Sound for Museum Dioramas

bdg wrote on 4/28/2009, 2:24 PM

The sort of thing that when you walk by the Diorama the music/SFX/commentary starts up and tells you what your looking at.
Has anyone had any experience with this?
Any suggestions on how to do it?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/28/2009, 3:01 PM

Making it start & stop automatically? That's up to whatever audio playback hardware is installed in the display. It's nothing to do with the software that produces it. I'm sure there are off-the-shelf motion/proximity sensors that can trigger playback.

As far as how to create the audio file in Vegas/SoundForge/ACID? I don't see how it would be different from any other audio production. Make something that sounds nice and presents the information. I think the music should be very quiet, bland, and ignorable, otherwise people will have a hard time listening when several of them are playing back all at once. We humans have a good ability to pull out a single voice out of many and pay attention to it. Our ability to do so with music is much more limited.

gpsmikey wrote on 4/28/2009, 3:25 PM

Seems to me someone (Thomas Edison?) experimented with that many years ago - creating a chair that would talk to people when they sat down. Scared the bejeebers out of people !!

mikey

Former user wrote on 4/28/2009, 3:35 PM

A guy I work with is experimenting with this new speaker that you only hear if you are directly in line front of it. That way you can have zones in a museum without suffering crosstalk from other exhibits. It apparenlty works by moving the air rather than a diaphragm. Pretty neat piece of equipment.

If you need the name of it, I can find out. It is for a similar application, we will have a sensor that detects when someone is in the area and will turn on.

Dave T2

richard-courtney wrote on 4/28/2009, 6:16 PM

Pioneer DVD-V7400 is one of many DVD players that can be triggered from
a contact closure to play a specific track. Simple motion detectors used by alarm
companies will provide a contact closure. The DB15 connector on the player
is where you connect it.

LarryP wrote on 4/28/2009, 7:13 PM

Check out:

http://www.museumtools.com/products/products.htm

Larry

richard-courtney wrote on 4/29/2009, 6:16 AM

Great find LarryP. The Secret Sound reminds me of a scene from
the TV show "Get Smart".

Houston Haynes wrote on 4/29/2009, 10:40 AM

You can use an RL circuit (like in a theremin instrument) or optical sensor as a trigger - several DIY projects around that in MI mags.

It would be interesting to use a MIDI trigger and an environment like Plogue Bidule to handle start/stop/fades that way... Hmmm...

[yes - I'm a poster child/adult for ADD]

bdg wrote on 4/29/2009, 7:28 PM

Thanks Guys, good input. Got some ideas now!

kkolbo wrote on 4/30/2009, 7:02 AM

I spent years as the senior producer for a company that built theme parks and museums with systems and media content as you have described.. If you want to contact me off line you can. kkolbo(at)amediaprof(dot)com