Press Button Sound Playback

[matt_h]

Hello all,

 

This isn't srtictly theatre related, please see here for an idea of where this will be used.

 

One of our new sculpture pieces that is being planned for this year is a 3D map of the world with a circle of press buttons which results in the appropriate country lighting up and a greeting in the appropriate language being played. We're looking to have about 100 countries on there.

 

Now my initial thoughts were to butcher a USB keyboard and use hotkeys in Multiplay to achieve this, however I don't believe there are sufficient useable keys to cover the number of countries that we want. I'm still not sure if the latest Beta (2.2.0.4) release will do what I'm trying to achieve below (i.e. accept a MIDI trigger, not send one), input from David Duffy would be very much appreciated.

 

So my next thouht was MIDI, and this is where a glaring gap in my knowledge became apparent. Does anybody know of any interfaces that will take an external switched input (terminal strip with a push button wired to it) and then convert that to a MIDI note, or am I better off getting some cheap MIDI keyboards and butchering those? The next part is what playout software to use? I've searched, and just can't quite put my finger on any that fully fit the bill?

 

Alternatively any other suggestions that I haven't thought/heard of will be gladly received. Ideally there would be a box out there that took a bunch of switched inputs and played back an associated file at line level, but my googling today makes me doubt that there is one out there with sufficient inputs at a price point that makes it affordable/practically scalable.

 

Budget: This isn't fixed, it isn't unlimited but neither am I trying to do it with bits scrounged from a scrap cupboard for less than a £100. Lets say £2-3000 or less as a ball park figure.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Matthew Hulme

 

PS. This will be for use outdoors in the middle of winter, its a custom piece still very much in the deisgn stages so enclosures for weather sensitive equipment etc can be incorporated into it.

[pritch]

There are a few MP3 player boards out there that might suit.

 

This, perhaps?

 

http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/pr...products_id=453

[dunk]

Are you familair with something called "Arduino"?. It's an open source-esqu project board that has a multitude of add-on PCB modules that will solve your issue. Essentially, you could have an sd card loaded up with all of the tracks and have trigger modules added on to the main arduino chip. With basic programming you could have any one

of the 100 triggers (switches) trigger any one of the audio clips. I know integration for DMX is also possible. Alternatively, you could have a numerical keypad on the piece and type in the Id number and hit go to play the relevant track, perhaps?

 

Google it and you shall find!

 

Hth,

 

Dunc

[djtom29]

I’m no expert, but what about having a couple of usb keyboards firing hotkeys on a couple of copies of Multiplay? As I say I’m no expert, but if this is a one off (as in going to be thrown away at the end of the season) then why not acquire a few PC's, with multiplay on and butcher enough USB keyboards that would 100 hotkeys over X amount of PC's, I’m sure the guys on here will come up with a much simpler way of doing this, and without the use of a stupid amount of PC's but if it’s a one off then surely you can sell off the PC's at the end so it’s not as wasteful as it seems. But as I say, I’m going to leave it out there and let some of the Pro's on here give you a much more reasonable solution!!

[David Duffy]

Solution 1:

I have a hardware solution in the making at present. It consists of of an mp3 player unit with RS485 control (our own protocol) via an RJ45 and a small (2x 3W) amplifier. There is also a unit that takes 8 switch inputs. These can be linked (by RJ45) up to a max of 30 units. (240 inputs)

 

Solution 2:

I have also written a program that plays audio files and has an set-up interface where you choose what sound is associated with what trigger. It could be adapted I guess. You'd still need some hardware for the switch interface.

 

 

If it were my project, I'd go for a purely hardware solution. I can certainly manufacture an input unit that accepts lots of inputs. Some care is needed to avoid triggering from stray interference, so I'd not go with multiple hacked items.

[abantock]

Matthew

 

This is just the sort of thing we've done in the past and we have a custom designed solid-state playout unit that we use. Email me on info@station-z.co.uk for more details.

 

Andy Bantock

[dbuckley]

Using MIDI to hold things together seems the best solution. In terms of sensors, a MIDI keyboard retrtofit kit would probably be the nearest thing to an off-the-shelf comnmercial solution, or for some diy, the midibox kits and ideas would work well.

 

Form playback, given your environment, I'd use hardware samplers, which can now be picked up for a song on eBay. But you could use a PC, there are 127 possible MIDI note-on messages, and thus enough playbacks possible from one PC. I, of course, would suggest you use PCStage for this, but any of the sound playback solutions (see the Wiki) should do. But for choice,m I'd use samplers.

 

Frankly, making the country light up for a while and then go out will be a much bigger problem, as that requires "hardware per channel". If you buy or build something with the appropriate numbers of IO, then adding MIDI output to that should be trivial. Or serial, ie MIDI but not at 31250 bps, and then get something to translate the baud rate, or a playback device that can accept serial commands.

[David Duffy]

I forgot to say the new system we're designing also has output modules (also in blocks of 8), so that button presses activate the associated output.

 

It sounds like there's a few solutions out there. I see there's even someone local (UK) to you so even better!

[matt_h]

Thanks everybody, thats what I've been trying to find all day. Not enough time tonight to look at them all in depth, but they'll all get my full attention in the morning. I wasn't happy with the hack it and hope solutions that I was coming up with, its good to know that there are items out there that will do this as a more off the shelf and supported solution.

 

My initial thoughts are:

 

Pritch - Do you have experience of these particular boards? I have used something similar from Milford instruments in the past and been disappointed with the audio quality (admittedly the method of getting data on to them was less ideal, but once bitten twice shy) which is why I hadn't really given it any serious consideration

Dunk - Thanks for the reminder, I've seen this before from a networking perspective and completely forgotten about it, but in light of later posts it may turn out to be too labour intensive/prone to my total inability to make any sort of programming work properly.

dBuckley - Thanks for the suggestions, do you have any particular models of hardware samplers in mind? I'm considering the idea of PLC's for controlling the country lights.

Andy - I'll be in touch tomorrow

David - How far off is this? I assume it will also provide a line out? I've already got a supplier for some incredible litlle 20W amplifiers that are used in other pieces around the site. I'll PM you my work address as this is certainly something I would be interested for this or for future projects.

 

I should also just clarify that this item is intended to have a shelf life of 5 years plus (or as far as the tax man is concerned). By the time we are finished, labour and all, it'll be an investment around the £10k mark, and we can't afford to just scrap it at the end of one season!

 

Thanks again, and any other ideas people have I'm still all ears.

 

Matt

[dbuckley]

I should also just clarify that this item is intended to have a shelf life of 5 years plus (or as far as the tax man is concerned). By the time we are finished, labour and all, it'll be an investment around the £10k mark, and we can't afford to just scrap it at the end of one season!

That changes everything - a hard disk system cant be trusted to operate uninterrupted over that period of time.

 

Pick up the phone and call Gilderfluke. http://www.gilderfluke.com - I suspect a few sd-50/40 boxes can replace all your PLCs and do the audio, and I'm sure they'll have some advice for inputs. If they dont have a good story for inputs, a Kissbox may be the answer. Everything is then hardware and solid state.

 

Recommended samplers would have been the Akai S6000, as they have integrated harddisk. If you are using PLCs for country light control (quite important that!) then they will be incompatible with many forms of MIDI retrofit, because MIDI retrofits do a matrix scan method of contact closure detection, at 5V, and PLCs inputs are usually not 5V, often 12V, 24V, 48V, or mains, none of which a 5V pull-up input is likely to approve of... So requiring either double pole switches, or an extra relay contact on the PLCs, a not attractive option.

[David Duffy]

David - How far off is this? I assume it will also provide a line out? I've already got a supplier for some incredible little 20W amplifiers that are used in other pieces around the site. I'll PM you my work address as this is certainly something I would be interested for this or for future projects.

The designs for the mp3 player, 8 way input and 8 way output (open collector) modules are complete.

 

Can you tell us more about the "country lights" please? Are the low current (LEDs or small lamps), or something more powerful?

[pritch]

Pritch - Do you have experience of these particular boards? I have used something similar from Milford instruments in the past and been disappointed with the audio quality (admittedly the method of getting data on to them was less ideal, but once bitten twice shy) which is why I hadn't really given it any serious consideration

 

No, I'm afraid not. I'm only aware of them because I'm considering one for a project of my own (where the quality of the audio isn't that important, anyway)

[matt_h]

Pick up the phone and call Gilderfluke. http://www.gilderfluke.com

 

Thanks, I've just lost a couple of hours trawling through that website, so many tools for so many ideas!

 

Recommended samplers would have been the Akai S6000, as they have integrated harddisk. If you are using PLCs for country light control (quite important that!) then they will be incompatible with many forms of MIDI retrofit, because MIDI retrofits do a matrix scan method of contact closure detection, at 5V, and PLCs inputs are usually not 5V, often 12V, 24V, 48V, or mains, none of which a 5V pull-up input is likely to approve of... So requiring either double pole switches, or an extra relay contact on the PLCs, a not attractive option.

Can you tell us more about the "country lights" please? Are the low current (LEDs or small lamps), or something more powerful?

 

Yes the country lights will be low current LED's, as to whether these will sit under an opaque coloured plastic to illuminate most of the country or just be a single LED sat in the center of the country is yet to be decided. Good point about the PLC voltage, I might need to go back to the drawing board on that too :blink: .

 

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions, all the help is very much appreciated.

 

PS. Andy you have an email.

[matt_h]

Thanks Everybody,

 

Had a conversation with Andy Bantock yesterday and it seems that he has exactly what I need.

 

Solid state media, 15 in and 15 out that will drive some low current LED's. Quite a bit cheaper than Gilder Fluke as well.

 

 

I'll try and remember to post back with some phot's when we've finished.

 

Kind Regards

 

Matthew Hulme