MIDI/DMX Controlled Live Lighting

[the explode man]

Hi Everyone,

I'll briefly describe my band's situation, and hopefully you guys can help me out/point me in the right direction.

Our rig right now is currently all contained in one rack - we are all direct and use an A+H 12M for personal monitor mixing (in ears). We don't need amps. We play to a click track right now, but want to run it through the computer and have one channel feed our in-ears with the click, and have some back tracks to feed the house via our own snakes. So that's the gist of our rig - very lightweight, very portable and we've tried to eliminate as many of the "live variables" as possible.

Now on to the next thing - we want to integrate our own lighting show by bringing along a small set of lights (again, something that we can personally carry). Since we will be running Cubase on a laptop with a pre-determined click and pre-determined back tracks, we want to run a channel that talks with the DMX lighting and gives our pre-determined light show. That is, for every song, there would be certain cues that would play at certain points. Yeah yeah yeah, I get it, it's not very organic and a light guy is better or whatever, but we want to eliminate the variables and don't want to have to bring along an extra person, or be at the mercy of some random guy dealing with lights (this is why we have our rig set up as it is - so we don't have to worry about some random guy doing our monitor mixing).

Can anyone help me out with a program that will allow us to run a light show through Cubase, or some other program that could be run simultaneously? Any recommendations for products?

Thanks!

[Hactar]

Do you have a separate DMX console?
Most consoles accept a MIDI input, in which case you can simply run a MIDI track from Cubase to the lighting console and have it trigger your cues (re-record the lighting cues on the console).

If you do not have a separate DMX console, you can run a MIDI output to something like a DecaBox (a MIDI to DMX bridge device). There are many devices that simply look at incoming MIDI CC messages, scale the value, and output it as a DMX dimmer value. You could even build your own with a small MCU and some basic programming.

[malagrino]

I want to say first that I work in the lighting industry and speck gear all the time but don't work for any manufacturer.

Take a look at ENTTCH DMXis
http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main...ion&name=dmxis

I have recommended this to a few bands that have approached me over the years, and they all seem to be happy with it. It integrates with most playback software and with some time can produce an amazing show.
Good luck!
Louis.

[the explode man]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the responses. As far as the lighting goes, we currently do not have any of the hardware or software for it. This ENTTCH stuff seems like something that's up our alley. So with that, I could make a lighting show, then run the DMXIS software along with our Cubase, and that would run the light show without having to manually control it?

I'll take a gander at this DecaBox too.

Thanks!

[Big_Daws]

like malagrino, i am a Lighting Designer/Director. i work in the concert/festival/corporate circuit primarily, and also the dabble into the TV here and there too.

personally buy the universal DMX/USB box from martin. it will give you 2 universes of channels. you can time your lights per cue and also MIDI control the software too. you can also use this with an ipad/iphone and trigger it.

you have 2 choices of software. Martin MPC (amazing) or Martin Lightjockey2.

the enttec boxes are great. but its basically the linux of the lighting world.

[AdeAtRyger]

Any muso's out there looking to control rgb LED parcans using midi need to take a look at the Ryger Midi Pro lighting controller. It will control any make of led parcan using DMX - also it's a very easy setup process.
These links explain what it can do, check out the user manual for the Midi Pro

http://www.rygeruk.co.uk/html/user_manuals.html

and

http://www.rygeruk.co.uk/html/midi_to_dmx_.html

This is a 99 pattern preprogrammed dmx lighting controller that is operated using just Midi program change commands.
If you want true control of the pattern stepping it can also use a midi clock tick to advance the lighting pattern.
Or easier still it can detect any 'Note On' and step the pattern each time it sees that note.

Designed by end users and by listening to other musicians ideas & requirements this is an awesome way to run RGB led parcans. It could not be easier to do.