need help on audio system for gallery installation

[woggle]

I am installing sound for an art installation in a gallery. The gallery have no sound system and have asked me to propose a system for both this piece and potentially other artist works. It has to be able to travel and be turned on / off /maintained by gallery staff and possibly even volunteeer staff.
At the moment I am thinking of the following
1. the small ADAM speakers or similar
2. Focusrite USB interface
3. INTEL nuc7i3bnh as the PC (do the audio easily plus good for video)
4. Reaper as the audio software (allows for playback/eq/spatialisation)
5. TEAMVIEWER for remote desktop control for both me and gallery staff

any thoughts / help will be much appreciated

note this hits the budget - more expensive solutions are not an option

[BertKoor]

Raspberry Pi, simple active speakers on stands. 30 watts is enough.

Adams are overkill, pearls for swines. In some shops I hear more than half-decent playback systems, turns out to be ceiling-mounted Sonos.

[woggle]

Raspberry Pi, simple active speakers on stands. 30 watts is enough.

Adams are overkill, pearls for swines. In some shops I hear more than half-decent playback systems, turns out to be ceiling-mounted Sonos.

Thanks for your suggestion BertKoor
can't see how raspberry Pi is going to cut it - I am happy to go that way but which system can drive a focusrite interface or be accessed remotely by people who are not at all tech savvy? Stands are not possible - too obtrusive in the context. Sonos are actually not too bad but no guarantee of wifi in the various spaces. ADAMs are fine, the little ones are not too expensive

[whyterabbyt]

Thanks for your suggestion BertKoor
can't see how raspberry Pi is going to cut it - I am happy to go that way but which system can drive a focusrite interface or be accessed remotely by people who are not at all tech savvy?

Why does it need to drive a focusrite interface? What 'remote access' does there need to be?

We only ever need to use PCs for multichannel audio installations that required synchronised looping between the channels. For stereo we use media players or ipods.

[woggle]

Thanks for your suggestion BertKoor
can't see how raspberry Pi is going to cut it - I am happy to go that way but which system can drive a focusrite interface or be accessed remotely by people who are not at all tech savvy?

Why does it need to drive a focusrite interface? What 'remote access' does there need to be?

We only ever need to use PCs for multichannel audio installations that required synchronised looping between the channels. For stereo we use media players or ipods.

Thanks,
I am happy to hear suggestions. Maybe just a computeron a stick would do - I really dont know. To give a bit more detail - the system needs to address at least 4 speakers that will be placed in a range of spaces so the signal to each speaker will possibly need tweaking in terms of spatialisation, volume and eq. Hence Reaper on a small PC going to a focusrite USB interface. Focusrite have been reliable for me and others but I dont have shares in the company so if anything better turns up I will get that.
If the system software breaks down it will need to be fixed / rebooted. Possibly by people who are not that computer literate. Within the installation there will be no keyboard or monitor so I was trying to avoid people having to break out a bunch of other gear and plug it in to get things working again. Hence the remote desktop - but that might be overkill although it is used in galleries here so it is that advice I am following.

Thre is no sync-ing of loops etc - just a multichannel file (maybe that is what you meant?) or multiple tracks - but flexibility for the future would be good - eg handle video and different audio configurations

[whyterabbyt]

I am happy to hear suggestions. Maybe just a computeron a stick would do - I really dont know. To give a bit more detail - the system needs to address at least 4 speakers that will be placed in a range of spaces so the signal to each speaker will possibly need tweaking in terms of spatialisation, volume and eq. Hence Reaper on a small PC going to a focusrite USB interface. Focusrite have been reliable for me and others but I dont have shares in the company so if anything better turns up I will get that.

Okay, so it is multichannel.

We've had people who have decided to use a DAW for playback, but it requires a lot more intervention to get things up and running. Especially when they dont particularly know the DAW or how to configure it in the first place. (Im not that happy when people who have rejected the supported solutionwe offer, then expect us to 'fix' the system they used instead.)

In preference, I use a MAX/MSP patch for playback, which can be set to launch automatically and starts playing when the system boots. It also gives me the ability to customise the way the audio gets retriggered or looped (from all channels being synced as a single loop to all channels looping independently to all channels being triggered by sensors on an arduino.
Personally, in your case I would bake EQ etc into the audiofiles as well; nothing to have to redo.

We dont specifically use RasPis for any of this yet, but at some point I'll be going down that route (Pi Zero W + PhatDAC + wifi) to see if we can put together a more discrete 'cableless' multichannel solution.

If the system software breaks down it will need to be fixed / rebooted. Possibly by people who are not that computer literate.

With media players (or a properly configured pi) rebooting would just be a power cycle, then it'd start playback without any intervention. The MAX patch I use is built so it works the same way.

Thre is no sync-ing of loops etc - just a multichannel file - but flexibiity for the future would be good - eg handle video and different audio configurations

For video installations we pretty much go with a single media player per screen. I do know of someone using a Pi solution (PiWall?) a year or so ago; anecdotally it worked out a lot better than the multi-thousand-pound commercial solution someone else used.

[woggle]

I am happy to hear suggestions. Maybe just a computeron a stick would do - I really dont know. To give a bit more detail - the system needs to address at least 4 speakers that will be placed in a range of spaces so the signal to each speaker will possibly need tweaking in terms of spatialisation, volume and eq. Hence Reaper on a small PC going to a focusrite USB interface. Focusrite have been reliable for me and others but I dont have shares in the company so if anything better turns up I will get that.

Okay, so it is multichannel.

We've had people who have decided to use a DAW for playback, but it requires a lot more intervention to get things up and running. Especially when they dont particularly know the DAW or how to configure it in the first place. (Im not that happy when people who have rejected the supported solutionwe offer, then expect us to 'fix' the system they used instead.)

In preference, I use a MAX/MSP patch for playback, which can be set to launch automatically and starts playing when the system boots. It also gives me the ability to customise the way the audio gets retriggered or looped (from all channels being synced as a single loop to all channels looping independently to all channels being triggered by sensors on an arduino.
Personally, in your case I would bake EQ etc into the audiofiles as well; nothing to have to redo.

We dont specifically use RasPis for any of this yet, but at some point I'll be going down that route (Pi Zero W + PhatDAC + wifi) to see if we can put together a more discrete 'cableless' multichannel solution.

If the system software breaks down it will need to be fixed / rebooted. Possibly by people who are not that computer literate.

With media players (or a properly configured pi) rebooting would just be a power cycle, then it'd start playback without any intervention. The MAX patch I use is built so it works the same way.

Thre is no sync-ing of loops etc - just a multichannel file - but flexibiity for the future would be good - eg handle video and different audio configurations

For video installations we pretty much go with a single media player per screen. I do know of someone using a Pi solution (PiWall?) a year or so ago; anecdotally it worked out a lot better than the multi-thousand-pound commercial solution someone else used.

thanks again - it probably is possible to get Reaper to just start playing on boot - I will check that out

which media player are you using?

and EQ will be space dependent, rooms can vary enormously from a small concrete box to a large hall

[whyterabbyt]

which media player are you using?

Just generic HDMI-capable boxes. Not sure of the brand, kinda like these

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VonHaus-Media- ... B005ERNITE

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-Cycl ... B0052X04MO

[woggle]

which media player are you using?

Just generic HDMI-capable boxes. Not sure of the brand, kinda like these

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VonHaus-Media- ... B005ERNITE

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sumvision-Cycl ... B0052X04MO

Thanks - I have never used something like that. And incredibly cheap. How would you play a multichannel audio file through that to 4 speakers like the ADAMs?

[oh I just remembered we had trouble with media player system at a show in Utrecht where none of the gallery media players could handle the video aspect ratio ]

[whyterabbyt]

Thanks - I have never used something like that. And incredibly cheap. How would you play a multichannel audio file through that to 4 speakers like the ADAMs?

If there's any synchronisation required, we wouldnt use them, we'd use a PC and the MAX patch I mentioned. If synchronisation isnt required though, we'd just use one per speaker/speaker pair.

If loose sync with some minimal drift is acceptable, we often 'hard loop' the pieces with multiple copies sequentially in a single audio file. So if its five-minute audio loop, we'd maybe have 12 copies in a row in the file, and the file looping once an hour.
We sometimes do this for video as well.

[woggle]

Thanks - I have never used something like that. And incredibly cheap. How would you play a multichannel audio file through that to 4 speakers like the ADAMs?

If there's any synchronisation required, we wouldnt use them, we'd use a PC and the MAX patch I mentioned. If synchronisation isnt required though, we'd just use one per speaker/speaker pair.

If loose sync with some minimal drift is acceptable, we often 'hard loop' the pieces with multiple copies sequentially in a single audio file. So if its five-minute audio loop, we'd maybe have 12 copies in a row in the file, and the file looping once an hour.
We sometimes do this for video as well.

thanks so much again - I have been out of this sort of scene for so longthe last time I used loosely synced loops in an installation was with cassette loops in the 80s! That (independent media players not cassettes) could be a good solution - I will think that through some more

oh, - I checked and it is relatively easy to boot in to Reaper playing a project file automatically, which might be useful for some others to know

[woggle]

I was sent this today from someone who works with a colleague

http://www.waveplayer.de/

He has recommended it to quite a few people and it has been successful so far

[whyterabbyt]

Interesting. Probably not something we could afford (art college = nae funds and lots of simultaneous installations at degree show time) , but useful to know about.

[Tj Shredder]

Seems less expensive than the OP suggestion, much less hassle. But in general I would go for a more flexible set as whyterabbyt sugested, via Max/MSP or Pd, unless the artists are not capable of doing more interesting stuff than playing back sound files.
For me the term "sound installation" is not justified if you just play back sound files. Intractivity or at least some never repeating sounds are what would be so much more interesting, especially for the stuff which has to listen to it all day long...

[woggle]

Interesting. Probably not something we could afford (art college = nae funds and lots of simultaneous installations at degree show time) , but useful to know about.

I am still thinking PC but will have a budget talk on Monday which may change things Am thinking of a 4 channel work at the moment, stereo front and back , so that I can have ominous/threatening sounds appear from behind. Am contemplating getting a kangaroo carcass and recording hacking it up and burning it. Which is what happened to the Aboriginal people in the massacre the show commemorates. It is a pretty horrific event - women and little children herded into a cattle yard and then told if they could run through a gate they would be free. At the gate a bunch of white men hacked them to death with swords (more fun, saves on bullets) and then burnt the bodies. Burning the bodies s in itself an horrific action. We have forensic archaeological evidence from another massacre site of people spending days tending fires of the remains of people they butchered. Imagine doing that, poking that little kiddies severed hand back in, ooh that heads rolled out', kick it back in etc etc - absolute monsters!