1u solid state announcement player....

[BlueShift]

Hey all,

 

So here's my situation.

 

We play out pusic or program material from our main venue into a foyer. this is quite simply achieved by having a CD or solid state player and a program out from our FOH console connected through a very simple DJ-style mixer with a crossfader. The output of this then goes to the foyer zoner to be routed around the building. What we want to introduce is a pre-recorded voiceover to play over the music. Now im looking at a solid state player for the foyer which has a mic input for an auto-talkover function. So the last piece of this puzzle is a device to playback the announcement.

 

Im looking for something real simple, preferably rackmountable (but I can do that if need be). Id like it to playback from something solid state (internal memory, USB key, SD card, whatever) and if possible just have a few buttons on the front which playback a programmed track when set?

 

Does something like this exist - im thinking it might be available in the Radio market for some kid of hardware SFX box or something. I know instant replay do something - which is kinda what I want, but id like it smaller and simpler - 4 playback buttons would be plenty.

 

Any thoughts are welcome.

 

Thanks

[Paul TC]

Previous topic Emergency announcement playback, (merged with "Automatic Announcements")

[BlueShift]

That post has some good ideas - still not sure I've found anything quite right there. May be a tascam SSR1 after all (or a PMD560)

 

Anyone else have anything?

[john-sp]

Is this of any use? http://www.americanaudio.us/product.asp?Pr...t=SD%20Products

 

It fits the spec on most things and should retail at about £220 to £250 ex.VAT. It even has balanced outputs!

 

I've used one on a couple of amateur theatre shows and the sound quality has been pretty good. Obviously it depends on the quality of the mp3 files, but you can use either SD card or USB stick so size of files shouldn't be an issue unless you need hundreds of high quality announcements.

 

It's quite easy to use, as proved by the the 75 year old sound operator on the last am-dram show I did!

 

HTH,

 

John

[revbobuk]

You could try this which is available from CPC for rather less than the Tascam / Marantz options, as it is a player only.

 

(as he posts, realising somone else has just posted the same thing...)

 

D'oh!

[john-sp]

I've finally found someone who types slower than me!

 

I was a little out with my estimate of the cost, though.

[the kid]

Hmmmm (rights payment in the post)

 

Has anyone used the AA solid state units, or any other ones? how do they shape up?

 

We have just brought a new MD player which cost 2 of the AA SD players, which looking at could prove to be FAR more flexible, no more burning CD's to edit tracks just slip in the PC and edit and save again.

[Gareth Owen]

Okay, so do you need this unit to have a mixer built in or are you just looking for a simple solidstate playback unit?

 

If its the latter, can I suggest the Tascam HD-R1? It plays WAV files from a CompactFlash Card, has a USB socket on the front which will take a memory stick, and has a big DSUB connector on the back which you can connect your own buttons to. That way you could have your own button which played the music, and another button which played your announcments - and you could put them anywhere you like - ie away from the playback device.

 

http://www.tascam.com/products/hd-r1.html

 

My company has just bought 30 of these machines for use as click track playback over panto season so I'm hoping I can vouch for their quality and reliability if not their suitableness (?) for your task!