This file is one of the Wolfstone archives of the Halloween mailing lists. You can find out more, and reach the entire collection here: http://www.pobox.com/~wolfstone/_r/HalloweenArchive.html This is a copy of Don Bertino's archive from http://www.calweb.com/~bertino/halloween.html on the subject of "audio systems". Minor changes have been made, mostly removal of E-mail headers and signatures, but the germane content is unchanged. - - From: dbell at cup.portal.com Subject: Re: I am a Halloweenaholic Date: Sat, 3 Jun 95 21:12:28 PDT >My name is Scott Axworthy...and...I ...am....a....Halloween addict. OK, everybody - Hiii Scottttt! Welecome to the club! >We get so carried away that we can only afford (time and money) to do >our party every other year. This turns out to work okay because it gives >me an opportunity to develop new things and test them out in the off year. We still do ours every year, but I know how it can pile up on you. >We start typically around August and work frantically until Halloween. We >don't have a large house but we use every square inch. We had just over >100 people last Halloween, not including the Policeman (that's a different >story.) It is starting to get a little out of control. Ours last few have been running about 80-90 people, of all ages. An old friend puts together a pick-up band with some of his old buddies, we supply some central food items, soda, wine, brew - commercial and home, and rely on pot-luck for everything else. I think the locals actually showed up (rather than a drive-by) only twice. Once, maybe our third year or so, we had a major graveyard in the front yard, with dummies (some with live actors), gravestones, weird ground lighting, and a "swamp" to walk through. (The swamp was a couple of old foam mattresses, covered with fall leaves, with the ground built up a little going on and off, to avoid trips.) At one point along the meandering path, a giant spider (18" X 24" body, 3' legs, 10 LED eyes) could be dropped from an overhanging tree, in front of the unlucky guests. Around 10 PM, a squad car pulled up, and two very nice, young cops came in, looking for the owners. They had gotten reports of a big party going on, and were afraid they would find a bunch of drunk kids wandering the street. They told us that they were perfectly comfortable with what was going on, and got a kick out of being shown all the decorations, and the graveyard... After they'd been here about 15 or 20 minutes, a *second* car arrived, with a single cop. The first two insisted that he walk the path - without his MagLite - and were practically jumping up and down waiting for him to get to the spider! "Drop it on him! Drop it! Go ahead!!!" The other time we had a visit, it was just as pleasant a chat, but a little nerve-wracking. We had just about then discovered that the 12-year old daughter of the drummer, and a couple of her friends, had swiped a bottle of wine and a few beers, and had gotten royally smashed. The principal perpetrator got really sick and spent the rest of the evening lying down in her dad's car... The worst shock of the deal, though, was when we got a print from one of the guests' photos, showing the nice policeman talking to my wife, while, over his shoulder, in the background, you could see a 12-year old girl with a bottle of beer, clearly listing to starboard... It certainly makes you want to keep a close eye on the kids at mixed parties! >We have started using somewhat of a old haunted house theme which works >well because you can throw sheets over all the furniture which provides >decor as well as protection for the furniture. All other normal stuff >is then removed and in comes the old pictures, old books (all with titles >relating to Halloween somehow), fireplace andirons, and all others sorts >of mood creating things. We also love the sheets on the furniture... I like the idea of swapping decor items; have to work on that! >Ghost flight system: a ghost which flies around my house. No matter >what else I come up with the ghost is always the favorite. I had one one year; a heavy rubbery skull, that slid down a wire parallel to the stairs up to the second floor. It "wore" a trailing shredded veil of black fabric, and was released by a pressure pad on a bottom step. Had to be manually re-set, though. >Cheap (although labor intensive) skeletons: Skeletons made out of >that expanding insulation foam. (these are cool!) These guys are >always a hit, they do something different every time. Neat! Hope to hear more about these... >Spider web maker: Just like the pros use. cheap and easy to do. Great! I saw one design that used a spinning metal funnel, if I remember right, to throw off threads of thinned rubber cement... >Bush and tree eyes: Strings of LED's that peer out from the bushes. I have some I built a bunch of years ago - maybe its time to break them out again! >Ghost bar: Based on the classic "image in the glass" type effects like >in the Haunted Mansion. Mine used plexiglass behind a bar area in my shop. >Skulls and things would show up in the reflection but not on the bar. Last year, I had a glowing skull fade into view, reflected in a plexi sheet at 45 degrees behind a castle wall window. It was triggered by a yard-light motion sensor, which powered a transformer, rectifier, and a *very* large filter cap, driving a mini halogen lamp that illuminated the hidden skull mask. >Extensive video and audio and lighting: 7 audio zones (2 outside), TV's >in all major areas with a roaving video cameraman. Live footage or >predone canned video or proper halloween videos. Mood lighting in all >areas, custom gobo projections, heavy duty lighting on the band in the >garage. Wow! I love it! I usually have two audio zones, one covering the full front yard, with stereo "sounds of Halloween" effects, and/or storm sounds. One year, I synced the storm player to a strobe for pretty good lightning effects. We often have some good old movies running, particularly for the kids, but I like your idea of having multiple TV's, some with live footage. Anybody have a line on a decent-quality short range TV transmitter that could be adapted to a portable camera operation? Maybe a "Rabbit" unit, powered off a separate battery... >There is a bunch more but that will have to wait. This is really getting great! Keep the ideas coming!! - - Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 11:47:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Don Bertino Subject: Re: I am a Halloweenaholic On Sat, 3 Jun 1995 dbell at cup.portal.com wrote: Hi! > >My name is Scott Axworthy...and...I ...am....a....Halloween addict. > > OK, everybody - Hiii Scottttt! Welecome to the club! Hi! [nice description of annual partying] > a "swamp" to walk through. (The swamp was a couple of old foam > mattresses, covered with fall leaves, with the ground built up > a little going on and off, to avoid trips.) At one point along the > meandering path, a giant spider (18" X 24" body, 3' legs, 10 > LED eyes) could be dropped from an overhanging tree, in front of > the unlucky guests. I have seen two *big* spiders. One was a retail one that you stuffed with leaves or newspaper, like the pumpkins ones. A head with 4 legs (9 pieces) The other one was homemade. Its body was made of 5-2 gallon plastic water jugs. It was painted red and lit from the inside. Its legs and anntena (sp?) where made of PVC 1/2" pipe. It seemed large, maybe 10ft across and 4-5 feet off the ground. They place it on their roof, of the body of a person. Behind it was a crudely made rope spider web, it looked great! > Around 10 PM, a squad car pulled up, and two > very nice, young cops came in, looking for the owners. They had > gotten reports of a big party going on, and were afraid they > would find a bunch of drunk kids wandering the street. They told > us that they were perfectly comfortable with what was going on, > and got a kick out of being shown all the decorations, and the > graveyard... After they'd been here about 15 or 20 minutes, a > *second* car arrived, with a single cop. The first two insisted > that he walk the path - without his MagLite - and were practically > jumping up and down waiting for him to get to the spider! > "Drop it on him! Drop it! Go ahead!!!" Hahahaha! This reminds me of my _fireman_ encounter. In 93, I browed my fathers scafolding and put it up in my frontyard. (18'tall x 10'wide x 6'deep) My wife was gracous enough to work with me and sew a "pillow case" to fit over it (dyed black) with a white ghost on it. It looked great! The local newspaper was coming over to take a picture, but didn't arrive until Midnight. (I get up at 4:30am and yes I was stupid enough to stay up and try to go to work the next day) I was going to tear it down because a storm with high winds was coming in the next evening and I was worried about it. That late, I said, "I make it home before the storm....." The next day, I get a call from my wife (she runs a daycare) about _my_ ghost trying to eating my house. (The tethers weren't tethering anymore and it was slamming into my house). I carpool and work 1 hour away from my house. So I tell her to call the fire dept and tell the neihbors to say away, I am on my way. I get home and come down the court and half way down see yellow do-not-cross tape blocking the street. *I AM DEAD* My friend will not get any closer because he thinks my wife will get him too because he is sitting next to me. (I love my wife and she is very, very understanding but...) I get down there and see they have cut the sheets off which was fine. The thing was acting like a large sail. Oh well, no one got hurt and I learned a big lesson. Last year, Halloween night, I had was outside my haunted garage (minus one large ghost) and the *same* firetruck showed up. I am thinking, oh oh. They all got out and want to see what I had done this year! We were all laughing about it. On a side note, I guess, there is a magazine for the fire fighters that has all the weird calls of the month.... Yep. > >Extensive video and audio and lighting: 7 audio zones (2 outside), TV's > >in all major areas with a roaving video cameraman. Live footage or > >predone canned video or proper halloween videos. Mood lighting in all > >areas, custom gobo projections, heavy duty lighting on the band in the > >garage. > > Wow! I love it! I usually have two audio zones, one covering the > full front yard, with stereo "sounds of Halloween" effects, and/or > storm sounds. One year, I synced the storm player to a strobe for > pretty good lightning effects. We often have some good old movies > running, particularly for the kids, but I like your idea of > having multiple TV's, some with live footage. Wow! Am I the only one who didn't hook there strobe into thunder sound effects? Number #1 thing this year! > Anybody have a line on a decent-quality short range TV transmitter > that could be adapted to a portable camera operation? Maybe a > "Rabbit" unit, powered off a separate battery... I bought a Ramsey FM10 (which broadcasts low powered FM) to broadcast the sound in their car. I had a sign down the street letting them know what station (which worked well for Christmas as well). > >There is a bunch more but that will have to wait. > > This is really getting great! Keep the ideas coming!! Amem everybody!!!! - - Date: Mon, 2 Oct 95 10:37:49 EDT From: crussell Subject: lighting hi. I have 2 pair of nifty sconces on my walls that take standard size lightbulbs. I would really like to get something like 'flickering lights' or something else really cool for my halloween party. I have checked a couple of party/halloween stores, but all they have are blacklights. Anyone know of a chainstore -or a store reasonably close to central NJ that would have funky lightbulbs?? - - From: dbell at cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Cute door decoration Date: Mon, 2 Oct 95 09:45:00 PDT Brian Henderson posted: >I was wandering through Walmart yesterday when I found a really nice >animated door knocker. It's called a "Griffin Gatekeeper", but >really looks more like a gargoyle. It has a motion sensor and >automatically knocks three times and screams, complete with moving >knocker and head and light-up eyes. Yep, uhuh, uhuh! Neat little gadget. For the technically inclined, note that we have: 1) A clever enough decoration in itself 2) A motion sensor 3) A sound generator, albeit needing amplification and decent speaker(s). The internal 8 Ohm speaker is wired from the positive (4.5V) supply to the "brain". It is switched to ground by what appears to be an open collector output (OK, it's probably MOS). Putting a 'scope across the driver, you see a very solid 4.5 volts, that is switched to a good 0 volts in a kind of pulse-width modulated audio synthesis. *Plenty* of signal and sharp fall time to trigger another circuit - like a BASIC Stamp, for instance. The audio itself couples nicely to an external amplifier, to make the "BOOM" from the knocker sound pretty nice. A little reverb (or a lot!) sounds good, too. However, there are two problems to be worked out with the audio: 1) After the three BOOMs, there is a really ugly screechy "HEELLLOOOOO" (I think) at the end of the gargoyles wake cycle. I *have* to mute this when I amplify it. I'm going to use a spare output from the Stamp to clamp the audio after xx seconds from the first sound. 2) Throughout the operation, the motor noise from the head and knocker motor is intolerable. I've tried a shunting capacitor to take out some of the noise, while leaving most of the BOOM, with no real improvement. I then put a cap (33 uF) across the batteries, figuring the high impedance of the power supply reflects the motor noise there. A little better, but still a long way to go. Next, will be a much larger supply filter... Lots of fun to go! - -