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Help with a daily bugle call system

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Chris Dehart
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Good afternoon.  I was tasked with designing and installing a custom PA system outside of a veterans farm.  He has two system goals:  First, have a bugle call play automatically at 0600.  Then a different bugle call at 1700.  Finally a third playing at 2200.  This daily cycle is to continue forever.  His other goal was to have addition music files to be playable at any time via a keyboard.  These could be any of the three existing bugle calls, or another file already in the device. 

I have used Brightsign video players in the past and had good luck with them. However, we were using Control4 to fire off scheduled events and power on and off the entire system.  In this case, I thought an AU335 audio only player would be a good choice and should be able to do what I want.

I obtained the AU335 and a 12 button USB keyboard and started working on the project.  I was able to get the keyboard triggers to work correctly and any of the 7 total music files would play when manually commanded.  Where I am stuck, is how should I program this so the 3 files will play on there own?  I think I would use an event handler and the time/clock event to trigger the audio at that time but what is the right way?  What would be awesome would if someone could write a sample file that I could look at for guidance.  I'm realizing that I don't even know if I'm setting up the zones correctly or if that schedule page needs to been set for something other than 00:00-23:59. 

One last request that I've thought of.  Can I have a keyboard button stop whatever is currently playing and go back to a "standby" mode?  Ie, he presses a button on the keyboard to start a song playing but decides he wants to not hear the whole thing.  He then presses the stop button and the files stops playing immediately.  On the same note, I wouldn't want one file to be playing and another one starts playing over the first one.  Would I use a similar technique to have any currently playing music stop before starting the selected file?  We would only ever have a maximum of 11 music files in the project, with the 12th button reserved for that music stop button.

 

A big thanks for any help making this project work correctly.

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    Rosie Scott

    That sounds like a fantastic project, and it's great that you're putting together a system that will honor veterans with a structured audio experience. Based on what you've described, here’s how you can approach programming the AU335 to meet your needs:
    Scheduled Bugle Calls
    You're correct that using an event handler with a time/clock event is the right approach. The AU335 has a Real Time Clock (RTC), which allows you to schedule playback events reliably. Here’s a general outline of how to set it up:
    - Create a Playlist: Add the three bugle calls as separate audio files.
    - Use Time-Based Events: In BrightAuthor:connected, set up clock-based triggers for each file:- 0600 → Bugle Call 1
    - 1700 → Bugle Call 2
    - 2200 → Bugle Call 3

    - Ensure Continuous Scheduling: Set the schedule to repeat daily so the cycle continues indefinitely.

    That sounds like a fantastic project, and it's great that you're putting together a system that will honor veterans with a structured audio experience. Based on what you've described, here’s how you can approach programming the AU335 to meet your needs:
    Scheduled Bugle Calls
    You're correct that using an event handler with a time/clock event is the right approach. The AU335 has a Real Time Clock (RTC), which allows you to schedule playback events reliably. Here’s a general outline of how to set it up:
    - Create a Playlist: Add the three bugle calls as separate audio files.
    - Use Time-Based Events: In BrightAuthor:connected, set up clock-based triggers for each file:- 0600 → Bugle Call 1
    - 1700 → Bugle Call 2
    - 2200 → Bugle Call 3

    - Ensure Continuous Scheduling: Set the schedule to repeat daily so the cycle continues indefinitely.

    Keyboard-Controlled Playback
    Since you've successfully mapped the keyboard triggers, you can assign each button to a specific audio file. To prevent overlapping playback:
    - Use an Event Handler: Before playing a new file, send a stop command to any currently playing audio.
    - Set Up a "Stop" Button: Assign one of the 12 buttons to send a stop command to the AU335, ensuring that pressing it halts all audio playback immediately.

    Preventing Overlapping Audio
    To avoid multiple files playing at once:
    - Use a Single Audio Zone: Ensure all files play within the same zone so that triggering a new file automatically stops the previous one.
    - Modify Playback Behavior: Configure the system so that each new playback event interrupts the current audio instead of layering over it.

    Best regards,
    Rosie

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