# Voice callouts and sounds

> What Scalpel says and plays: fills, exits, stops, the risk lock, mode switches, session times, exit warnings and scanner alerts, and how to mute each.

Source: https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/voice-callouts
Guide 10.1, Audio and alerts. Beginner, 7 min read.
Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on 2026-10-15. By Scalpel Team.

**In short:**

Scalpel talks you through every trade so your eyes can stay on the book. A voice confirms entries ("Filled, level two"), exits ("Out, half"), stops ("Stopped out"), take-profits, breakeven, trailing, rejections, the risk lock, mode switches, connection changes, the session times and the exit warnings, and calls out new scanner names and setups. Switch the voice, the sound effects or everything in **Settings > Audio**; the tape's own sound is in the Level 2 panel's cog.

Scalping is a game of seconds. Looking away from Level 2 to check whether an order filled, or whether your stop is now at breakeven, costs you the next print. So audio in Scalpel is not decoration: every action you take with a key gets a spoken confirmation, and every event you need to react to has a sound. With the voice on, the orders panel becomes something you glance at to double-check, not something you watch.

There are two separate audio channels:

- **Callouts**: spoken words and short sound effects for trading events. Settings > Audio.
- **Tape sound**: the focused desk's prints played as notes, inspired by [Aggr.trade](https://aggr.trade), so you can hear buyers and sellers. It lives in the Level 2 panel's cog; see [guide 3.4](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/tape-sound).

**Before you start:**

- Scalpel on Windows or macOS with a working output device. Audio is not played on other systems.
- Your trading keys known ([guide 4.3](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/hotkeys)): most callouts confirm a key.

## Set the volume and what plays

### 1. Open Settings, Audio

Press `Ctrl`+`,` (`Cmd`+`,` on a Mac) and click **Audio**.

*Screenshot: Settings, Audio at the defaults: everything on, volume 80%.*

### 2. Choose the channels

- **Enable audio** is the master switch: off silences everything, the tape included.
- **Sound effects** are the short tones: blips, chimes and alarms.
- **Voice callouts** are the spoken words.
- **Volume** runs from 0% to 100% in 5% steps (80% by default) and sets the level of both.

Click **Apply**. A soft click confirms the save.

**How voice and sound share an event.** Many events have both a spoken form and a tone. Scalpel plays one, never both: the voice if **Voice callouts** is on, otherwise the sound effect. So turning the voice off does not leave you deaf; you hear the tone instead.

**Voices never talk over each other.** If a callout arrives while another is still speaking, the new one is dropped, so you never hear two sentences at once. Sound effects mix freely. That is also why a burst of events (a fill and its stop a second later) may give you only the first callout: glance at the screen when it matters.

**Tip.**

For the tape sound without the voice, keep **Enable audio** and **Sound effects** on and turn **Voice callouts** off. The tape needs Sound effects on to play at all.

## Everything Scalpel says

### Your orders

| When | You hear |
|---|---|
| You press a buy key | A short rising blip |
| The buy fills (fully or partly) | "Filled, level one" to "Filled, level four": the preset that fired, `Shift`+`1` to `Shift`+`4` |
| You press **Sell full**, **Sell half** or **Sell quarter** (any of the bid, ask or mid keys) | "Out, full", "Out, half" or "Out, quarter", at once, on the keypress |
| You press **Flatten All** or `Esc` | "Flattened" |
| A position closes without a key (auto-flatten, a manual close in TWS) | "Out, in profit", "Out, at a loss", or "Out" if it closed at exactly $0 |
| `Ctrl`+`Q` (`Shift`+`Q` on a Mac) cancels working orders | "Cancelled" |
| An order is refused (a cap, buying power, no liquidity, a buy on a halted stock, a broker rejection) | "Rejected", with a red toast giving the reason |

### Stops and targets

| When | You hear |
|---|---|
| The working stop fires | "Stopped out" |
| The catastrophe net fires | "Catastrophe stop" |
| The take-profit fills | "Take profit" |
| `B` moves the stop to breakeven | "Breakeven" |
| `Shift`+`T` turns trailing on or off | "Trailing" or "Trail off" |

A stop-out or take-profit plays its own callout instead of "Out, at a loss" or "Out, in profit", so you always know which level closed you out. Stops are covered in [guide 5.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/how-stops-work).

### Risk, mode and connection

| When | You hear |
|---|---|
| The daily loss limit trips the **RISK LOCK** | "Risk limit hit. Entries blocked." |
| You lift the lock with **Resume trading**, or it clears | "Risk cleared." |
| You switch MODE to SIM or LIVE (in the header or in Settings > Trading) | "Sim mode activated." or "Live mode activated." |
| Scalpel connects to TWS or IB Gateway | "Connected." |
| The connection drops | "Connection lost." and an amber toast |

### The trading day

As the New York clock crosses each boundary while Scalpel is running:

| Time (ET) | You hear |
|---|---|
| 04:00, the pre-market opens | "Pre-market is open. Good luck!" |
| 07:00 | "Mid-morning open." |
| 09:30, the regular session opens | "The market is open. Good luck out there!" |
| 16:00, the regular session closes (13:00 on a half day) | "The market is closed. Nice work today!" |

Starting Scalpel in the middle of a session does not announce it; only crossing the boundary does. The 07:00 call is skipped on weekends and market holidays.

### Exit warnings while you hold a long

| When | You hear |
|---|---|
| The 1-minute chart shows a bull trap: a poke above the recent high that closed back under it | "Long, weakening." and an amber toast |
| Selling your whole position into the bids on screen would slip 0.6% or more | "Thin bids. Exit carefully." and a red toast |
| A financing filing or an offering headline lands on a symbol you hold | "Long, weakening." and a red toast |

The first two can be switched off in the Level 2 panel's cog: **Exit alert (long weakening)** and **Thin bid exit warning**. Each fires once when the condition starts, and again only after it has cleared and at least 12 seconds have passed.

*Screenshot: The Level 2 settings (an excerpt): the two exit warnings, both on by default.*

These are warnings, not predictions. The bull trap read was the one chart pattern that held up when replayed over recorded sessions, and even then only for the next minute or so ([guide 3.6](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/read-line-and-read-bar)).

### The scanner

| When | You hear |
|---|---|
| A new name joins the IBKR scanner list | "New gainer" |
| A name makes a new high of day on the momentum scan | "New mo-mo" |
| A new name on Running up | "New runner" |
| A setup on the Setups scan | "Gap and go", "Micro pullback", "Breaking highs" (a high-of-day break), "Bull flag", "Flat top" or "On a run" (a long green run) |

Scanner callouts only come from scan panels that are open on a desk, with the scan's bell on (**Alert on new entry** in the panel's cog). The scan bell sounds at most once every 1.5 seconds, however many names arrive at once, and each alert also shows a toast you can click to load the symbol. See [guide 8.2](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/scan-types).

### Sounds without words

Loading a symbol, a halt (a warning tone) and its resumption, a market-data error, the other intel alerts, a held-back buy from the dilution entry guard, saving Settings, resetting SIM, and opening or closing a window each have a short tone and no voice.

Nothing plays while the launch splash is up, and fills and closes restored just after a mode switch are not announced, so a restart or a switch never replays old trades.

## What can go wrong

- **No sound at all.** Check **Enable audio** and the volume in Settings > Audio, then your system output device. See [guide 13.14](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/fix-no-sound).
- **Tape sound is silent but callouts work.** **Sound effects** is off, or the tape sound is off in the Level 2 cog.
- **A callout was skipped.** Another voice was still speaking. The toast and the orders panel always have the full story.

## Questions

**Can I turn off the voice but keep the sounds?**

Yes. Turn Voice callouts off in Settings > Audio. Every event that has a voice plays its sound effect instead.

**Can I change what the voice says?**

No. The callouts are fixed recordings, kept short so they finish before the next event.

**Why did I not hear the stop-out?**

Either the voice was busy with another callout, which drops the newer one, or audio was off. The red toast and the closed trade in the orders panel always show it.

**Does Scalpel announce scanner alerts for scans I have closed?**

No. Only scan panels open on a desk announce, and only while that scan's bell is on.

**Is tape sound part of the callouts?**

No. Tape sound is set in the Level 2 panel's cog and plays the focused desk's prints as notes. It does need Enable audio and Sound effects on in Settings > Audio.