So here's some behing the scenes stuff.
The stone wall has a hidden door in the center which you go through to run the dry ice machine and the sound effects in the back.
Here is a shot of the dry ice machine:
You can see th TV monitor that switches between 3 different camera views next to the fog machine. It is a coleman camping stove with a steel boat gas tank on top. (No gas in it) It is filled with a gallon and a half of water, so the coleman stove can keep up with keeping it warn. There is a fan blowing down into it, and the fog comes out the dryer hose. You drop in the pellets of dry ice right into the actual main opening of the tank a few at a time. Works real well.
Outside the barn and down the street a few hundred feet is my house. Strung across he street and aimed directly at the barn is a string of four 1000 watt strobe lights. They are all synched and go off to the sound of thunder played at 600 watts from an upstairs window of my house. They actually flash first, then half a secong later, you hear the thunder. I have them set up to flash at realistc intervals and to pulse several times on and off. They don't just go on steady. They look like real lighting and are VERY bright.
Inside my house is the real "control center".
Here is the whole setup. I also have a monitor where I see the same things as the one in back of the barn. Next to the monitor are all my audio sensitive switches that trigger all the props when the sound plays. Here's a close-up:
the amplifier on top of the TV is just for my voice as it goes out to the skeleton in the barn. All my other amps are in my basement wired up through cables that run out my window, down to the amps, then across two yards and over to the barn 150 feet away.
On my desk is my Microphone, and a small box I built that has a MUTE switch for my headphones, two swtches for changing the camera angles between all 3 cameras, and another switch that controls the twitching of the skeleton's hand when I see people reaching for or touching it.
The mute switch is needed because the voice-changing software results in a half second delay. This is picked up by my mics in the barn and comes back to my headphones and I hear myself back as an echo.
Thos makes it really tough to talk, so when I'm speaking, I hit the mute switch. The rest of the time I am listening to what is being said in the barn....so here's the pic:
Then, there's my sampler board. It has 5 separate smaplers on it. I am only using 4 right now, but I have one more for future expansion. All these sound effects play on demand when you hit the button. All but one trigger props as well with my audio switches. The one that does not is the sound of an angry, big, barking dog. That is just a sound played through a big speaker hidden in a bush off in the woods next to the road in the dark. I hit that switch as people walk by.
Other sounds trigger a banging coffin lid, A screaming groundbreaker corpse, and my one-way mirror in the barn.
Other sound effects like my thunder track and my background wind track play independently through CD players hooked right up to amplifiers and each hour long track is set to repeat.
The sound effects in the barn also play independantly on repeat through CD players and play into a 6 channel RANE MA6 amp. This amp has 6 separate 100 watt audio channels. I have one in my barn, and one in my basemant. I also have a 950 watt pro DJ amp in my basement to run the thunder sound effects.
The singing quartet out in the graveyard is self contained. It has it's own computer system out there with it running the show automatically controlled by macros, and it's own sound system made up of a pair of 150 watt powered speakers on stands.
I guess hat's about it. Had a great Halloween this year.
Now, what will I do next year?????
Some pictures of my haunt and quartet
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