Members mddittman Posted January 14, 2011 Members Share Posted January 14, 2011 I'm wondering if anyone can shed some light on whether there is any lighting software that will do exactly what I need to do. Freestyler has hit me with some design limitations. My situation: We are a band that runs lights entirely from the stage. I have a MIDI foot controller (ART X-15) that sends MIDI commands to my laptop. I then use Bome's Midi Translator to interpret those commands to keypress events. Freestyler captures the keypress events and each keypress tells the software to hit a particular button in the software which changes the lights to that scene. Our laptop is behind us and not visible, and we want to run it using the foot controller without having to make the laptop screen visible. Unfortunately, when they added more cues, they introduced "paging", with only 16-20 scenes/cues/whatever per page (depending on what you use). I already have more than 20 scenes available to me so this won't work*. This means that I would need to scroll through the pages, then select whatever number the cue/sequence/etc. is. I want one button push scene changes from the controller. Is anyone aware of any reasonably priced lighting software that will allow me to directly access all multi-step cues/sequences using a single keypress event (midi may work, depending if it will accept the MIDI generated by my foot controller)? What I have, I can probably make it work good enough... but I'm planning on changing it around and adding lights so it may be a good time to make a change. *I have 23 buttons activated on the foot controller. Three are cues, and the other 20 are assigned to Override buttons. The problem with that approach is that override buttons only play the first step in a sequence. I would love to be able to make multi-step sequences that are available to me from the foot controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigjd Posted January 14, 2011 Members Share Posted January 14, 2011 I have a friend using My Dmx and he like it but you can't stack the cues like you can with frestyler so it means he has to program a bunch of different one for different effects and scroll through with his foot controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mddittman Posted January 14, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 14, 2011 Stacking isn't that important to me. What is important is to be able to press ONE button, without seeing the laptop, and being able to go from a solid red wash scene to another scene with a colorstrip rebound, slow fades on Rain 56's, Pearl WH's slowly rotating, X-Scans doing slow figure 8's... etc. We completely design all the scenes outside of the gigs, and just want an instantly accessible "basket" of options that we can choose from using a single button push. Freestyler's flaw seems to be that instead of separating the front end of the software from the data, it appears to be reliant on the display. You should be able to trigger (through software) a cue on Page 2 without having to actually bring Page 2 to the front in the software display. Scrolling isn't an option either... scrolling through active light presets is very unprofessional looking, and if they aren't active you wouldn't know what you are doing without viewing the screen. Plus it's complicated to the user, rather than stepping on the button that has a named label above it describing what it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigjd Posted January 14, 2011 Members Share Posted January 14, 2011 All the things your talking about doing with freestyler is the stuff I do all the time.I don't seem to have any trouble going from a Blue wash to a red wash and then adding strobes or movers on top and being able to switch those off and on as needed as well as run my hazers and different speeds of movers and scanners and strobes on top of washes.I'm doing it all on the floor with a FCB I never have to look at my laptop,and I preprogram alot before hand also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mddittman Posted January 14, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 14, 2011 All the things your talking about doing with freestyler is the stuff I do all the time.I don't seem to have any trouble going from a Blue wash to a red wash and then adding strobes or movers on top and being able to switch those off and on as needed as well as run my hazers and different speeds of movers and scanners and strobes on top of washes.I'm doing it all on the floor with a FCB I never have to look at my laptop,and I preprogram alot before hand also. I am doing that now myself, with three cues & 20 override buttons. However, to do more than 16 cues, I would have to move to the next page. I am adding movers this week & would like to make more presets, but when I move some of the overrides to the cues, where they should be, I will be maxed out with the 16 that are keypress-ready on page one. I know the software will do what I want... It just won't give me enough slots to do what I want to do to develop more scenes & sequences for our show. Having to do a "Next Page" command to get to cues 17+ just doesn't work for running a show blind (no laptop visible) with a foot controller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigjd Posted January 15, 2011 Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 I'll have to look at it this weekend when I'm fartin' around here at home and see if theres a work around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mddittman Posted January 15, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 Thanks. BTW, here is my thread on the Freestyler Support Forum, where they pretty much said "you can't do that." I need tons of scenes available from keypress events... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigjd Posted January 15, 2011 Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 I have an idea but I won't be able to try it till tomorow. You may have to change your midi controller . Which one are you using now?Oh yeah I did read that post awhile back over there. I didn't know it was you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mddittman Posted January 15, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 I'm using an old ART X-15 Ultrafoot. It sends midi commands, but I am intercepting them with Bome's MIDI Translator Classic and converting them to keystrokes. So Freestyler doesn't get any MIDI at all, just keystrokes to interpret. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigjd Posted January 15, 2011 Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 Got Ya!I'lll set mine up tomorow and see if your around. Watch for a PM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mddittman Posted January 15, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 Thanks. It's all packed away right now but I need to get it out ASAP as I'm adding a pair of X-Scan Plus's and some Blizzard RGBA Pucks before next weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bigjd Posted January 15, 2011 Members Share Posted January 15, 2011 Check your PM. Thanks. It's all packed away right now but I need to get it out ASAP as I'm adding a pair of X-Scan Plus's and some Blizzard RGBA Pucks before next weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members draelius Posted February 3, 2011 Members Share Posted February 3, 2011 This may be a little too much for what you are looking for, but I have been so impressed with my experience using this setup, I wanted to share it. I have to run lights for my band from the stage as well. I've been using my Mac Powerbook to run Chameleon (www.maclightingsoftware.com). The software does the job fine, but it is only compatible with the Behringer BCF2000 MIDI controller. I used it for about a year, but I just got tired of having to deal with the BCF2000. The developers have said they will make the software compatible with other controllers in the future, but as of yet, they haven't. About two months ago, I stumbled upon the Luminair iPad app from Synthe-FX (http://synthe-fx.com/products/luminairipad). It's pricey -- especially for an iPad app -- $129, but I bit the bullet and purchased it. It sends an ART-Net signal over a wireless network, so this required a total of about $500 to setup. I've got an Airport Express ($99) running a closed network and an Entec Open DMX Interface plugged into it ($249). I have my iPad attached to a mic stand using the iKlip from IK Multimedia ($49). So, now I've got a low-profile, on stage, touch-screen lighting console...and I've got to say, it's been remarkable for what I need. Luminair can be controlled from an external MIDI Show Control source. I'm also using QLab to trigger sequences from my MacBook, so my next step is to configure QLab to send MSC signal to Luminair. At that point, I'll have a truly hands-free on-stage lighting console. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jwlussow Posted February 3, 2011 Members Share Posted February 3, 2011 This may be a little too much for what you are looking for, but I have been so impressed with my experience using this setup, I wanted to share it. I have to run lights for my band from the stage as well. I've been using my Mac Powerbook to run Chameleon ( www.maclightingsoftware.com). The software does the job fine, but it is only compatible with the Behringer BCF2000 MIDI controller. I used it for about a year, but I just got tired of having to deal with the BCF2000. The developers have said they will make the software compatible with other controllers in the future, but as of yet, they haven't. About two months ago, I stumbled upon the Luminair iPad app from Synthe-FX ( http://synthe-fx.com/products/luminairipad). It's pricey -- especially for an iPad app -- $129, but I bit the bullet and purchased it. It sends an ART-Net signal over a wireless network, so this required a total of about $500 to setup. I've got an Airport Express ($99) running a closed network and an Entec Open DMX Interface plugged into it ($249). I have my iPad attached to a mic stand using the iKlip from IK Multimedia ($49). So, now I've got a low-profile, on stage, touch-screen lighting console...and I've got to say, it's been remarkable for what I need. Luminair can be controlled from an external MIDI Show Control source. I'm also using QLab to trigger sequences from my MacBook, so my next step is to configure QLab to send MSC signal to Luminair. At that point, I'll have a truly hands-free on-stage lighting console. Great first post. Welcome to the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ronblechman Posted February 4, 2011 Members Share Posted February 4, 2011 I think all you need to do is use some midi software like Midi OX that will convert the single midi message that is sent by your foot controller into two midi messages that are received by Freestyler (i.e. one message to select the cue page, one message to select the sequence). For example, let's assume:1) You'd like the lighting sequence on cue page 5, button 1 to be activated whenever your foot pedal sends out a midi program change message 10. 2) You've configured freestyler so that midi note 55 selects cue page 53) You've configured freestyler so that midi note 100 selects cue button 1 In the above example, setup Midi OX so that it whenever a MIDI program 10 message is received, it sends a out midi note 55, followed by a midi note 100.I think that should do it for you. Some examples of using Midi OX can be found on freestyler's support forum:http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2958http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2232 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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