Christmas lights set to music on North Fourth Street
Chad Lawrence has been creating a unique Christmas display at his home for three consecutive years.
COSHOCTON – For the third consecutive year, Chad Lawrence has created an incredible Christmas light display that’s far from average.
“The first year, it was kind of small and I’ve slowly been adding to it,” said Lawrence.
Lawrence began programming this year’s show last January and started stringing the lights in November during the warmer weather. But what makes this display so special is that the lights are set to music using an SM transmitter attached to a computer that plays through eight popular holiday songs with the lights flashing in time with the beat.
These are not your ordinary Christmas lights. The lights Lawrence uses were originally created for outdoor advertising signs. Software on Lawrence’s computer creates a 3D model of each light, and the program tells each light when to turn on, the color, and how bright to shine during each second of the display.
“It’s just a lot of fun,” said Lawrence. “I first saw something like this on YouTube that a family did in San Antonio, Texas. I started researching it and found out how they did it. My wife said, you should do that. So I bought the parts I needed and a friend of mine helped me wire everything. It’s fun to build it, design it, and it’s fun to watch.”
Each segment of the eight songs that play last about 23 minutes and then loop back to start again. Lawrence has the lights set to music every night from 6 to 9 p.m. The lights shine without music from 5 to 6 p.m. and 9 to 10 p.m.
“We get a lot of people we don’t know send us messages and Christmas cards saying how much they like the lights,” said Lawrence.
The lights will be on display until New Year’s Day. Lawrence lives at 226 N. Fourth St., across from the Salvation Army.
Category: People & Places
