We're nearing the completion of the entrance hall so it's now time to discuss more special effects. This time we focus on sound. How can we use various sounds in different parts of a haunt like this where the spaces are tiny and we only need about 10 or so seconds for each sound bite? Sure it would be great to have a huge sound system with multiple channels and speakers and a central control board. Not in a 2-car garage-sized haunt! Maybe for Disney, but not here. The answer lies in a small recording chip and circuit board shown above. Cowlacious Designs sells all sorts of cool electronic and computer stuff perfect for this sort of thing. Shown here is their CAR/P 300 recorder/player board. It sells for around $30. Very simple to use. All you do is output your sound bite from your PC to the circuit board to record the sound and then the sound can be activated in a variety of ways. I will cover one of these ways in the next post. You can plug small PC speakers into the board and the sound will usually be just about right for the size halls we utilize in the haunt. I have found that the sounds are pretty well confined to the specific hall and there really is not any significant carry over. Plus each sound is only activated for 10 seconds or so which is actually longer than you might think!
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