Hi all this is my first post in this forum 

I am putting together an art installation that requires around 20 small speakers to play a 3 minute loop of a poem in different languages, each speaker to play a language simultaneously with another 40 to play the poem in the background.

I can set this all up on a timeline in an application on my laptop but other then that I am totally stuck on how I can control the speakers

Any suggestions would be great

Thanks

Panning?

karlc wrote:

Hi all this is my first post in this forum  I am putting together an art installation that requires around 20 small speakers to play a 3 minute loop of a poem in different languages, each speaker to play a language simultaneously with another 40 to play the poem in the background. I can set this all up on a timeline in an application on my laptop but other then that I am totally stuck on how I can control the speakers Any suggestions would be great Thanks

Not sure I'm following you here.

If you plug all the speakers into the same circuit they will play simultaneously.
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Recording Studio Suntans

Thanks for responses

AC, this will work for the background but then I will need to have 20 speakers reading out the poem individually in different languages

The only way I can see this working on my budget is to get a load of MP3 players and try to coordinate it, its not ideal but its one solution I guess

karlc wrote:

Thanks for responses AC, this will work for the background but then I will need to have 20 speakers reading out the poem individually in different languages The only way I can see this working on my budget is to get a load of MP3 players and try to coordinate it, its not ideal but its one solution I guess

Ah ok, different languages, now I see.

Well, if you have a mutlitrack workstation, something like Pro-tools or Soundscape and put one language on each track you can send one track to one individual output.

You then have one active loudspeaker connected to each output, thus playing its own content.

SoundScape will easily run 48 outputs, possibly you could hire a system for the event?

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Recording Studio Suntans

so you just need to have an audio device that will give individual outputs to each speaker.

Hi all

sorry for not getting back till now, yes uncle_jerr that's it

As AC said but then I need to be able to output, what do you suggest?

Hi there,

You're project in its mechanics are similar to something I am doing -


If you are using your computer's sound card as your playback device you can only split the signal between two speakers.

I use Cubase LE as my software and a Presonus Firepod as my interface/playback device.

In the software there is a control called 'VST outputs' - these can be used as 4 stereo outputs or as 8 mono outputs - you can route individual mono tracks to each output or you can send one side of a stereo track to each output...

The firepod (and other such devices, such as the MOTU 828 MkII) only has eight such outputs - for what you are suggesting you would need three devices daisy chained.

For the speakers playing all the same signal maybe you need modular speakers or lots and lots of amps with lots and lots of outputs.

I don't know much about multitrack tape machines but I think you can get those with 24 inputs and outputs - these can be daisy chained as well - It might be a less expensive solution if you can pick up some second hand tapemachines and put all your tracks on there instead-

I hope this is helpful -

Nelly you are a start...thanks

I am meeting a sound engineer this week to go over some possibilities and see will present your suggestions to see if we can do this.

Thanks again and good luck with your project.