# Synchronizing Lightning, Music and Singing Pumpkins



## marsh28 (Dec 2, 2010)

I just found this forum and there is some great advice in here.

I did my first "real" home haunt this year and built a cemetery, a fence, and a coffin with a motorized hand opening and closing the lid ala Disney's Haunted Mansion. Overall, everything turned out great but this year I want to turn it up a notch by adding the singing pumpkins (my wife's idea) and thunder and lightning with sound. Also, I would like to control the pumpkins, lighting, and other sound effects via a single control unit. What would be the best way to achieve this? I am great at building stuff but when it comes to anything to do with technology or electronics I'm lost.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

I am kind of in christmas mode right now, so this may be a little biased, but the best way I have seen to synchronize lights, music, etc would be to get a DMX control board and some version of control software for your computer. Vixen is a free version of this software, Light Show Pro is more advanced, but runs ~$70. Either one is capable of running a wide variety of DMX control boards. I'll leave it to you to search around for DMX controllers, etc - but there are a wide range from store bought to DIY boards.


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## MyNightmare (Jan 8, 2011)

http://diylightanimation.com

Join and check out the COOP we have one right now for the DMX dongle PCB and case. The parts COOP should be soon. There are also COOP for the controller systems too just not right now. You can get a 16 channel complete system for less than 200 bucks. Most of us use Vixen but a member is working on a new program called XLights which many people are excited about.

-Rebecca


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## Scarecrow (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi there, I have used Light-o-Rama for a few years and love it. The first year we had singing pumpkins that sang a few dozen songs this year we had a lead singer, backup singers and then lighted the skeleton band members to the music. It was great. This should be a link to a post on this forum showing some videos from this year of the band. http://hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=25108
Light-o-rama is a little pricey but to me a computer illiterate it is well worth it. it is very easy to program and you can see the results instantly on your computer. If you have any questions about it give me a holler.


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## Rudoli (Nov 14, 2010)

I'm working on something similar, trying to get the "asylum door" prop working with a computer instead of a DVD player + DTMF decoder.

I'm using winAmp with some plugings (discoLitez) to take care of audio and video. The discolitez plugin is using the right stereo channel to receive its "commands". Left channel is normal audio of the movie.


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