Need help with a sound effect trigger

bobgaggle

Well-Known Member
Hi all, usually I'm over in the scenery forum but I've got a new problem.

I'm building a football toss game for a trade show, like a carnival midway game, throw the nerf football through the hole in the plywood, get a prize. Client now wants a cheering sound effect when you get the ball through the hole. Help me brain storm this one please.

I think I need:
- switch
- audio player that's intended for this sort of application
-media storage (if the player doesn't have storage)
-sound effect
-amp?
-speaker

Not sure about the trouble I'll run into trying to build this myself. Simple circuit, but I've never done something like this

Or, do you know somebody that wants to build this for me? We've got some money for this one.

Edit: @Tower of Terror Theater did something like this I think. tried to find the post but didn't have any luck. Didn't know if he used a company to build it
 
Gilderfluke has a bunch of devices with all of those functions wrapped into one or two, easy to use packages. https://gilderfluke.com/product/sd-50-0/

1666030970467.png
 
Hi all, usually I'm over in the scenery forum but I've got a new problem.

I'm building a football toss game for a trade show, like a carnival midway game, throw the nerf football through the hole in the plywood, get a prize. Client now wants a cheering sound effect when you get the ball through the hole. Help me brain storm this one please.

I think I need:
- switch
- audio player that's intended for this sort of application
-media storage (if the player doesn't have storage)
-sound effect
-amp?
-speaker

Not sure about the trouble I'll run into trying to build this myself. Simple circuit, but I've never done something like this

Or, do you know somebody that wants to build this for me? We've got some money for this one.

Edit: @Tower of Terror Theater did something like this I think. tried to find the post but didn't have any luck. Didn't know if he used a company to build it
If your pockets are sufficiently deep, phone Alcorn McBride & talk it through with them. They're GREAT to deal with. Good enough for Disney and their phone skills are akin to ETC's.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I've had success using ESP8266 dev boards to trigger (or be triggered) to/from QLab. It'd be a fairly simple task to configure a switch, be it IR or mechanical, to trigger when the ball passes the goal and then fire off an OSC statement to play the desired sound effect. Outside of that, I'm sure you could get a Raspberry Pi to playback audio from a switch attached to the GPIO and then get a cheapo class D amp board off eBay to drive the speakers. That might be a more all-in-one solution.
 
I've had success using ESP8266 dev boards to trigger (or be triggered) to/from QLab. It'd be a fairly simple task to configure a switch, be it IR or mechanical, to trigger when the ball passes the goal and then fire off an OSC statement to play the desired sound effect. Outside of that, I'm sure you could get a Raspberry Pi to playback audio from a switch attached to the GPIO and then get a cheapo class D amp board off eBay to drive the speakers. That might be a more all-in-one solution.
Only problem with that is Raspi's are worth their weight in gold now.
 
Are you watching them make it everytime. Go old school and just have a cheering button.

This will save you a ton of headache.
 
About the lowest tech/cheap thing I can think of is to use an RDL FP-MR2 - simple GPI input triggers a pre-recorded message up to 100 seconds. The hold-up is if you need the sound to restart if someone is scoring rapid-fire goals. I am not sure if this unit needs to play-out its annouce or if it will keep triggering the FX from the top.

From there I'd toss the signal into something tiny like the RDL ST-PA6 or RDL ST-PA18 and then grab some cheap full-range drivers and mount them where you need them.
 
Gilderfluke makes some really good hardware and has excellent support, but it costs like you'd expect.

For a more economical option, I'd probably be looking at a BooTunes Amped from Fright Ideas. 4 digital inputs to trigger 4 sound effects, built in amplifier, SD card media storage. Can be configured to handle multiple triggers however you like. Decent price point. Okayish documentation.
 
Adafruit has a one and done solution if 2x2W of audio power is enough.

Or if you need more audio power, this one and a boom box with aux in,

I think this is the one I used in the Black Butler’s music box, (edit, it was the 2341 with 16Mb storage)

Another edit. This is the amp I used in the music box,

It all runs on a USB battery bank and uses speakers I liberated from a set of PC speakers from the thrift store.

The music box,
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Michael
 
Last edited:
I did use a motor. I don’t remember all of the details but am pretty sure the motor’s output drives the base of a transistor that is connected to a 555 timer for a bit of debounce. The 555 either drives the sound chip directly or through another transistor.

Michael
 
If you are interested in building yourself you may want to check out Arduino and Teensy microcontrollers. You can do a lot with those micros and last time I bought a Teensy it was fairly inexpensive - maybe 30 bucks. Some of them have SD card storage options for wave file storage, and audio output option (with 1/8" jack) so you could play sounds on trigger of a switch - or you may also want to trigger another sound playback device and use 2 pins on the micro's output (additional components may be required there like an analog switch IC, a FET or relay equivalent).

Check out PJRC.com for more info about Teensy controllers, audio boards, proto boards, etc. Another site to check out is Adafruit.com, they have a lot of different stuff for prototyping including switches
 
Thanks for the ideas everybody. I ended up getting the guys over at Proof Productions to build a playback system for us. Didn't have time to design/build/troubleshoot it myself. Ended up working really well.
 

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