Church bell app?

[Kay C Lan]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 9:13 PM, Dr. Hawkins <dochawk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It plays from a selection of pre-recorded music (and I think it can add
> more).
>
> The very simple solutions won't work; it needs to, for example, go off
> every day at 6.
>
Used early model MacMini via eBay - $50-$100

Used AKAI LPK25 Midi Controller Interface Keyboard via eBay = $30

Garageband - Free.

Start it up, select a 'Keyboard' project, from there you can select
'Mallets' which include both Aurora and Church Bells.

Have some talented person play away to their hearts content - should
be able to record several thousand hours of continuous music on an
average old Mac HD.

Save best renditions from Garageband to mp3

Start iCal (if your unlucky and have a new Mac it might have Calendar
installed in which case UPGRADE it by installing an earlier version of
OS X like Snow Leopard that comes with the much more useful iCal) and
create an Event 'Ring Church Bells' at 6:15 and have it repeat every
day*. Set it's alarm to 15** mins before and have it "Open file"
selecting the church bell mp3 file of your choice***.

If possible plug the headphone jack straight into the amp Aux inputs -
need a 3.5mm to RCA adapter cable. A couple of dollars at RadioShack.
If this isn't possible, a 1st generation Airport Express with AirPlay
(eBay <$40) will allow you to wirelessly stream the music from the Mac
to the Amplifier.

If power consumption is a problem a basic home timer could be set to
turn the amp on from 5:45 to 6:15.

* Obviously you are not limited to a once a day event. You can create
alarms for every hour, 1/2 hour, or whatever.

** You will need to set the Mac to start and autostart iTunes each day
at 5:55 and make sure the Mac is not set to go to sleep inside 15min
of inactivity, otherwise, if iTunes isn't already running there will
be a noticeable delay waiting for iTunes to start or the computer to
wake up.

*** You could create 7 different events, one for each day, repeated
weekly, and choose a different mp3 file for each day of the week. You
could create special alarms for specific holidays and seasons and play
specific files appropriate for those events.

Discounting the time spent in bidding wars on eBay, it should take
about an hour to set up.