Small lighting?

[tomscott]

If I've understood what your asking correctly, then you won't find any programs to automatically create lighting shows to your music. This question pops up on the blue room quite regularly and it always strikes me that the people asking are surprised there's nothing to do it automatically.

 

I liken it to me asking you, as a musician, that looks easy playing guitar, is there something that I can buy that will create songs for me to play automatically? Lighting is similar, you need to pick an instrument, learn to play it and then you can go about creating lighting shows. It's not as simple as just getting some software and a few lights, then having a show right out of the box.

 

Most disco style lights have a built in sound to light that the manufacturer has programmed but these tend to be limited to the specific item and won't play well with other bits of kit.

 

The next level up is a controller of some description, that will control lots of different lights, and that's the key. Because there are so many different lights, there is no way to know what you, as the operator/lighting designer/artist wants, and every show is different.

 

You will be able to program your lights with pretty much any lighting software, but it will be in rigid time and it won't allow for any creative solos or the like, as the lighting will stop once it's run its program.

 

I wold have thought your bes bet was a 4 way par bar with foot controller that runs sound to light.

 

This is where having a guy doing the lighting is the best, as they can feed from you and the crowd, as the band do themselves to create shows. In your situation it is difficult, as you have mentioned.

 

I realise this post isn't particularly helpful to you, but it isn't aimed at you so much as a general post to start some discussion. It would be interesting to hear others thoughts?

[Tom Baldwin]

Tom, I wouldn't disagree with anything you've written, but it make me think of The music-making application "Garage Band". If that can create (with some direction, perhaps, but with far less skill and talent than learning an instrument and the principles of composition), why couldn't something similar be created for the lighting world? Something which had knowledge of structures, and contained building blocks, which could be assembled to create "a light show"?

I'm not claiming that Garage Band is the pinnacle of musical composition, or that lighting created with similar software would be as good as a skilled operator - but shouldn't the ideas of Garage Band be applicable to lighting, to help create something better than a typical sound to light show?

[dbuckley]

The general idea is that you create lighting "looks" by using mouse and keyboard, and then those looks are saved in the software.

 

Then using the showmagic timeline feature, you select the moment in te music track when you want each of the looks to happen.

 

Thence forth every time you play the track you get the same actions occurs in the lighting.

 

All the work isin the setup, but once it's set up, at the gig it just happens.

 

So what I do (not in showmagic but that doesn't matter) is create looks for verse, chorus, solos, other named bits, and then just drop those into the track at the right place.

 

E2A: a pic, albeit not from Showmagic, but the principle is the same, illustrating how a music track has a timeline, a timeline has events along it, events being the "when" something happens, and related cues, which is what happens.

 

http://davidbuckley.name/pix/pcs_mediasync_illustrated.jpg

[Chronos]

If I've understood what your asking correctly, then you won't find any programs to automatically create lighting shows to your music. This question pops up on the blue room quite regularly and it always strikes me that the people asking are surprised there's nothing to do it automatically.

 

I liken it to me asking you, as a musician, that looks easy playing guitar, is there something that I can buy that will create songs for me to play automatically? Lighting is similar, you need to pick an instrument, learn to play it and then you can go about creating lighting shows. It's not as simple as just getting some software and a few lights, then having a show right out of the box.

 

 

 

You misunderstood. I don't want the lights to do something automatically to music. I want to a program that will allow me to program lights to music. so that every time the song plays, the lights will do a certain routine to match the song

 

I liken it to recording a song. I want to record a light display that will play alongside my recorded song on stage.

 

Let me give an example. I want to be able to play a song, and at 1:34 I want a blackout. at 2:01 I want strobe. etc. I want a program that will let me program it to do this without me pressing anymore buttons while I'm performing.

 

I dont want an automatic display thing. I could get that by connecting all the lights together and putting it on music mode.

 

The general principle is that you create lighting "looks" by using mouse and keyboard, and then those looks are saved in the software.

 

Then using the showmagic timeline feature, you select the moment in te music track when you want each of the looks to happen.

 

Thence forth every time you play the track you get the same actions occurs in the lighting.

 

All the work isin the setup, but once it's set up, at the gig it just happens.

 

So what I do (not in showmagic but that doesn't matter) is create looks for verse, chorus, solos, other named bits, and then just drop those into the track at the right place.

 

This is exactly what I wanted to know if Showmagic does. If you confirm that it does this then I will invest in this product and buy enttec usb pro to along with it... Now I just need to know what lights to get :) Been using stairville.........eh...

 

PS: Is showmagic the best for this job? or is there something better? cause I see you keep saying you're using something else.

[fincaman]

I can recommend DMX Control it seems to do everything you could want and it's free !!! there are lots of USB to DMX interfaces on E-Bay for about £25. I run a media player and DMX Control at the same time on the same computer with no problems.

[Chronos]

I think I've finally found one program that suits my needs perfectly.

 

http://www.dmxis.com/show-buddy/

 

Seems perfect for me, I have a background of video and music editing and it looks fairly familiar to that.

 

https://www.enttec.c...oducts&pn=70571

 

As Boatman said I think this is a good usb interface for the lights... Or at least seems to be

 

Now the only thing I need is lights. any suggestions what would work easily and well for a beginner like me? I was thinking 4 par cans to light the stage, two small spot lights, and perhaps a strobe, but I dont know what brand, model, par can size etc. This is my last need and then I can start buying and thanking you guys for helping me out!

 

EDIT: Fincaman I just saw your reply, thanks! If that is free and does what I want then I will definitely look it up first, and check ebay!

 

One other thing!

The guy that I replaced in this duo originally bought a showtec livefoot footswitch and 4 stairville par cans, which he never could make work. I had a go at it after following instructions on dimswitches on youtube, and after some reading in the forums I believe they wont work because its not compatible with the footswitch.

But will it work with the Enttec DMX USB Pro?

this is what it looks like on the back

http://images4.thomann.de/pics/bdb/193247/6867768_800.jpg

 

[ddproduction]

The pictured LED model will indeed work with the Enttec DMX unit. Do you have any experience with DMX? Perhaps someone could post a beginners guide link if they have one to hand?

[Chronos]

I have no experience, and unfortunately everyone is too cut-throat competitive in this town to give me a hand. I'm doing my best with tutorials on Youtube, when they start talking about Binary and how all I have to do is count I think to myself "ah crap now I must learn how to count as well?!" http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif

 

An easy beginner guide would be nice!

 

The guys at enttect tell me I need DMXIS to run with Show buddy, rather than the USB DMX Pro

 

https://www.enttec.c...oducts&pn=70570

 

So I just gotta ask one last time to make sure, will this hardware work with this light? I can't afford to buy something incompatible.

http://images4.thomann.de/pics/bdb/193247/6867768_800.jpg

[boatman]

I have no experience, and unfortunately everyone is too cut-throat competitive in this town to give me a hand. I'm doing my best with tutorials on Youtube, when they start talking about Binary and how all I have to do is count I think to myself "ah crap now I must learn how to count as well?!" http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif

 

An easy beginner guide would be nice!

 

The guys at enttect tell me I need DMXIS to run with Show buddy, rather than the USB DMX Pro

 

https://www.enttec.c...oducts&pn=70570

 

So I just gotta ask one last time to make sure, will this hardware work with this light? I can't afford to buy something incompatible.

 

This web page from a BR member is probably a good place to start with understanding binary addressing.

 

If the websites are to be believed then, Show Buddy & DMXIS looks like a good combination. The DMXIS interface generates the DMX data stream in hardware, leaving the PC do do it's own thing, so it should be reliable. Also the interface has both 3-pin and 5-pin outputs which saves using an adapter. Unfortunately the webpage didn't say whether you could use both outputs at the same time. That might be worth checking.

[paulears]

I have plenty of lighting equipment available for my own use. It's all flight cased, so transport isn't an issue - and in my band we usually have plenty of time to set up. However, the radically different venues we play made what appeared simply a right pain!

 

We vary the set list, and often do requests, so it's more difficult than it appears.

First is positions. If your lighting control uses preset positions, colours and effects (palettes), then before the show, you can look at where you squeezed the lights and update the pallettes so the individual cues work properly. If something is missing, you can alter things to compensate, and it sort of works. However, you might discover you suddenly don't have any light on your face in the second song, and there's little you can do about it. reprogramming mid show is a nightmare, and you have better things to do. The other issue is that some things - maybe the big flash of white, on a bum bum! moment mean you have to play, perhaps sing, and find a foot switch to stamp on. Frankly - too much for my brain to cope with. If you can afford a lighting op, it's great - but self operation for me was a pain in the bum - so much so that I scrapped all moving lights and set up fixed LEDs all set to RGB that worked from three faders on a very simple 6 fader DMX panel. We'd often finish the gig and I'd realise we'd played every song in the same colour.

 

If your show is tracked, then you can always stick a sequencer track that can send MIDI to a lighting control that accepts MIDI input - but it's very much like Tom said above. Garage Band is great - but what if it picked the wrong instruments - so played a brass stab on a block sound, or played strings instead of an organ sound? This means very careful programming, and there's always a danger when editing that you will mess things up. It happens.

 

For shows that never need changes - think cruise ships and theme parks then sound and light talking to each other give identical results each time - but if anything changes, you are stuffed!

[Chronos]

I have plenty of lighting equipment available for my own use. It's all flight cased, so transport isn't an issue - and in my band we usually have plenty of time to set up. However, the radically different venues we play made what appeared simply a right pain!

 

We vary the set list, and often do requests, so it's more difficult than it appears.

First is positions. If your lighting control uses preset positions, colours and effects (palettes), then before the show, you can look at where you squeezed the lights and update the pallettes so the individual cues work properly. If something is missing, you can alter things to compensate, and it sort of works. However, you might discover you suddenly don't have any light on your face in the second song, and there's little you can do about it. reprogramming mid show is a nightmare, and you have better things to do. The other issue is that some things - maybe the big flash of white, on a bum bum! moment mean you have to play, perhaps sing, and find a foot switch to stamp on. Frankly - too much for my brain to cope with. If you can afford a lighting op, it's great - but self operation for me was a pain in the bum - so much so that I scrapped all moving lights and set up fixed LEDs all set to RGB that worked from three faders on a very simple 6 fader DMX panel. We'd often finish the gig and I'd realise we'd played every song in the same colour.

 

If your show is tracked, then you can always stick a sequencer track that can send MIDI to a lighting control that accepts MIDI input - but it's very much like Tom said above. Garage Band is great - but what if it picked the wrong instruments - so played a brass stab on a block sound, or played strings instead of an organ sound? This means very careful programming, and there's always a danger when editing that you will mess things up. It happens.

 

For shows that never need changes - think cruise ships and theme parks then sound and light talking to each other give identical results each time - but if anything changes, you are stuffed!

 

Yep, think of this venue like on cruise ships and theme parks, It's always the same set list, the only thing that changes daily is the crowd.

With this duo I'm doing, we will only be playing in one place which means I can fix the lights to the ceiling. Every night we'll have 15 minutes preparation time to setup the guitars, guitar pedals, a dedicated mixer with the levels all set already to connect into the main mixer, microphone and stand, laptop and USB dmxis and connect it to the lights... and since the lightshow is saved to each backing track on the DMX Show buddy, it should be the same for every day. This is another reason why I can't be using a footswitch to do the lights, that will take another few minutes to setup which I simply do not have. The venue's here ask for a lot for very little time and everything has to be clockwork. It's just a very different world not having at least a sound check and a good few hours to set everything up to make sure it's fine.

But yes, you're right, I need to figure out the best places to put the 4 lights. The stage isn't huge (about 4 metres across) so I was thinking first light to the far left, second in the middle-left, third to the middle-right and 4th to the far right, and perhaps a strobe at the middle back of the stage for an effect. luckily I will have the chance to get into the venue and set everything up way in advance, but once its all set up and ready I wont have any time to change anything.

[Gerry]

What's the name of the venue?

For the last few years my wife and I have had a few days in Benidorm between Xmas and New Year.

Not coming this year or else we could have met up so I could have gone through some of the basics with you.

Cheers

Gerry

[Chronos]

What's the name of the venue?

For the last few years my wife and I have had a few days in Benidorm between Xmas and New Year.

Not coming this year or else we could have met up so I could have gone through some of the basics with you.

Cheers

Gerry

 

It's Jailrock bar on calle Gerona, the rock bar next to Stardust. I'm sure you've been there, it's down the road from the cabaret bar shaped like a pirate ship (Morgan's Tavern) and Western Saloon

 

The bar has their own lights, which almost everyone uses except for another duo called Cabeytu Brothers, who have their own lighting system in every venue they do, and they are definitely one of the best looking shows in Benidorm because of it. I want to bring lighting programming into the equation of the duo I've just joined (Carnaby Street) to up our game onto their level. I mean, Carnaby Street for the last 5 - 6 years has been the headliners of this place, and the duo that play before them (Cabeytu Brothers) looks twice as good, lighting wise. Then again they are much more of a cabaret act, and hardly play any song for more than 30 seconds, it's all medleys. Without their lighting system it would probably be a much more duller show.