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Q: How am I able to hear the music in my car?Top
We transmit from the computer via a 1mW FM transmitter from a Do It Yourself (DYI) electronics company called, Ramsey.
Q: How do you make the lights turn on/off automatically?Top
For the 2008 light show, we use 64 channels from a computer controlled system created by Light-O-Rama (LOR) with originally designed shows. We also connect up to a DMX 'universe' to control 4 simple DMX LED PAR spot lights.
The LOR system is a computer program that you can personalize to your display. It takes several hours per song to sequence. About 30 seconds of the song could take about 4 to 5 hours to sequence to the beat and/or melody of the song. So a 3 minute song could take upwards of 30 to 40 hours to complete. There are several people online that do share their songs/sequences and we thank them for their work and openness to share. We have several sequences and files available for download if you also use the LOR system.
Q: How long does it take us to put everything up? Top
It takes about 4 weekends for all of us to put everything up and make sure that it is where we want it in the yard. But it takes all year long, planning, setting up sequences, getting music, thinking of what to build and where to put it in the yards.
Q: How many extension cords do you have?Top
We have almost 1,000 feet of cords crisscrossing the yard. So please stay off the yard as there are many electrical cords laying around. Many are bundled in organized areas, but are still laying on the yard in various places.
Q: How many lights do we use for Christmas?Top
We have approximately 15,000 lights in the yard. Almost all are incandescent ones but we continue to add more LED lights per year.
We also use some flood lights and strobe lights for varying effects.
Q: How much energy do these lights consume?Top
It varies throughout the shows. When the lights all are turned on, they will pull about 30 amps, which is spread over 6 – 20 amp household circuits. This distribution assists with load balancing and ensuring that there is adequate power and not an overload on any one circuit. It also ensures better redundancy in case that one circuit breaker does trip for any reason; it makes it easier to troubleshoot.
We actually use less electricity than if all of the lights were on at a steady rate. So while our bill is slightly higher in December than an average month, it is not all that impacted. Plus, we like seeing the light show too, so it’s entertaining for everyone that watches.
Q: What times are your shows?Top
The Christmas shows are planned Sunday – Thursday 5pm to 9pm and Friday and Saturday from 5pm to 10pm, starting the weekend after Thanksgiving until the weekend after the 1st of the New Year.
The Halloween shows are only for Halloween night. While we might setup some yard stuff before hand and do some night time testing, our current goal is just to have the show on Halloween night. But plans are always open to change.
Q: Where did you get the ideas for Halloween?Top
Inspiration comes in all forms. But one that gave us a lot of how to do’s, is from here: Big Scream TV. They have all kinds of simple ideas and additional DVD’s for displays. We weren’t able to use all of their ideas, but you might be able to in your haunt!
Also, Halloween Forum is a great place to discuss with others various ideas. If nothing else, it is a very interesting group of users out there. :-)
Q: Where did you obtain the Halloween sounds and music?Top
The Halloween sounds and music are from a variety of places. Some CD’s were purchased, some songs purchased from iTunes and other sounds were just from various Internet sites or old Halloween haunt CD’s. After the content is acquired, it is mixed using software called SoundForge. This application allows very granular control of left and right channels to mix, match, change volume, change pitch, etc, to create the sound tracks to animate the lights to. AudioCity is another audio mixer that can be used to do certain tasks.
Once the sound track is created, then it is imported into the LOR application to control the animation of the lights. Again, some parts of songs were animated from others, then combined with the newly added sounds and adopted to our specific yard setup.
If you’d like a copy of our LOR sequences, go under the Halloween or Christmas sections of this web site and there are files that are available for download.
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