Need Help With Budget Background Music Hardware?

To follow are ideas for how to connect the Melody Pods music player into a sound system on various budgets.

Melody Pods’ approach has always been to enable the lowest possible cost of investment to get music playing legally in your business. This not only means providing music that isn’t registered with the composition/copyright and performing rights societies but also the hardware needed to get the sound flowing around your business.

Please note: if you still also use music not supplied by Melody Pods you may find the music is signed to a performing and/or composition rights society and so will have to pay all their license fees as well. This includes using a radio or a TV. Please contact your performing rights societies for clarification on what their fees are.

Music player on a low cost Android tablet

The Melody Pods music player app is designed so that is doesn’t need the latest and fastest Android operating system and processor so we chose a low cost tablet to start with.

This tablet was purchased on Amazon from a third party tablet supplier. As new, it was a third of the price of a similar Samsung tablet.

Whilst a similar Samsung tablet will have a higher quality screen, you will be paying for it.

The other part that keeps the cost low is that this tablet has only 1Gbyte of data.

Whilst is fine for the average monthly business music requirements it wont suit someone filling their tablet up with photos and other apps.

So expect this to be your tablet purely for playing your music in your business.

So this tablet, connected via a small 3/4 inch audio jack (male to male) connects directly to a small self powered speaker.

For a small to medium sized room this will work fine and costs comparatively little to implement.

Costs: per location with one source of music playing at one time*	Year One		Year Two
	$	£	$	£
Melody Pods Subscription	240.00	228.00	240.00	228.00
Low cost Android tablet	56.00	40.00	0.0	0.0
Self powered speaker (active speaker)	42.00	30.00	0.0	0.0
3/4 inch jack male-male cable	4.25	2.99	0.0	0.0
Total:	342.25	300.99	240.00	228.00
Less cost of performing and composition rights licenses (ASCAP etc in USA, PPL+PRS in UK for small – medium sized business typically but can be much more depending on the overall business area the music is playing in).	600.00	450.00	600.00	450.00
Save:	257.75	149.01	360.00	222.00
Plus increased sales where music is designed to suit business objectives and environment minus cost of electricity.
Currency exchange at time of calculating: $1.42:£1.00. All costs and prices are approximate and subject to change and choice of hardware etc.
* i.e. not different music playing in different rooms in your location.

Music player on second hand Android tablet

Another great way to get business music working on a very low budget is to get a good tablet that isn’t the latest version.

So here we have a Nexus 7″ purchased from ebay second hand. The Nexus is a great little tablet.

The screen quality is great and the processing speed is good as well.

Again connected to a self powered speaker. However with this tablet, because it’s processor is more powerful it can cope with sending the audio via bluetooth to a bluetooth enabled speaker.

This means you can sit your speaker up high on a shelf whilst having access to the music player on the tablet to change the mood on demand for example.

Costs: per location with one source of music playing at one time*	Year One		Year Two
	$	£	$	£
Melody Pods Subscription	240.00	228.00	240.00	228.00
2nd hand Android tablet	78.26	55.00	0.0	0.0
Bluetooth self powered speaker (active speaker)	85.37	50.00	0.0	0.0
Total:	407.88	335.99	240.00	168.65
Less cost of performing and composition rights licenses (ASCAP etc in USA, PPL+PRS in UK for small – medium sized business typically but can be much more depending on the overall business area the music is playing in).	600.00	450.00	600.00	450.00
Save:	192.12	114.01	360.00	222.00
Plus increased sales where music is designed to suit business objectives and environment minus cost of electricity.
Currency exchange at time of calculating: $1.42:£1.00. All costs and prices are approximate and subject to change and choice of hardware etc.
* i.e. not different music playing in different rooms in your location.

We will be adding more budget solutions soon. If you have any questions about these solutions or any other devices then please contact us and we will be pleased to help where we can.