# Audio set up for outdoor haunt?



## Ugly Joe (Jan 13, 2004)

I have rigged up a couple of Grecian or Roman style flower pots with 6" speakers (Radio Shack, my good man) mounted in the bottoms.

I have a quarter inch lift or so to each one, to allow the sound to come out without muffling, and keep them placed near the path where the TOT's come in - they're capable of some pretty intense sound when needed, and with the speakers pointing towards the ground, the sound is dispersed more uniformly, making the source of the sounds and music harder to pinpoint.

I don't have a decent digital camera for pictures to show, but you can find the planters at any OSH or Walmart for about $5-$10 dollars, they're about 7 or 8 inches across at the base, which tapers in and then out for the planter, which is about 12-15 inches across - each of the speakers from Radio Shack was $10 bucks, but they're great - I keep them in my garage all year long for my listening enjoyment.

Lots and lots of brown speaker wire - brown hides well.

*EYYYyyye..ain't go noooboodeee...and no one cares..for..me. a-ya-ta-ta-taa, ta-tatatata...* - _I-gor / Marty Feldman_


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## Partiers.com (Sep 28, 2002)

How about using a digital sound board or digital audio repeater instead of the tape deck? Has anybody ever had success with those...if so, which one?

Just need an idea on what kind of speakers (for outdoors), speaker wire, receiver and tape deck/digital device others are using for their outdoor haunts...

Thanks.


HauntedSummitviewDrive.com
New Castle, PA USA


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## dazco (Oct 1, 2003)

We have 4 tracks of sound including the voices for 2 talking skulls. I use a computer and could never go back to tapes ! If you have a PC you can use it to play back 2 tracks and have it loop endlessly, or get a multi output soundcard and software like cool edit or some other multi track software and you can have as many seperate tracks as the card allows. of course you do need an amplifier for each channel. Nothing beats the endless possibilities using a PC tho.

Our haunt.... http://home.earthlink.net/~dhinds7/


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## devilsfan (Aug 17, 2004)

We use our house speakers. 2 in the front windows (we keep the windows open), 2 upstairs, and we'll throw one in the front bushes this time. We have all wiring from our CD player downstairs....wires run all over the house, but heck, it's only one night.  We also have a CD set on repeat for one track that we found to be most effective...you can hear it from the end of the block.

Stacy

See my Halloween 2003 pics at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/wooki...pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/wookie_mouse/my_photos


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## DanteofDoom2 (Aug 20, 2004)

i blast music from my moms car

Good bad im the guy with the gun-Army of darkness


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## The Crow 1994 (Sep 18, 2003)

On Halloween, we place two speakers in the front kitchen windows. They are normally our surround speakers in our home theater set up, but we left enough extra speaker wire to be able to move the speakers around, if necessary. Then, all we have to do is move the speaker connectors on the back of the A/V receiver from the "A" to "B" positions and press the "B" button on the front of the receiver.

Cole


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## SKYPP (Aug 26, 2004)

I move my stereo system near the roof windows. I put the speakers outside on the roof (single level home) and play my soundtrack from that - the soundtrack leaves the right speaker to the music, and both Left and right speakers for thunder. 

I have a lightning machine hooked up to the left speaker to catch the thunder noise (to give me lightning from strobe and high intensity light).

In my graveyard, I have a cd player on repeat. That CD player has ambiet sounds (whispers, etc...).

In our hidden garden (off the main pathway to the front door) is ANOTHER cd player that has a woman crying every so often.

Under our deck (because it looks like a "caged" area) is another CD player hooked up to LED eyes that come on while the dialog says "Help Me.... get me out of here... I'll give you things you've never DREAMED of having....".

There are other CD players hidden around the yard. They go off with different things every so often. If you stand in on place, you'd swear there were things in our bushes, but because the sounds are faint, you're not too sure you're actually hearing them.

It all works pretty well... until it rains.  Thankfully, I live in California!


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## ravenmanor (Sep 1, 2004)

CD's are great- burn your own custom CDR and you can use shuffle and repeat to solve the loop problem.


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## JeT (Jul 21, 2011)

If you have a laptop then use the output for your speakers to the aux of your stereo
adjust accordingly for levels. For outdoor speakers Wally world has speakers that looks like a rock that you could use or as suggested go to radio shack. If you want top notch sound then get an audio mixer and run your audio from your computer to it mix it the way you want like adding Bass,Treble etc. You can find a cheap mixer for around $300.00 from a company called Behringer. Good luck hope this helps


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## montclairguy (Sep 21, 2006)

I currently use battery operated MP3 players, hooked up to speakers at each display (I have several). While this works much, much better than a CD or tape player (tapes break, CDs skip or players overheat or get too cold), I've been toying with the idea of replacing all of it with wireless speakers, multiple USB audio devices, software and a PC. I run my haunt multiple nights, so going out to replace several batteries in the MP3 players is getting old. I'd rather have it all centralized.

To that end, you can get cheap USB audio "cards" for about $3 each, and plug them into a USB hub (< $10), then connect that to your PC. Instead of using wires to get the sound to the speakers, you could use either FM transmitters to radios at the displays, or wireless speakers (which come with their own 2.4ghz or FM transmitters). Using multitrack software which will output different tracks to each sound card, you can have a bunch of tracks running simultaneously to multiple sound devices, all from one PC located nicely inside the house away from the elements.

The expensive part of the equation would be the wireless outdoor speakers, and their performance is sketchy on some models. If you can run the wires, then I think this type of setup would be ideal, management and performance wise.

Just depends on how pro you want to go, and what your budget is.


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## meltdown211 (Sep 27, 2006)

Here is my suggestion. Go to a Salvation Army store, search for a stereo reciever and CD player, something you would find in a home surround sound. Check Craigslist for an inexpensive "Sub Woofer" you can find whole inexpensive setups for surround sound on Craigslist also... The key is a good sub woofer...it creates massive bass which will scare the hell out of people. Now, I am not talking bass in a "song" or for music, it for the low tones from dark ambiant music that really make people stop (or go around your home all together)

Just like in every horror movie ever made, if you turn the sound off..its just not that scary, turn the sound UP...and the fear goes up dramatically....get a sub woofer with your speakers and you will bring um in for miles...


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## montclairguy (Sep 21, 2006)

..........


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## TJN66 (Oct 7, 2011)

I have a small boom box that I can move the speakers around. I burned a couple cd's to play so I can have the kind of music/sound that I want. We do have a great system in the house but I dont want to have to move the speakers...I dont have enough wire lol! Its our first year haunting at home so this is our test year to see how things go.


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## Abunai (Jan 28, 2008)

I use "SoundMill" software on a laptop. It was $35 for the basic version that can be set up to loop different .mp3 files in several different "zones".
I bought a 10 port USB hub and 10 USB sound adapters for cheap off of Amazon or Ebay...can't remember which. Plugging it into the laptop creates a laptop with 10 sound cards.
I bought several 50ft 3.5 mm cables from "monoprice.com" (again, cheap) to run to several different sets of amplified computer speakers that I found on Craigslist.
I got some black, plastic tubs from Walmart (cheap....are you sensing a theme yet?) and I use them to cover the speakers overnight and in bad weather.
It takes just a little bit of tech savy to set up, but it works really well.


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