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Parades

K

krush99

Hello everyone,

I've got a few questions for ya,

What do you do for music on your truck during a parade? Do you play full songs with liners in between, or do you play 1-2 minute clips and liners in between?

Also, do you remember any really neat giveaways or ideas during a parade?

Thanks
 
We don't throw things from the parade as someone will sue is is the latest politically correct response.

Kids still like being hit in the head with suckers. Big Lots has their on sale of the week. We "hand them out" now.

Put an mp3 together in the studio and shorten the tracks. One produced piece is good for the whole parade season except 4th of july time.

One station used a 1kw generator on the float to power a loud system. Better than the vehicle speakers.

With no issues about the music you have time to throw suckers at mean kids on teh parade route.
 
I don't now about the parades in your town, but if we don't have candy we're mobbed.

However, parade rules say you can't throw candy. You have to have people walk alongside the vehicles and hand them out.

We always just turned the station up in the vehicles...
 
Take a look at www.spudtech.com, and get a t-shirt gun. Teach someone to use is. LOb t-shirts over the crowd into the rear. They quickly learn, crowding close doesn't get the prize, hanging back is a better chance. We once wound up with comepting concerts in a large park. The gun Spudtech built us would, if you turend the pressure up, put a T-shirt into the middle of the competitor's crowd a block away. Uase a shirt for wadding, put candy in the barrel over the wadding (No suckesr with hard handles, please) and shioot it over the crowd with low pressure.. candy rain.
 
We used a 1kw generator ....once. It stank, had poor 60cps hold, and put a buzz in the JBL's. We swithced to inexpensive (Radio Shack-KMart)power invertors for everthing, including the big inflatables, PA, mixer, lighting. We're never a slave to extra fuel or a 110v outlet, and no power cords to trip over. The trucks are self contained.

As for music; You're there to have people see you, and have non-listeners sample your station to build new cume. Right? Why would you be in a parade and have several 6 minute stop sets with, God forbid, a D-Marc or screaming meemie spot in it. Make a CD with several medley's on it, and lots of liners and jingles. You may hear the whole thing 10 or 20 times, but they'll hear a few seconds of it, once. You've only got about 15 seconds to impress a potential new listener.
 
Here in NZ we have the annual "Santa Parade" - probably a little different to the sorts of parades you have there (and the reasons why).

However, from a technical aspect, the setup is the same.

Get a nice big inverter - 230V here so we use a 2kVA one which is powered from the vehicle battery.

This runs a pair of 600W amps into JBL bins and audio is provided from a cheap MP3 player.

Magic.
 
Inversion

One thing to keep in mind if you're going to plug in a high-amperage inverter...

Make sure that you have a high-output alternator in your vehicle. Alternator amperage output varies from around 60 amps to over 200 amps. A little applied Ohm's Law tells you that a 60 amp alternator will only output about 660 watts at 110v - and that's with no output for running your vehicle and/or recharging the battery. It's more likely that you'll only have about 300 watts of available power - hardly enough for a serious sound system.

Just because you have a 2000 watt inverter doesn't mean that you're going to have 2000 watts to play with.
 
As long as the battery capacity holds up, you'll have the 2KW, even without the engine running.

We found the best solution for truck power was the Onan two - cylinder RV gensets. They ran at 1800 RPM, were quiet, and regulated well. And polluted, so the EPA rules killed them. Onan makes now a one cylinder genset up to about 4500 Watts, which turns 3600 RPM (Two pole alternator). It is junk. They make a heavier box which has a V-twin turning 2400 RPM and a belt drive to the alternator. It's available in fuel injected setup, which is what we installed. Worked fine, starts in any weather. I question the belt drive, but they warrant it indefinately in an RV, and for five years in commercial service.

For service with the truck stopped, we used one of the engine driven systems made by (I believe) Mobikle Power Systems out of Texas. It took about a day to fit one to an '03 Econoline with a V-10 in it, and worked flawlessly. They aren't useable in moving service though. The system has an autothrottle which speeds the engine up to as much as 1900 RPM depending on load. Consequently, it is saftied through both the emergency brake and the transmission neutra/park start switch. You wouldn't want it to rev the engine up during a parade.
 
Re: Inversion

SirRoxalot said:
One thing to keep in mind if you're going to plug in a high-amperage inverter...

Make sure that you have a high-output alternator in your vehicle. Alternator amperage output varies from around 60 amps to over 200 amps. A little applied Ohm's Law tells you that a 60 amp alternator will only output about 660 watts at 110v - and that's with no output for running your vehicle and/or recharging the battery. It's more likely that you'll only have about 300 watts of available power - hardly enough for a serious sound system.

Just because you have a 2000 watt inverter doesn't mean that you're going to have 2000 watts to play with.
Click to expand...

We have a truck that tows the float - and it runs 24 volts with a 200 amp alternator - more than enough to keep the 2kVA inverter running
on its own, aside from the batteries. I should mention that our line voltage is 230V here as well, not that it makes much difference... we never run the sound rig at full power anyway. I doubt we'd get it past half way - maybe 2 or 3 hundred watts (audio) all out.
 
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