Halloween Projects: Voicebox update
by Chris on Oct.29, 2009, under Halloween, Main Page
As I mentioned in the earlier post, one of the projects I really wanted to get done this year was an upgrade to the voicebox for our new Crypt Keeper jumping skeleton prop.
For our run through party I used the Christmas light remote control from last year, but it was just too flaky to be reliable. Especially given that if the signal didn’t get turned off after about 2/1o of a second the damn MP3 player thought I was trying to turn it off and wouldn’t play the sound. And the sound just has to be heard… its Bruce Campbell’s voice from Army of Darkness saying “Hail to the King, baby!” followed by Vincent Price laughing at the end of Thriller.
To correct that problem I wired a lightswitch into the middle of an extension cord and used that briefly – it worked much better than the remote, but it was not really ideal. Fortunately for me, my friend Jim is an electrician and he was able to set me up with a timed relay and a much, much better wireless transmitter/receiver.
He came over last night and we got the whole thing setup and working just about perfect… I still need to adjust the timing a little bit so you hear Ash’s voice saying “Hail to the King, baby!”, then the skeleton jumps out of his chair in unison with the laughing. My hope is that the voice will really attract your attention, so when he jumps out of his chair it will be that much scarier.
I really want to send a shout out to Jim for helping me with this. I really appreciated it, although he may live to regret it. I imagine I’ll be picking his brain frequently from now on.
Even without the sound working most of the time, he caused some really good screams during the Pre-Party. I can hardly wait to see the new incarnation on Halloween night.
