Sound activated or programable lighting control?

[johnhafner]

I've got a shot in an upcoming short by RACK by Justin R. Durban where I have some cool lighting ideas that I am trying to figure out how to do.

I would like to light the talent partially with lights that represent their vital signs. They are in a holding chamber that can monitor vital signs and it would be cool to have real time feedback effect lighting up their face as their terrified breathing and heart rate goes up (or stops!)

1. I would like to have lights that respond to sound. I have a cold cathode kit in my computer that responds proportionally to sound levels. But it's only 5 watts so I wanted to do the same thing but with a much larger light. I'd love for the light to dim and brighten when people speak or cough.

2. I would like to have a blue light that dims on and off in time with breathing. (or close enough) Was thinking a dimmer and have a PA slide it up and down.

3. I would like to have a TWO red lights that beat at 60-150 bpm. For this I think I would need something programmable. Perhaps just a laptop screen above the talent may be enough.

I'm pretty sure this is doable, maybe I should look at DJ equipment? The shoot is in 2 weeks! So not much time. Anyone have any good *AND CHEAP!) ideas let me know.

 

[Jockomo]

check your local music stores for something like this to rent:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...on_N7008_D00_MC7800_8_16_Channel_Digital.html

 

[nosys70]

winamp has a plugin that use parallel port to activate lights.
if you already got something that works, you just link it with a light sensor driving a triac and then you can drive up to 1500W.
you can find thousand of light organ kit for few bucks on the web, some coming with microphone or line input.
http://www.allspectrum.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=113

 

[floop]

I've done something similar using an old 4 channel lighting mixer with 3 channel color organ built in. In my case i was feeding it a signal from a cd/dvd with three different tones on it to control each channel. (50hz, 1000hz, 6000hz, if i recall).

I searched everywhere and cant a similar mixer. It looks like a dj mixer but has 4 dimmers inside that are chase/organ controllable. handy little unit and it was $100 back in 2001.

This is as close as i can find. gives you 400w per channel. Looks like somebody took one of the color organ kits and beefed it up. If you wanted to control live audio (coughing etc) you'd probably need one for the music and one for the live... i like using dvds for it because you can separate out the 5.1 channels and have a customized lighting track and the audio playback all on one playback.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Color-Organ-3-C...ultDomain_0?hash=item4a9d7b7ebd#ht_680wt_1033

just a thought.

 

[floop]

found it! This is the unit i have. Its 1200w/channel, which is cool. but its twice as expensive as when i bought it:
http://www.topdjgear.com/mbtlc4co.html

Two of the ebay units might be more versatile, depending on how much power you need to control. cheers.

 

[Paul Hudson]

Elation dimmer board and dimmer packs will respond to sound.