Light-O-Rama Sequences Used in Lighting Displays

In Light-O-Rama, a sequence is represented as a grid that's somewhat similar to the grid in a spreadsheet program. For example, the figure shows part of a very simple sequence in which the lights on channels 1, 3, and 5 alternately turn on and off every half second.

Each row in the grid represents one of the channels available in the controller. Thus, a grid for a sequence played on a 16-channel controller will have 16 rows, one for each channel. Initially, these channels are named according to the control unit number (01 in the figure) and the channel number (1 through 16 in the figure). However, you can easily change the row names to something more meaningful, such as Red Bush or Santa's Hat.

Each column in the grid represents a time interval. When you first set up a sequence, you can designate the time intervals to use for the grid. For the sequence in the figure, each column is one tenth of a second.

When a grid square is filled dark, the corresponding channel is turned on. When a grid square is empty, the corresponding channel is turned off. Thus, by following the grid cells from left to right, you can see that channels 1, 3, and 5 are on for 0.5 seconds, off for 0.5 seconds, on for 0.5 seconds, and so on.

Light-O-Rama lets you create these two distinct types of sequences:

• Musical: Lights are synchronized with music in this sequence. Musical sequences always have an MP3 file associated with them, and Light-O-Rama can play only one musical sequence at a time.
• Animation: This sequence doesn't have a music file associated with it. Instead of synchronizing lights with music, animation sequences are used to create simple light animations, such as a waving Santa Claus or a snowman tossing a snowball. Light-O-Rama can play multiple animation sequences simultaneously. Thus, you can have your snowman throw his snowballs at the waving Santa Claus if you want.