Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Overhauling an Amusement Park's Multi-Zone Audio Player?
mcmadman writes "The multi-zone audio player I'm working with uses an almost decade old card/software combo that is prone to crashes and other anomalies. I would like to know if there are open source (read 'free') or other alternatives that would allow multiple simultaneous playlists played through the myriad of audio interfaces out there. The line outs are then plugged into a CobraNet matrix, which handles the distribution of the music/sound to their respective areas. I'm looking at eight channels minimum, timed playlist start/stops, and triggered announcements. So far the only software and hardware I've found are proprietary broadcasting solutions which tend to be a bit heavy on the wallet or meant for home use."
Can I crowd-source my job too?
I have no idea what I am talking about but what if you got a Linux box with 8 sound cards, configured 8 instances of Amarok to play, one on each output, and set up your playlists acccordingly?
12:50 - press return.
it might be possible to use rivendellaudio.org to achieve that, simply hook up the outputs from an audio interface to the matrix mixer..
Bite the bullet and buy a device intended for this use, the Medialon Audio Server. It outputs cobranet directly, is easily integrated into control systems and supports elegant triggering of all sorts. Plays back from SSD drives.
I haven't used it myself, but I've heard nothing but good things about QLab, which is a free download for MacOS/X. You might want to have a look at that.
You might also have a look at Cricket, which is commercial software but not too expensive.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
If you have eight channels... it sounds like at least a semi-serious setup. But if you are using Cobra net, you'll definitely be putting time into troubleshooting and maintaining that kind of a beast. Why not just buy some good new fashioned Airport Express devices to stick into each room, and broadcast the audio through there, maintaining it through iTunes? It would save the value of your time... which you could then for other stuff.
Otherwise, get a Linux box, and stick some PulseAudio on there -- http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio
But you'll have to tinker more, which it sounds like you kinda want to do.
I did AV for a theme park in '99, and have done AV for several themed restaurants since then. When you're talking about putting together a system that's expected to run without a hitch 14 - 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, it's a lot like putting together a server you know will need high availability and reliability. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by getting something mediocre to do the job. The rule of thumb in theme/amusement park AV is to use solid state as much as possible (minimize your downtime to the extreme). My personal gear of choice is Alcorn McBride (alcorn.com). They have an 8 track unit that would to what you need it to do. I've used several of the binloop over the years, and with a near zero issue rate (and what issues I did have were due to a missing firmware update). And as a matter of disclosure, I did become a dealer for them after becoming familiar with their gear on the '99 project.
But this sounds like you might be able to get some good mileage out of Linux + Jack Audio.
So apparently, asking for advice from your peers is not a good thing to do any more?
When it comes to professional show control you really do get what you pay for. this is an integral part of your park, and it will be used by bozos. find a professional show control system and buy it. it'll cost a few thousand, but it will be far less likely to break if someone presses the wrong button.
First off, I've never done this with FOSS... That being said, I'm 100% certain it can be done..
You need to accept a couple of things when planning to do this with FOSS:
Remote management can be done, but will require someone who understands the way you set it up
You will probably be custom scripting when your playlists start (cron?)
Updates will require manual playlist modification (goes back to understanding how you set it up)
For an amusement park, I think this is a bad idea... Not sure how big of an IT/Tech savvy staff this location has, but while they're looking to save a few dollars today, are they considering business continuity if you leave or if something happens to this custom system? are they planning to have regular backups done? are they planning for future expansion? etc...
My personal advice would be to avoid broadcast software (Way overpriced for this).... What would be more reasonable is digital signage software... it's designed to do this with audio and video, but you don't have to use the video portions (of course, consider that a future expansion option)... If you want to stick with linux based, I know ParkMedia has a decent setup... If you're willing to consider other (windows) options check into CoolSign.... Those are just 2 that I've used for similar setups, but there are tons of options in that field, that do what you want to do, with easy user interfaces for changing/moving stuff around, and the ability to remote manage them... Also they tend to work in a client server setup, so you back up the server regularly and if a client machine fails you just replace it.
Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.
http://www.multizoneaudioplayer.com/
Multi Zone Audio Player is not just another media player. It's a music control center for a whole facility or building with many rooms, halls, corridors or another zones. It' a reply for a need in a real application rather than simply a new idea. It's designed to work in professional and commercial environment, not just to entertain one person behind computer. Multi Room Audio Player is designed to play multiple sound tracks into many audio cards (or zones) simultaneously, with music organized into play-lists and/or play-schedules individually for every zone.
With Multi Zone Audio Player, You can:
create as many zones as required, limited only by PC capacity;
assign every zone to a corresponding sound output device;
add tracks to zone playlist, open/save/merge playlists;
full-featured media library and automatic playlist generator;
music library for easy indexing and search through your music collection;
flexible playlist generator with possibility to add advertisements, rotation and jingles;
separate equalizer for every zone;
events scheduler for each zone;
instant jingle hotkeys;
repeat all, repeat one, shuffle options;
drag & drop interface;
customize the windows layout for Your needs and specifics;
control every zone individually or all together at once.
I agree, it sounds like you'd want something a bit more professional than random cobbled together solutions.
That said, machines like the Raspberry Pi (or other small ARM based machines you might actually be able to acquire in quantity) might be one answer.
At least, the ability to output a sound file from an SD card and have an editable playlist is a pretty low entry requirement..
Just buy a dozen extras and swap them out if they die ..
Look at mplayer's network sync (master/slave) implementation to run multiple synced mplayers. I've used this at waterparks.
What are these 8 channels? How closely do they need to be synced up, a tiny fraction of a phase difference of a 44 KHz sine wave like professional audio music mixing, or just synced up close enough that park closing end of day announcements happen "around the same time, plus or minus a couple minutes" on every speaker? The first thing I thought of is 8 NTP time synced machines each running exactly one speaker plus (speaker-1) so when one crashes you cross connect speaker 6 to the Left output of computer 7, or whatever. A huge benefit that when one PC dies, the other 7 will keep working. Explain the benefit of doing all 8 channels off one machine, especially if its going to be all hands off lights out automated anyway.
Another Excellent question is do you need to do live mixing on the fly with dynamic playlists, or are you basically making eight 16 hour mp3s that simply play once per day, every day, all year? The best user interface of all might be 8 ipods each with 16 one hour mp3s. Even the most inept carnie can figure out how to run a ipod.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
My grandparents used to ask me to help them with their (Windows) computer all the time. I got tired of all the support calls so I loaded Linux on their home computer. They haven't called me for support since.
Is that because they can no longer use their computer because you replaced their operating system? Or is it because last time they called you for help you did something so horrible that they learned never to call you for help again? Or is it because Linux is so magical that they no longer need help?
I'd like to be able to direct multiple audio streams to several devices. Such technology might be useful to the original poster as well.
Is there a way to have a half-dozen audio output devices (USB audio devices can be cheap) and configure to which output device the sound from various applications should go? I've only seen interfaces for configuring where to direct all sound from a computer. Background music could go to one device, TV audio to the TV which is displaying the TV stream, system alerts to another speaker. The original poster would need to be able to direct the output from several media player instances to corresponding audio devices.
I think you've covered all the bases.
Give it a look. It ties into shoutcast and can do things on a periodic basis.
Honest question - how does one get into this line of work? I'm a network engineer by trade.
1 linux box with 8 sound cards = 8 separate mp3 playback systems. a bit of PHP to make a web page to control it all and you are done. In fact there are tons of command line or service based mp3 player apps out there for linux that can run multiple instances.
Because you are not going to find anything that is cheap and ready to go. You have to either spend the money, and yes the amusement park has the money to spend on it, contrary to what the managers tell you. Or you spend a couple months rolling it yourself.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Don't forget liability when the s$#! hits the fan and a lost child or evacuation announcement has to be made and the PA override fails. Rolling your own sounds penny wise pound foolish.
This may be of some use to you.
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/11029
Linux eh? Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yeah, within the first question he had it all covered.
It's not "free", but it's not crazy expensive..
and no Paging override, like he mentioned was needed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
subscribe at http://www.ubuntu.com/
Click on the utter n00b button and follow the bouncing ball.
I'm not your peer, fag.
For a Linux solution, I'd use PureData for the audio and triggering, and a M-audio Delta1010 for the 8 outputs.
It will require learning about PureData, but it's a graphical modular, so not that hard. Also, it can run 'headless' and be remote controlled over the internet.
I am always amused at the "i need an open source (read:free) solution" requests by folks who want to use it for their business. This is for an amusement park. I assume the park charges people for admission. They also charge for food, and to play the games, and so on. Yet, this guy doesn't want to pay for a solution to address his audio distribution needs. WTF?
What you are looking at is show control software.
Here is a free one that will do what you are looking for, assuming you have enough audio out channels in Windows.
https://www.audiovisualdevices.com.au/software/multiplay/index.php
I tried to help this guy out, but he flat out refused my proposal. I am totally unappreciated in my time! We can run the whole park from this room, with minimal staff, for up to three days. You think that kind of automation is easy? Or cheap? You know anybody who can network eight Connection Machines and de-bug two million lines of code for what I bid this job? Because I'd sure as hell like to see them try!
I'll have one of whatever this guy had.
You have two parts to your problem. Playing the actual audio files, and controlling when they will be played. There are many, many FOSS solutions for getting audio out of a PC with multitrack cards. Where things get messy is the control interfaces. Its going to be hard to find an interface that will do what you want for your price point. On the other hand, there are plenty of inexpensive (
Check out Richmond Sound Design's offerings. They have a fairly robust audio and show control engine that can handle a large number of channels of both prerecorded and live audio, and can be controlled by a variety of free (as in beer), free (as in speech), and proprietary interfaces, both locally and over the network, along with things like MIDI.
A second option, that may or may not work (it will support the hardware but possibly not the use case) is Show Cue Systems . I've used this one for running lights/video/sound fx for musicals.
To whomever makes the budget decisions: Good Fast Cheap, pick any two. Wishing for cheap and demanding the other two isn't very likely to succeed.
They can have my command prompt when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
No, it's because the first time they logged in, the fortune program kicked out, "Flee at once, all is discovered!" and nobody has seen or heard from them since.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
I'm not your peer, fag.
I'm not your cigarette, ass.
Like I said in a reply to an earlier post, the live 'emergency' paging is actually done in cobranet so only pre-recorded messages are required to play on trigger. So this could be one solution.
Ex-Disney Imagineer here. Dunno why there's even a discussion, Alcorn McBride is the way to go.
I'm not your peer, fag.
I'm not your cigarette, ass.
I'm not your donkey, bum.
Use jack to get the various output devices into a single interface (I'm assuming this "myriad" has windows or Linux drivers) and then use any old sequencer to manage the play lists and announcements. You may find netjack can handle the distribution for you as well.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds -- Albert Einstein
since you're looking for general reliability and low cost.
Cobra net handles the paging and messages, you're simply looking for an 8 channel playback machine.... if this is the case...
Use 4/6/8 separate sources, as many streams as you can run at a time on your hardware reliably.
pick up a pile of the smallest usb equipped machines you can
install a slim linux distro
install ssh, sox, no webserver or x needed.
pickup $3 usb sound cards.
run the reset buttons out of the boxes.
script them all to use timed crons to start/stop sox.
remote into them modify via ssh/sftp, script for changes to "all"
In any case, simply separating the "emergency messages" from the computer is a GOOD idea if you're rolling your own, you dont want anything on your conscience.
there is inevitably a "mic in" jack on the head somewhere that needs to be made use of, and tap the music in on its own, separate input.
Have you looked at the IED GLOBALCOM 1100ACS-32? It's a 1 RU box designed for this purpose, with recorded announcement capabilities (250 hours storage, 8 channels of simultaneous playback) and a CobraNet interface. Here's a cut sheet:
http://downloads.iedaudio.com/1100ACS-32-1200ACS-32_Product_Description_1201A.pdf
Don't forget the rounded corners!
I'm not your peer, fag.
I'm not your cigarette, ass.
I'm not your donkey, bum.
I'm not your butt, pussy.
You should be looking at show control systems. I would suggest SoundMan server. Interface to CobraNet can be achieved with card from AudioScience. A nice bundle of the two is sold by Richmond Sound Design
Paging override can be done simply enough at the output end with amplifiers that have an input override. This is not limited to particularly expensive amplifiers -- the one I use every day has this ability and cost less than $100. Certainly they're going to want more than 50W/channel (except perhaps where the speakers are more or less right next to the people), but the point is that this provision exists in a lot of off-the-shelf equipment and its primary purpose is to provide a paging override in commercial installations.
The one glitch is that it requires a certain level to activate the relay to switch inputs, meaning that it can clip a fraction of a second. The easy fix is to have the paging system send a slight DC bias (or a short tone, which you know will be dropped at the output due to the relay lag) whenever the Talk button is pressed. That way the relays on the amplifiers will switch inputs BEFORE the person doing the paging starts talking. The same glitch means that the paging system does have to have low noise levels when NOT active, or the relays will stick on the Paging side, or (worse yet) bounce frequently between the two states.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
you'll need 8 Barix Exstreamers and one Barix Instreamer to do this. Each can play songs from USB stick (or URL) or the Instreamer. The Instreamer can play the park wide announcements, and be set as the priority stream out in each Exstreamer, overriding the normal playout. Added feature, you can control each unit via internet.
Check out Alcorn McBride:
These two seem to be what you're looking for.
http://www.alcorn.com/products/8traxxE/
http://www.alcorn.com/products/ProTraxx/
I run a commercial radio station off of Rivendell Project. It is incredibly versatile and can be run off of old equipment (or even virtualized if you want to go that route), and best of all, FOSS: http://www.rivendellaudio.org/