 to $10 momentum names; on a higher-priced, heavier stock try $50,000 so only real size stands out.
Sound volume runs from 0 to 100 (default 60). Keep it under your voice callouts, so a fill or stop announcement is never buried. Stereo: sells left, buys right is on by default; switch it off if you listen on one earbud, and both sides play in the centre. Stereo is never hard left and right, so one earbud still hears both sides either way.
Click the desk, or move focus with Left, Right or Tab. The sound follows focus. The first batch of trades after a stock loads is skipped, so loading never blasts a backlog at you.
Tape sound describes the flow, it does not predict it. Use it to know when to look, then decide from the book and chart.