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First test done, 8/11/12


big joe

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Hello all Big Joe here.. well today I said what the hey, and started setting some things up to make final set-up easy come Sept. Ran 10 of my 16 ch. , with the fm transmitter. all l.e.d's. All i can say is WOW!! Super bright and just like i programed it!! Everything worked as it should and even started right to the minute.. only sad part is most of my songs took me on avg. of 70hrs. each to make, and it added up to about 40 min. of show. Got to get back on the wagon and finish 2-3 more before old St.Nick shows up.

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great job Big Joe oh that feeling the first time mine was last year by the way you will never be done with your sequrnces as you learn more the more you will rework to improve them good luck this year James Morris

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Yeah, I tested mine in my home, lights all over the floor and so on. Can't do the real test still it all goes up starting the day after Halloween. I'm not doing a Halloween show although I will play music to the front yard for Halloween. I might even turn on the FM transmitter for the Halloween music.

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Hardest thing I had to learn is that sequences are never completed, they're only abandoned. Every year, as people Ooohh and Ahhhh at your sequence, you can only see the areas you could have done better. And even worse, when you see someone else's show, you'll think about how you would do it differently. Your perspective changes once you are the one creating the blinkie lights. It's an addiction that there is no known cure other than total Visa meltdown.

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Hardest thing I had to learn is that sequences are never completed, they're only abandoned. Every year, as people Ooohh and Ahhhh at your sequence, you can only see the areas you could have done better. And even worse, when you see someone else's show, you'll think about how you would do it differently. Your perspective changes once you are the one creating the blinkie lights. It's an addiction that there is no known cure other than total Visa meltdown.

I sure agree with you. I've not even got my first show under the belt as such and I'm going back and constantly tweaking this or that in the sequences. Trying to improve it every time I'm in there. I can only hope I get the "oohs and ahhs" when it runs the first time.

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James- yep before it started me and the wifey went out to the front yard and sat in our lawn chairs for it to start, i think i asked her what time it was about 10 times before it started on cue ha-ha. dgrant- yep did that too, way back in feb...extension cords ran all up and down the whole house, this time though i wanted to see if the strobes would fire at the right times, and if the mega-tree would spin at the rate that i thought it should, hard to see on 2d, had to to the whole thing, also recommed useing the rope lite tracking instead of the clips, would look alot better if it was more straight. mmaness- yep almost spent anougher $400.00 yesterday- i want it!! i want it!! NOW!!, some things could be changed, sometimes looks a bit to flashy,, but other songs seem spot on, i think it depends where you are standing, i'am about 200' from the road; also if two radios are on you can here a slight time delay in the FM, maybe just me.. (i used to have a $4000.00 car stereo-,liquid-cooled tweeters,- sold it to a guy who was totally deaf for $800. he told me on his sheet of paper that he could "feel" the music)That was anouther VISA moment. oh well back to work. Big Joe out.

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I put my 16 ft megatree up in the back yard last weekend. Nothing like seeing it live! I've already had neighbors wowing over it. So hopefully I can get the big wows also. I know the I want it now feeling!!

Have fun and hope all turns out well.

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I've not tried my megatree yet. The design calls for putting down the base ring and using tent pegs to hold it down. Center black pipe is 15 feet high with crank on it to raise the wire bundles plus setting all the tie-wires to tent pegs. The lights will lay across the tie-wires and attach to the base-ring. I can't do it in the back yard as its all tore up with a pool and landscaping going in, plus its on a hillside back there. Using the visualizer is my only way of hoping I'm doing the megatree correctly as its 32 channels and spiraled, 16 one direction and 16 the other direction. Sure hope it works.

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congrats big joe,there is nothing like seeing your lights flash and blink the way you made them. that is why I like lor so much,had a gemmy box for a few seasons and it was ok. but now there is nothing better. just wait though in a couple months you will get alot of nerves about if your show will run right. have fun and enjoy

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  • 2 weeks later...

This was so refreshing to read! This will be my first year too and I was planning on setting up some of my props in the back yard to test this weekend. I also continually think about or tweak my sequences, so i started to wonder to myself if that was going overboard, but it appears that's not the case. Yay! It appears I'm somewhat normal after all! Lol

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This is also my first year and we started back in March. We set up our test mega tree in our back yard in the spring, worked on it and ran it for a few nights just seeing all the different effects and timings etc. Well 3 days after it was set up, the squirrels decided to invade the tree and chewed thru all the 16 sets of LED lights we were working with. I couldn't believe it. What a way to protest all those damn flashing lights,lol

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I'm going to be the total noob here because my set is on the way but I downloaded the software anyway to mess around. Now remember, I'm flying blind here so be kind :)

I downloaded a few sequences and I'm totally lost where you insert the music so you can actually program the beats. So far all I've done is load a sequence, add the sound file and watch.

Is there a way to load the track so you can see the beats as you are programming?

Edited by texmaster
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you have to add your own beat using beat wizard its in the "tools" tab

best thing is too add a channel and rename it beat and run beat wizard and the beat to that channel and them you work from that

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I'm going to be the total noob here because my set is on the way but I downloaded the software anyway to mess around. Now remember, I'm flying blind here so be kind :)

I downloaded a few sequences and I'm totally lost where you insert the music so you can actually program the beats. So far all I've done is load a sequence, add the sound file and watch.

Is there a way to load the track so you can see the beats as you are programming?

Within LOR itself, you can find the help videos which will guide you through the process. Like all newbies, myself included there, had to figure it out. It was actually easy. When using someone else's sequence and your own music, you need to sync the two together, assuming you have the exact same song that was used for the sequence. You can shift the entire sequence forward or backwards to match up. Without the same exact song, you might as well just start a new sequence and use either the beat wizard or tapper wizard to establish your own guides and as mentioned, assign the beats to either a light channel or a non-used/fake channel. Make sure that whatever music you use such as an MP3 file, is a CBR and NOT a VBR, constant bit rate as opposed to variable bit rate. Most audio editor programs such as Audacity will do this for you.

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Thanks for the info! The wave form display is by far my favorite feature so far but is there any way to get the song to play at paritular areas instead of having to have it restart every time?

The wave for video didn't mention if it was possible.

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use space bar it will stop and start the seq

In the squence editor? Thats where I'm editing. Just flubbing through.

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What I mean is when you are in the Sequence editor, is there any way to replay a single part of the song instead of having to replay the entire thing and try to catch the one area you are trying to edit?

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