Sound System Design

The sound system gives the Jam-O-Drum life. The group deal with many issues when choosing sound hardware. Here is a description of some of them:

>> Number of speakers

The latest design called for an external 6.1 surround sound speaker system and a subwoofer under the table. This 6.1 surround system will allow experiences to give individual players their own sound directly while having a general sound track playing at the same time. This will also take advantage of 3D surround sound.

>> Single speaker for each user

Previous Jam-O-Drum or device had integrated speakers into the tabletop design and it was agreed that the new table should try and use surround sound and individual channel separation. There would be four speakers mounted above to the tabletop and two speakers above the center of the table as well as the subwoofer inside the drum. This would allow the group to create customized mixes for each player in addition to playing sound through house speakers.

>> Sound mixing

In order to allow for customized mixes between the four table and two room speakers and the subwoofer, the group determined that a mixer was needed. The sound would be driven by the four outputs on the PC's SoundBlaster Platinum card or M-audio card.