Church bell app?

Kay C Lan lan.kc.macmail at gmail.com
Sat Aug 23 23:14:42 EDT 2014


On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 2:59 AM, Dr. Hawkins <dochawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anyway, I agree:  we want something to do once and be done.
>
> Once we record the bells, would an iOS device (ipod touch, iphone, ipad) be
> able to do the same thing?  Leave it permanently plugged to power and the
> adaptors?

iOS devices all come with the Clock app. When you select Alarm, and
create an Alarm you get to choose the sound, above the top of the list
of inbuilt sounds is 'Choose a Song' which will let you pick something
from your iTunes library. Again you can set up multiple repeating
alarms (or one off) alarms and have each of them play a different
song.

WHAT I DO NOT KNOW in this case is when left unattended, will it play
the song all the way to the end, will it enter snooze mode, if no one
does anything will it start again 5 min later? With iCal on a Mac it
can be set to play the music file and that was it, no snooze, nothing.

But the thing is, it's so easy to test. Go to Radio Shack, grab a
3.5mm to RCA adapter cable ( a couple of bucks) and plug your iPhone
into  your home stereo (if you don't want to test it on the church
system) and give it a test run. The youth in our church plug their
iPod/iPhones into our PA system all the time for dances, so really the
only thing you'll be testing is can you get it to play a song at a
specific time, the whole song, and not have some snooze feature that
keeps bugging you that you haven't responded to the original alarm.

As for theft, in our church audio visual cabinet are 3 Satellite
receivers, a mixer, an equalizer, several power amplifiers, an input
selector, a dvd recorder/player, a media player (SD card, HD,
Internet) and probably some other bits and pieces I can't think of
right now as I'm not standing in front of it. The cabinet, and room
that it sits in is normally locked and is only opened when someone
signs out the keys so they can plug their iPod into the Aux cable (I
bought the adapter cable and plugged it in years ago, so the 3.5mm end
is just sitting there, they plug their iPod in and change the input
selector to Aux, fiddle with the volume on their iPod and the Master
Volume of the PA system until they get it just right). If there
happened to be another iDevice already in there, then it would be
mounted on one of those security cables they use at the Apple Store
making it just as easy to take as any other device in the cabinet.

Given the price differential, I'd certainly give it a test drive.
Also, the beauty of such a system would be when ever you decided you
wanted to change the songs, add some different ones, create some
special alarms, etc etc, you can guarantee that some teenager in the
congregation could do it all blind folded.  With the system that is
proposed, I guarantee that once set up (probably all by the company
themselves) that should there be any changes required someone is going
to have to find the manual, read the manual, spend hours trying to get
the system to do what the manual says should happen, and then in
frustration call the manufacturer and pay for someone to come out and
make the changes. And as for longevity and cost to maintain, I reckon
I could ask our congregation on a yearly basis if anyone had an old
iDevice they could donate to replace the broken 'bell ringer' and I'd
get a positive response; but of course it wont need replacing every
year.

Actually my biggest concern would be fire. Lithium batteries in modern
devices are all ticking time bombs, and the older they get the faster
they tick. If it were me I'd crack the case open, remove the battery
and just have it plugged in permanently. The other fire problem you
have is that you'd still not want to have the entire system powered up
24/7, you still need some way of turning all the amps On 5--10 min
before you need them and turned Off 5-10min after you've finished. If
you used an old Mac, a product like this would be useful:

http://www.pwrusb.com/powerUSB-digitaI0.html

Many modern audio components have a 12V trigger input that allows you
to control if remotely; typically change between Standby and On modes.
Those devices that don't have such a feature can be turned Off and On
using the regular power sockets on PowerUSB. So with an old MacMini
permanently plugged in with a USB connection to a PowerUSB power strip
you could schedule it to turn On 10 min before your alarm was needed,
doing so could turn On 2 devices via the 12V trigger outlet of the
PowerUSB and 4 devices plugged into the normal A/C outlets of the
PowerUSB. iCal could play the bells at the appropriate time, 10 min
after it's all over, the MacMini could be scheduled to turn Off at
which point the PowerUSB would also turn Off the 4 A/C outlets and
turn the two 12 V trigger devices to Standby Mode.

If you just went with an iDevice, the other product:

http://www.pwrusb.com/powerUSB-smart.html

would be helpful but it doesn't have the additional 12 V trigger
outlets so you could only control 4 devices - although that's not
quite true depending on the equipment. My own pre-amp has on the back
a switched A/C outlet and a 12V trigger Out, so when I turn it On it
automatically turns On an Equalizer plugged into the Switched A/C
outlet, and the Power Amp which has it's 12V trigger In connected to
the Pre Amps 12V trigger Out.




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