Thread: How To Get Music Outdoors?

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I'm having a Harry Potter halloween this year and was just thinking about the moments when people first approach our house. We don't have a long drive, but we do have a front garden so I'm going to put up a 9 3/4 sign on the hedge, chalk train tracks on the paving and fingers crossed, have a little luggage trolley/suitcases/hedwig prop set up on the grass.

Now what I'd also like is to have the hogwarts theme playing as well, but I'm not sure how to get music playing outdoors. My obvious thought was using the dock I have for my iphone but that's got several issues:

1. I need my phone

2. Theft!

3. Mains connection required.

How do other people get around this? I'm thinking about getting a cheap tape recorder from somewhere (though god knows where I'd get a tape, or how I'd put music onto it). Does anyone have any other ways of playing music outdoors? It just needs to be a loop of the song over and over so it doesn't have to be anything flash either - a play and pause button are all I want!

Small / mini boom box CD players are great stand alone audio you can get cheap at Salvation Army / thrift stores, especially when they have they're 1/2 off sales on weekends & some week days ( $5-$10 ).
Another is an mp3 player with power pc speakers ( pc speakers cheap from Salvation Army / thrift stores $2-$5).

I've gone with the mp3 players mostly now or prop controllers with mp3 or cards, as some of the cd players I had would start to skip or hang up half way thru the night & would have to reset them......except the big home system I use for lightening or main ambient music.

An old lap top is also useful for audio, I have a few of those ( pre XP os ) I use also with power pc speakers for area audio........

There are several places online where you can find an mp3 player for $10 or less. Geeks.com has the Dane-Elec one on sale for $7.99

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...E-L1-L&cat=MP3

Clearly there aren't many (aren't any!) features but if all you want to do is play music on a loop, then this'll be fine for you. Then get some cheap computer speakers, if you want some volume I recommend the Cyber Acoustics from Office Depot, keep an eye out because it goes on sale for $29.99 every so often:

http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...-3602-3-Piece/

Better yet, get some outdoor speakers. There are several threads here about using them but the search might not work right for a little while until the forum stabilizes.

Thank you both!

That's actually perfect, I don't know why I didn't think of using a portable CD player or something

I've been looking on ebay and already found one for a couple of quid, now I just need to win it! I did think 'what if it rains?' but actually, I can just tie it up in a plastic bag since it's going to be sitting under a hedge anyway.

If you are looking for good sound, I recommend the Klipsch ProMedia series of PC speakers. The 2.1 systems can often be found on craigslist for $50-$80. Excellent sound. I buy them for family members when I find a good deal. Of course it depends on your budget and how much you want to worry about them. You might choose to use something really cheap further from the house and your better equipment closer to the house where you can keep an eye on it.

On a related note, I'm thinking about setting up 2.1 speakers (possibly even 5.1) outside this year, as well. I'm curious what others have done to secure/hide their sound systems. I've improvised some angle brackets on those green stakes used for wire fencing. I figure if I get them pounded deep enough, it would help keep the satellites from walking off. Then I'll want to cover them with something to protect them from rain and provide camouflage. Not sure how I'll secure/hide the sub. Any ideas?

I use stuff that's so cheap no one would want to steal it. I have old computer speakers that used to be mounted to a CRT monitor and I plug that directly into a cheap mp3 player that I bought for $15 at K-Mart. What I used to do though when I was concerned about theft was to crack a window on the front of the house upstairs then place the speakers on the windowsill facing out and blast away. The sound isn't fantastic but I don't need it to travel very far, and I only use it for ambient graveyard music/sound fx that I have looped.

Consider incorporating whatever sound source you use, whether it be a MP3 player or small boombox, into your actual display also. You mention in your post that you might have luggage in your display. Perhaps you could sacrafice an old suitcase or bag (if not, try thrift stores for these, they practically give these items away). You could cut out the thicker sides of a suitcase and glue in a thin piece of fabric to recover the sides of the bag. This creates a perfect false side that allows the CD, MP3 player to be enclosed inside the bag where the music being played could be heard clearly. The music would be right at the sopurce of the display and noone would have any ideal where it was coming from! Just an ideal

Thanks Jack, that's a good idea I'm hoping to get some battered old suitcases today so I'll look out for one that could be adapted to allow a CD player to sit inside it!