Many people ask me how do you do a show like this and what made you want to do a Christmas light show?

It all started with my college senior project .  I programmed and interfaced a small controller to trigger eight outlets to the frequency of a song.  From this project I wanted to make the show bigger and better.  Every year I expand the show.

 

How do you control the lights?

My first light show was using an arduino microcontroller and a MP3 player that would read a MP3 song’s frequency and turn an outlet on based on each set point.  Now I have what is know as “LIGHT O RAMA” controllers and software.  With Light O Rama running the show, I now can program to the microsecond on when I want the lights to come on, now long to stay on, different effects, and when to turn off.

 

How long does it take you to create a show?

It takes a couple of months of programming the songs as well as 2 months of setup.  In total about 4-5 months of programming, setup and tear down.

 

Does your electric bill increase a lot with all your lights?

Not really.  Any house that puts up lights normally leaves all the lights on at once for several hours a night.  When you make the lights “dance to music” you rarely have all the lights on at once.  About half of the lights are LED so this helps with the energy costs as well.

 

How many channels run your show?

In the 2015 show, I had 176 standard channels, with 1800 Color Cosmic Ribbon Channels (LED Tree with star) totaling around 1900 channels I program and sync to music.