DMX Lighting Controlled via Midi

[spanny]

Any DMX guys on here?

My band recently purchased some lights, in particular the Chaurvet LED bars (and looking into some additional lights as well) and their Foot-C controller with the intention of controlling our own light show. The footswitch is extremely limited in what it could do, so we are looking into exploring other options that would allow us to continue to self-serve our lights.

Anyone have any advice in routes to pursue? And full disclosure, I know there will be a learning curve on my end since I am new to the world of DMX, so feel free to dumb down any explanations as much as you'd like

Thanks!

 

[mentoneman]

depending on the sophistication of the light in LED land you traditionally need 7 channels of dmx to control all the functionality of one standard multicolor capable led stage light. more if they are intelligent motion type.

so at a minimum if you have a 7 channel dmx controller you can tie all of your lights to those 7 channels and they will all behave in unison regarding color and intensity and strobing.

if you intend to program more independence between lights you will need to calculate 7 channels per light you wish to control independently. thus the controller needs becomes bigger, and n your case requires midi ins and outs or midi to dmx conversion to accept midi program instruction.

you can execute patching which involves grouping several lights on to one fader versus one fader per light, so that you can obtain a semblance of independance for zones of light with minimal fader availability.

i have seen bands use abelton loaded on their iphones on armbands as the master controller software for their show, connected via wifi or bluetooth to the hardware, to then use midi commands to trigger lighting cues, backing tracks, midi patch control over their instruments, and video playback.

i've speculated with the effects guru italo here that it would be amazing to tie an fx beast like an eventide h8000 to your master audio console output and trigger and automate dramatic stereo soundscapes across the entire mix like wide stereo self oscillation to center pan pitch dive down to a low droning throb as your intelligent lights follow the action, which you could also do internally on a digi console with built in fx like a digidesign venue running plug ins, etc....

 

[1meanplexi]

Any DMX guys on here?

My band recently purchased some lights, in particular the Chaurvet LED bars (and looking into some additional lights as well) and their Foot-C controller with the intention of controlling our own light show. The footswitch is extremely limited in what it could do, so we are looking into exploring other options that would allow us to continue to self-serve our lights.

Anyone have any advice in routes to pursue? And full disclosure, I know there will be a learning curve on my end since I am new to the world of DMX, so feel free to dumb down any explanations as much as you'd like

Thanks!

Depending on how complex you want to go. We run backtracks through the entire show. The lights are synced up to the songs. Just to give you a cliff note version.

The brain is our laptop using Reason. The board is a Chauvet as well as the lights. Lights have different options such as assigning, Active on sound which really is a random mess. You want to assign the lights with the DMX option starting 0-36, the next 37 on up to the next number. The options are endless....Our Drummer runs a click and it makes the show spot on. Heck we have a fog machine that is assigned through DMX to go off at certain times during the show. I defer to youtube...I learned a ton and well made mistakes too but the end result is incredible. In closing...use DMX cables and not standard XLR's anything over 100 ft. of cable you need a terminator.

 

[spanny]

Thanks for the info! Given my learning curve, did you find any videos that were particularly helpful in setting them up via midi (with or without use of a backing track)?

 

[mincy]

My band uses 4 LED cans, a fog machine and a LED wash bar all controlled via DMX. We bought an ENTTEC DMXIS unit instead of a light board (link at bottom). We run backing tracks from a laptop running Reaper and the laptop also controls all the midi changes of our rigs. This made integrating the lights very simple via the DMXIS, as it just requires a USB cable to the laptop to work.

Basically, the DMXIS has a software mixer for the lights. We create schemes for the lights with that like you would on a hardware light mixer and then save the presets. All the channels for the lights are there, you can group them, create automation, etc. Once the presets are in place, there is a plugin for the DMXIS we load into Reaper (or your DAW of choice). Each specific preset we made in the DMXIS software can now be recalled by sending a midi note. We then created an additional midi track, programmed the light changes like you would a drum beat and it changes the lights along with our backing track. The time consuming part was creating the light presets and automations to recall. We have about 100 presets, some generic ones, but most are song specific. Additionally, the automation presets for the lights follow the tempo sent by Reaper, so if we change a tempo map in our backing tracks, we don't have to do anything else to account for the lighting tempo.

So far, it's working very well for us. It's not necessarily the best solution, but it's cheap, cuts down on the gear we have to carry for the lights and hasn't given us a single problem. The learning curve on the software and automation wasn't bad, but it did take a little getting used to mixing lights in the box. ENTTEC also has a Youtube channel with a handful of DMXIS tutorials if you wanted to see it in action (second link below).

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... hgodyM8CSA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSGGMg ... pBoNFwj04w

 

[spanny]

Wow, that was extremely helpful, thank you for that information!