Thread: Best and easy sound for animated props

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I just ordered the solenoid kit for my first pop up prop set up. I have the door closer cylinder all done and the rig will be done this weekend. Now I would like to wire up some screams or something to the prop as it jumps up. What is the easiest and cheapest way to do this without being an electrical wizard? I will have my prop working off the motion sensor from an outdoor floodlight set up and a compressor. I am sure I could just run a wire to some sound device off the sensor so the motion and sound go together, but I just do not know what to do to get the sound. Thanks.

The easiest way is to loop a scream on an MP3 or CD player, and plug it into some computer speakers. Plug the computer speaker power supply into the motion sensor outlet so that they only turn on when the prop is activated. The sound is always playing, but the speakers are not powered until the the prop fires.

It's not the most elegant method as you don't have any guaranteed timing, but it works.

For my MIB, I took one of those hand held scream boxes and wired a normally-open rocker switch to the contacts. When the lid opens up, the switch closes and triggers the sound. I wired a 1/8 jack to the devices speaker leads, and connected that to a set of powered computer speakers. Works great, and requires minimal soldering.

-dgm