[ANSWERED] airTunes Indigo alerts for whole house alerts

So, this topic seems to get thrown around a bit, but I didn't find a thread that actually did exactly what I wanted. I think I have what I want now but I'm interested to hear what other people did as well.

What I wanted:

1. I want to be able to use the iPhone remote app to control what music is playing around the house.

2. I want to hear voice alerts from Indigo.

3. I want local volume at each location

What I tried:

1. Airfoil with source set to indigoServer: This seems to be a popular solution to most peoples whole house audio for Indigo. But, once Airfoil has connected to an AE, airTunes can no longer connect to it. I can see why.

2. Airfoil with source set to system audio: This uses the soundFlower extra that comes with airfoil. At first, this seemed perfect... and it would be if I ran a headless mac as my iTunes/Indigo server, but I actually use the mac that is running those. So, I had the following issues... In order to hear anything on my local machine, I had to install "airfoil speakers" and connect to it. Then I could only use the "Computer" volume slider in the airfoil window to control local volume. There is a setting "Link Volume to System" which links system volume to airfoil volume, sounds good, but it controls all the connected speakers, not just the local one. So, that's not good... turn that off. Even with that off. Changing the local volume in the airfoil window also changed the output volume at the other speakers... the volume sliders for other speakers were still all the way up, but if I turned down the local volume, all the speakers were adjusted. It's possable I'd doing something wrong, but I can't get the volume to behave the way I want.

3. Use iTunes to make announcements. I thought using the "say" command in iTunes instead of Indigo might work. instead of using the "speak" option in Indigo, I thought I'd tell iTunes to say what I wanted. This didn't work. I set iTunes to connect to a remote speaker and I could here music, but no voice... I could only hear the voice at the local machine. I'd call this a bug in iTunes, but maybe it's a feature, after all, alert sounds made by iTunes are not streamed either.

What I ended up with:

I use airfoil with source set to iTunes and have Indigo tell iTunes to do all the "say" commands I want to hear. I have to have iTunes launch at startup. If music isn't playing all I hear are the alerts that Indigo is telling iTunes to say. If music is playing, I hear the alerts overlaid over the music. I'm planning on getting a bit tricker and pausing music if an alert is made. I made a little control page to select which speakers are connected to airfoil since I can no longer use the iPhone remotes speaker select abilities.

What I still don't like about it:

1. I wish I could use the iPhone remotes speaker select abilities. Even if it were just driving an applescript to sync airTunes speakers to airfoil speakers. Until apple adds some applescript commands to control airTunes speakers I'll have to live with my control page.

2. my alerts are tied to iTunes. If I wanted to listen to internet radio from Safari, I won't here my alerts. The only workaround I can see for this would be to make the alert application a variable that is tied to the airfoil source... I wish airfoil could "mix" more then one source instead be an one or all scenario.



Anyone have anything similar working well?

[jay (support)]

My setup is basically your #2 try: I have all sound from my server machine running through Airfoil, including AirFoil speakers on my development Mac. I have no trouble controlling the local volume of the development Mac - it works just like adjusting volume on any Mac (using the volume control in the menu bar for instance). I never mess with the volume in Airfoil. If I want the volume of the music to go up everywhere, I just turn it up in iTunes.

The advantage of this is that you can use the iTunes Attachments script function called "pauseiTunesAndSay()", and if iTunes is playing, it will pause it, speak the text message, then start iTunes playing again. My house talks to me pretty much all day long reminding me of various things, etc. Company gets a good chuckle if I forget to mute the speech when they come over...

PS - just as I was typing that last sentence it reminded me to put the clothes into the dryer...

Hum... maybe I need to mess with that a bit more.

Do you have to use airfoil to connect to you development mac using airfoil speakers? If I recall, the moment I put he source in airfoil to "system", the audio goes away. Do I have at least that much set correctly?

[jay (support)]

Hum... maybe I need to mess with that a bit more.

Do you have to use airfoil to connect to you development mac using airfoil speakers? If I recall, the moment I put he source in airfoil to "system", the audio goes away. Do I have at least that much set correctly?

In Airfoil, I have "Whole House" (my Airport Express), "Living Room" (an AppleTV), and "FatMac" (Airfoil Speakers on my dev system) active. Then at the bottom I have "System Audio" selected. The "System Audio" popup is independent of the speaker list because the speakers are the output and the popup at the bottom is the source.

And, yes, you have to do it that way - Airfoil is simply directing the sound to whatever destinations you have selected - the only way the sound is going out to FatMac is through Airfoil Speakers.

FYI, you can only have one incoming connection on remote speakers regardless of type: Airport Express, AppleTV, Airfoil Speakers. Maybe that's where you're getting a little wrapped around the axle. By using Airfoil, you can direct the output of one Mac to multiple destinations, but the destinations can only accept one source.

Thanks for your help Jay,
I stull don't see how you are getting the behavior out of airfoil using soundflower that I'm looking for.

I set airfoil to "system sound" and connect to the "computer" speaker, and like I said before, it seems like what I want... until I start adjusting the volume of the host machine. If I turn the system sound down on the host machine using either the keyboard keys, or the volume slider in the menu bar, i hear the volume adjustment "bleeps" and the sound gets quieter/louder on all the connected speakers. I would guess that this is the expected behavior, after all, you are hijacking all the system audio and streaming it... levels and all. Just like there is an expectation that when streaming only one source, iTunes for example, lowering the volume in that app will decrease the output at all speakers. The only way that I can seem to get local volume control without effecting all speakers is by using the "computer" volume slider in the airfoil interface, thus rendering the keyboard keys and menu-bar sliders useless.

Maybe it has something to do with my setup? I'm using a set of speakers on the local machine that are connected through USB, not a mini-jack audio output. They also have no "local" volume control on the actual speakers... I guess if they did, that would also solve my problem. Just leave the system volume up all the time and turn down the sound at the speaker itself.

Any other ideas of what I'm doing wrong? Anyone else getting airfoil/soundflower to work like Jay is? I wish there was a forum for airfoil. Maybe I'll contact their support.

thanks,
Spencer

[jay (support)]

Thanks for your help Jay,
I stull don't see how you are getting the behavior out of airfoil using soundflower that I'm looking for.

I set airfoil to "system sound" and connect to the "computer" speaker, and like I said before, it seems like what I want... until I start adjusting the volume of the host machine. If I turn the system sound down on the host machine using either the keyboard keys, or the volume slider in the menu bar, i hear the volume adjustment "bleeps" and the sound gets quieter/louder on all the connected speakers. I would guess that this is the expected behavior, after all, you are hijacking all the system audio and streaming it... levels and all. Just like there is an expectation that when streaming only one source, iTunes for example, lowering the volume in that app will decrease the output at all speakers. The only way that I can seem to get local volume control without effecting all speakers is by using the "computer" volume slider in the airfoil interface, thus rendering the keyboard keys and menu-bar sliders useless.

Maybe it has something to do with my setup? I'm using a set of speakers on the local machine that are connected through USB, not a mini-jack audio output. They also have no "local" volume control on the actual speakers... I guess if they did, that would also solve my problem. Just leave the system volume up all the time and turn down the sound at the speaker itself.

Any other ideas of what I'm doing wrong? Anyone else getting airfoil/soundflower to work like Jay is? I wish there was a forum for airfoil. Maybe I'll contact their support.

thanks,
Spencer

Sorry, it wasn't clear that you were trying to adjust the volume of the speakers connected to the same machine that was hosting (I don't use local sound on my server machine since my development machine is sitting right beside it). I think what threw me off was your mention of Airfoil Speakers - which aren't needed to play the sound locally through Airfoil - the "Computer" option is always there to represent the local machine's speakers. Airfoil Speakers is only needed if you're gonna stream sound to another Mac on your network like I do.

You're correct that the behavior you're seeing is the expected behavior - you're just directing the system's sound output through Airfoil so adjusting local volume will adjust it for all Airfoil destinations - you have to use the slider in AirFoil to adjust each speaker separately - that includes the local speakers.

If you have a utility that will allow you to map function keys to, say, run AppleScripts (like Quickeys), you could map your volume up and down keys to run applescripts that talk to Airfoil. To raise the volume:

Code: Select all

tell application "Airfoil"
   set currentVolume to volume of speaker "Computer"
   set (volume of speaker "Computer") to currentVolume + 0.1
end tell

and just change the "+" to a "-" to lower the volume. I use something similar to this on my development Mac: the pause, ff and rw keys actually run applescripts that tell the server machine (the one running iTunes) to do those actions.

Another thought would be to use external speakers with their own hardware volume control - the Creative speakers I use have a separate volume and on/off control that's on a long wire. I used to have it mounted on my desk until I changed my setup.

I'm trying to do the same thing but I'm getting different results.

I have AirFoil set to get its input from iTunes. Music plays to the other AirFoil speakers just fine. When I use an iTunes command to pause and say something. It pauses the music but the speech is never heard.

If I set Airfoil's input to System Sounds then it works as expected, however then it broadcasts new email and every other notification from the system all over the house. A situation that leads to very happy divorce lawyers quicker than you could imagine.

Any ideas??

Thanks!

H

Ping...

[matt (support)]

The speech in this case is coming from the Indigo Server application, which is why you don't hear it when iTunes is the source. Perhaps if you paused iTunes, then used the Airfoil command to change the source to IndigoServer, then speak, then switch the source back to iTunes it would work. The iTunes command to pause and speak isn't going to have that logic though, and getting the timing of everything correct might be tricky. I don't use AirFoil so I'm not sure if what I'm proposing is even feasible...

Thanks Matt!

Now I know the cause I have the solution. There's a great little product called "Wiretap Anywhere" http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wta/ which will let you pick several sources (apps, physical inputs, etc) and create a new virtual source. The Mac sees this virtual source as it would any other audio source. Using that app it would be easy to create a source that combines iTunes and Indigo into one, then feed that into AirFoil or whatever distribution system you're using. Doing this would remove all the timing issues you mentioned.

One quick follow on question.. Is there anyway to get Indigo to use a specific voice? I'd like to use one of the new high fidelity voices but I can't figure out how to change that.

Thanks so much for the reply.

Best

PS. Just found this on Apple's support site. No additional software needed! http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1215?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

H

[matt (support)]

Changing voices in the system settings should work -- try shutting down the Indigo Server and quitting the Indigo client after the change and I think it will "take."

I changed my system voice to Australia Karen but I can't get indigo to take it. I tried shutting down server and clients but no dice. Any idea how to get indigo to use the new apple voice ?

Update... I rebooted the indigo server and then it worked. This voice seems to be the most realistic I've heard.