johnshenry
New member
Hi group. I have been hosting effects-heavy Halloween parties for years. A signature effect has always been a house blackout and lightening effect (4000 watts of strobes outside the house blasting into the windows). I have done this by running an audio signal of an actual thunder clap into the strobe's analog input (XC-10 or something like that). It is syncronized with music and used as an opening to the party after the blackout.
Up until now I have used a 2 CD DJ console. One CD is burned with the music and the thunder SFX combined. This is played out into the house sound system. The other CD is burned with just the thunder SFX. The output of the second CD player is amplified a bit and sent to the strobes. I queue up both CDs and hit the play buttons at the same time. Kludgy I know, but it has worked well for many years.
But it is time to ditch the old CD player console and run everything from a laptop. So what I am looking for is a multi (3 or more) channel sound interface and SW that will let me create basically a 3 track/channel music and SFX control track file. A stereo left and right channel, and an SFX channel for the strobe trigger. I have seen some USB 5.1 and 7.1 gadgets that might solve the hardware issue (?) but am looking for some SW that will allow me to create tracks and assign them to specific sound board channels. Make sense? Don't mind spending a little bit of cash for HW or SW, but don't want to buy more than I need.
Any suggestions???? Thanks in advance....
Up until now I have used a 2 CD DJ console. One CD is burned with the music and the thunder SFX combined. This is played out into the house sound system. The other CD is burned with just the thunder SFX. The output of the second CD player is amplified a bit and sent to the strobes. I queue up both CDs and hit the play buttons at the same time. Kludgy I know, but it has worked well for many years.
But it is time to ditch the old CD player console and run everything from a laptop. So what I am looking for is a multi (3 or more) channel sound interface and SW that will let me create basically a 3 track/channel music and SFX control track file. A stereo left and right channel, and an SFX channel for the strobe trigger. I have seen some USB 5.1 and 7.1 gadgets that might solve the hardware issue (?) but am looking for some SW that will allow me to create tracks and assign them to specific sound board channels. Make sense? Don't mind spending a little bit of cash for HW or SW, but don't want to buy more than I need.
Any suggestions???? Thanks in advance....
