Hey, I know i'm not around often anymore, i'm busy creating a play from the ground with my theater group, but i need help from my fellow geeks for a detail in some scenes. There's a phone ringing on stage, many times, and i want it to ring and stop when i pick it. I can't use a phone line, it would cause too much troubles and I don't want to take a sound sample from the web and make it play through a speaker. I did find out how i could do it here: http://wandel.ca/homepage/phonering.html But i'd need your help to create the file... Can anyone help old cahaz with this?:shrug:
We did something like this in high school. We just found a sample phone ring and played it. But what made sound good is we cut it off mid-ring when the character answered the phone. It sound pretty good. I don't know if you have a full on sound system or whatever at your disposal though...
the thing is, the phone's ringing 10 times in the play. And depending on the decisions we will take while translating the text on the stage, we don't know exactly when we'll respond to the phone (there's time there's going to be dialogue (maybe even some improvised one) while the phone's ringing and all...). And if in one of these ten times the actor answer but the thing's still ringing, in serious dramatic moments, the credibility goes to hell. So, i'd rather not use the speaker method, and make it ring for real. I just don't have linux or have enough knowledge to make the .wav file needed to achieve what i want to. Is there an easier way to create the .wav file that is described in the link?
Here's what comes to my mind for this: modify the circuitry so that the phone rings constantly when it has power to it and the receiver is down. You can hack a phone cord to supply power, but not actually use a walljack. If you change the power path so that the circuit is only complete when the receiver is down (i.e. lift the phone and it no longer rings), then you should get the effect that you want. Just have someone plug in the phone cord to a power source when you want it to ring and disconnect it when the actor picks up the receiver (so that they can hang up without it ringing again).
Well an old phone's ringer is just driven by a few volts. Wire the ringer bells to the wire with the voltage and a push button switch.
Well, that's basically what i'll be trying to do. The problem is the pattern. If the power is continuous, the telephone won't stop ringing. If you want it to sound like a real one, the frequency needs to be in burst. At least, that's what i understand. Thanks a lot man, gonna try this out.
Remember though, it's not a WAV of the sound of a phone ringing, it's a WAV that's meant to cause an amplifier to output the necessary ring voltage to make a phone ring. I'm sure you're aware of that but I thought I'd better check Let me know how it goes. EDIT: Also, just had a thought for if you're really struggling. How about an old PABX system? They generate all their own ring voltages (they have to be plugged into a powerpoint, obviously), you could just have two extensions enabled, one on stage and one back stage. When the phone's needed to ring, stagehand dials the extension of the onstage telephone. Onstage telephone rings, stops ringing when receiver is lifted, doesn't continue ringing when receiver is replaced.
You want one of these: http://www.tele-q.com/ But they are a bit pricy. Maybe you could make one yourself? Try this: http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/telephone_ringer.html (google 'Ringing Voltage Generator')
Yeah, i understand that. But how do i make it work? Didn't find a mac program that would allow me to burn this on a cd so that it can be read by a normal mp3 cd player. Not even VLC would allow me to play the file. I should be able to change it to mp3, right? Because i'm not able to do shit with the file as of now And i have no idea what is a PABX system. yeah, heard about that, but too pricy. And i'm too much of a noob to build it too. So far, the .wav sound file seems to be the best thing for me.
