How Do You Do That?

We get a lot of questions about our Christmas display.  Often people wonder the same thing about how we do what we do with the lights.

For those who are simply curious or who want to know how to get started on their own displays, we’ve endeavored to answer most of your questions here.  If you have a question that isn’t mentioned, please ask away in our comments section below and we will try to answer it.

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How do you make the music go to the lights?

     Well…. it’s really the other way around.  We make the lights go to the music, and we do that via specialized computer programs and Light O Rama control boxes.

     The program, Showtime Software Suite S3, allows us to do the synchronizing, which is to tell each individual string of lights, spotlight, package, etc to turn on and off, shimmer, twinkle, and  fade as our creativity dictates, as well as run the actual show.  Then there’s another program called Audacity we run the song through before we begin synchronization to make sure when it is broken down into tenths-of-a-second the timing remains constant throughout the entire song.  And we mustn’t forget all the equipment needed to connect the computer to the control boxes and to set up a radio broadcast so people can listen to the music on their car’s radio.

     For those who wish to get started doing this themselves, there are two very good websites to visit which break all of this down into detailed instructions as well as providing good sources for inspiration, encouragement, and online supplies:

               Light-O-Rama

               Planet Christmas

     Jo self-taught herself everything she knows by browsing these sites.  Her suggestion is to READ, READ, READ – then READ some more.  There are a lot of really helpful tutorials and the people on the forums are all very friendly and supportive.

How did you get your own music station?

     We’ve commandeered one really.  Oh, totally legal!  It works kind of like some of those iPod docks that use an empty radio station to play your personal music on.  The FCC – Federal Communications Commission – has a list of blank radio frequencies in various areas and you can sign up to use one free of charge.  All you need is an FM transmitter which usually comes with an antenna.  The only thing you have to make sure of is that you’re not broadcasting further than about 500 feet or so.  This is so your broadcast doesn’t interfere with other frequencies in the rest of the surrounding area.

How many extension cords do you use?

     Heh…  a lot!  We haven’t used a measuring tape yet (though Tiffani plans to at some point), but Jo estimates that we have over 3,000 feet in custom cords and probably somewhere along the lines of another 1,500 feet in store-bought cords.  It’s a rough guess but we think we have about 3 miles of extension cords snaking all over our yard.

How many lights do you have up?

     Wow, that one’s harder to answer than the extension cord question.  A lot of people with displays like ours keep careful track of exactly how many bulbs they light up.  We haven’t been so precise, but we did a rough count and we think we’re using about 24,ooo lights.

What is your electricity bill like?

     Actually, since we’ve started doing a display where the lights are synched to music, our energy bill has gone down significantly.

     Before, when Jo ran a static display – one that was on all the time – our electrical bill was around $500 above normal, and that was when electricity was cheaper.  She ran the synchronized show for the first time in 2001 and even with our inflated energy prices we hit somewhere between $150 – $200 above normal.  That was quite a bit of savings.

     In part, this is because we’ve been trying to switch all of our strings of lights over to LED instead of incandescent.  Not only do LED lights use less electricity, they’re brighter, less easily broken or shorted out, and they are soooo much less frustrating to work with!  Their only real downside is that they tend to be more expensive.

     The main reason, though, that our electrical bill is delightfully lower is that not all the lights are on all the time.  Because they are synchronized to music, they turn on and off to follow the song and it’s rhythms.  Sometimes in a song only one element of the show is even running, such as a single mega tree or the icicle lights on the roofline.  Now our biggest energy expenditures tend to be the blow-up decorations, which are always running and are bigger energy hogs than the lights-to-music display.

How much did all of this cost?

     Yeeeaaaah… we don’t really talk about that.  *G*  Suffice to say that after-Christmas clearance sales are very, very, very good things.  Jo has been known to wipe out entire shelves of LED lights if she can find the right kind.  It also means she’s an easy one to shop for: a fading spot light here, another roll of custom extension cord there… oh, and controller boxes go on sale in June – perfect timing for her birthday!

     To anyone looking to start this madness themselves, our suggestion is to slowly acquire what you need over time and not to try to buy everything at once – especially not during the actual holiday season.

How do you make music notes?

A daylight view of the musical notes tree and treble clef Bethlehem star.

   To  give you an idea of the size, there is a picture of the entire element.  The star is constructed of rebar, is seven and a half feet tall, and is ten feet above the ground supported by a central steel pole secured to a rebar framework which is in turn attached to the oak  tree on both sides.  The framework is also to hold the notes in place – we get some pretty nasty storms  up here.  The treble clef in the center was sketched out on  3/4 plywood, cut out with a jig saw, then painted with three coats of white exterior paint.  While the last  coat was still wet it was covered the front surface with reflective glass beads.  The same was done with the Believe letters… it really picks up the light.  The star is lit with strings of white LED lights and individual blue/white ‘dripping’ icicle lights, holding all lights in place with white electrical tape.

Jo’s hand-crafted music note – rear view.

   The notes are about 2 feet tall.  There are four triple notes and two more double notes still to be finished for future displays.  They will be on stakes in the foreground bushes.  They were sketched out on 1/2 inch plywood, cut out, one hole was drilled in the center at the  bottom of the note for a single C7 light, then three coats of exterior paint was applied followed by glass beads as was done above with the treble clef and Believe letters.

Jo’s hand-crafted music notes – front view.

   After that, seven green C7 LED bulbs were attached with spt2 wire on each single note.  One bulb was pushed through the hole at center bottom (a metal snowflake was hot glued to the bulb tip to help deflect the light against the board) and three others were arranged in a cluster on the surface just above that at the top right.  A wire was run up the back and a cluster of three more bulbs was fixed at the top of the note.  The cluster (three lights) was laid flat on the surface because it reflected better from a distance.  Finally, 3 inch ribbon picked up at Sam’s club was used to make up bows to camouflage the wires.

   There is probably a better way to accomplish all of this but this method worked best for us.  We would love to hear any new ideas.

You do realize that Christmas isn’t until December 25th, right?

Oh believe us, we are acutely, even painfully, aware of when Christmas is – and Thanksgiving for that matter, not to mention Halloween.

As soon as October rolls around the clock starts ticking.  Jo likes to help Diane and Jerry Ford set up their yard in town for Halloween.  As soon as All Hallow’s Eve is over and all the goulies and ghosties are packed away, we start in on getting the show and all the decorations up, which is very time-consuming.  Now consider we have to set up around our day-jobs as well as when weather permits and you can understand why it might take us most of a month to get it all accomplished.  Of course, having done all this work, we want to enjoy it for more than just a few days, as I’m sure everyone else does, so we like to have it up and running through the whole holiday season.

Here’s the really crazy part though; we don’t start working on our Christmas display in November.  We’re actually working on various parts of our show throughout the whole year!  🙂  Jo once said to her eldest daughter, “Tiffani!  We have to hurry.  It’s already February – we’re running out of time!”

Totally insane, right?  Most people are giddy the holiday madness is finally over and we’re already trying to prepare for next year.

Then again, true insanity would be to put off working out the next season’s show until that November.  It’s been estimated that for every channel – or string of lights/package/spotlight/etc. – it takes approximately two hours (sometimes up to eight) to synchronize a single minute of song.  Currently we have nine controllers in use – that’s 144 channels – and our songs usually range between four and ten minutes long.  That’s a lot of hours, and this doesn’t even go into how much time it takes to engineer the mega trees, construct the Believe sign, or the music notes and Star of Bethlehem.  All of this just goes to show how much we love doing this.

You have to really like tedium, puzzle solving, organization, and posses a healthy dose of patience.  Lights to music ain’t for the faint of heart.  *G*