Thread: Making a 'soundscape' using an mp3 player?

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I have never done this before so I am hoping someone who has can help me?
I want to make a "soundscape" for several rooms, that will consist of a background sound that loops continually, plus some sound effects interspersed every few minutes. All I have to work with is mp3 players and cheap speakers. I have a few mp3 players but I was hoping to be able to get by with just using one player per room.
The problem is I'm not sure how to do this since I want to have the background sound playing continuously and the intermittent sound effects to come in on top of that, but the player can only play one file at a time... Do I need to find an audio editor and add in the sound effects to the mp3 file of the background noise, or is there another way to do this?

You will have to use a sound editor program or have two players with your set of speakers (if they have two inputs).

But, the good news is that the sound editor program most of us use is free and excellent. It's called Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Yeah you'll need to add the sounds in an audio editor like Terra mentions.

I did this one year and added different effects to the left & right channels spaced far apart by silences (or in your case background music only). This way, some sounds would come from one part of the room and others from another. Just need to make sure you have your speakers spaced out if you decide to go this route.

That's a good idea about the left and right speakers. My speakers can't go that far apart but I might try it anyway... Or maybe I'll put 2 mp3 players in the room after all, that way continuous background sound could come from one side of the room and the other sounds and voices from the other side...

Even if they can't go very far apart, try turning them away from each other. That'll help project the sound to different parts of the room.