Christmas music drives Pullman light show
SEL engineer in Pullman uses open source program, FM transmitter to deliver tunes with the twinkle
Kevin Armentrout and his wife Justine really love Christmas and they’ve put on the light show this month to prove it.
Their Pullman home is outfitted with thousands of lights programmed to match a playlist of classic Christmas songs and some modern hits, and the display is turning heads and attracting visitors from across the city.
The Armentrouts moved to Pullman about four years ago and Kevin Armentrout works at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc. as an engineer and has a photography business on the side.
The idea for the Christmas display came to him last November when Armentrout started to see videos online of people programming lights to music, and it took him almost a year to get everything ready and set up. He used a program called xLights, which is a free and open-source program that helps design, create and play light shows.
Armentrout said the 45-minute shows, which start nightly at 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the corner of NW North Street and Friel Street, feature about 3,300 LED lights. The lights are choreographed to a music playlist that is broadcast over a radio station.
Armentrout said he wanted to be respectful of his neighbors during his light show and not play the music over a loudspeaker. So he opted to use the radio instead.
The station, 95.5 FM, currently wasn’t broadcasting anything, Armentrout said. So he bought a FM transmitter that he could plug into his computer and instead of the sound coming out of the speakers, it goes out over the air. It’s not unlike how some churches handled audio for their services during the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Armentrout said.
Armentrout said he wanted to bring some joy to his neighbors and community through his light show so he scheduled multiple times for people to be able to come. It will run until after the new year so there is plenty of time to stop by and see it, he said.
Armentrout said he is happy to share the show and the music, but his biggest concern is becoming a burden on the neighborhood.
“Just be respectful to neighbors,” he said. “That’s pretty much my big request.”
Nelson can be reached at knelson@dnews.com.
