DMX Lighting Question

[SoundWave]

I have always thought a 12" or so external touchscreen monitor would be my future in DMX lighting.  I found myself enjoying playing with the manual controller quite a bit last weekend.  manually tweeking the scenes speed and effects was fun.  Then again the wife was running the music so it gave me something to do 

[Mike Sinclair]

Has anyone tried using XKeys keypad with myDMX? That might be a good way to go

[Jumpin' Jeff]

I know nothing about myDMX. If it allows keyboard shortcuts, then it should work, but then you have to deal with making sure myDMX is active when you send them to prevent OtsAv from accidently recieving them. That could be done with ahk scripts, but then you must be sure to use one of the newer USB xKeys where you can execute files on each button.

[Mike Sinclair]

I will look into Xkeys. I just got myDMX and started messing with it last night. Wow! I can already tell that once I go dmx, I will never look back.

[DJMartin]

Hi Mike, yes, DMX and today intelligent lights do offers much more flexibility than the old world of Dimmer City, multicores and huge power leads.
Can you check if myDMX do support MIDI control devices? If yes, then it should be possible to hook up e.g. a Behringer BCF2000 and patch some faders and buttons to steer whatever is programmed in the DMX software. I haven't tested it yet, but from a logical point of view it should allow you to control DMX from the hardware fader panel while OTS is in foreground. There shouldn't be even a mismatch with a possible MIDI controller for OTS, since in evey programm you have to specify to which device the software should react.

Behringer BCF2000 is just on of several hardware consoles. Myself I'm in the middle to test the Dn-HC4500 with OTS and on the DMX side I'm playing around with the Behringer BCF/BCR2000, Novation Launchpad and Evolution U-33... so a good test environment to have everything together on the same notebook. Time is very limited in the next weeks, but I keep posting if there is anything interesting.

[Mike Sinclair]

DJMartin, it does look like it supports MIDI. I ran it "live" for the first time last night and all I can say is WOW. Ots and MyDMX played flawlessly together on the same laptop. It was so much more fun using DMX. I thought it would be much harder to figure out than what it was. Good stuff!

[Mike Sinclair]

Played with Ots and MyDMX again last night. It can be a pain hitting the Alt-Tab between programs at times. I would do the XKeys thing, but not sure what Jeff was saying about AHK scripts? I wouldn't want to use XKeys if I had to be on the MyDMX window when using xkeys (defeats the purpose). I COULD run two laptops, I suppose but not sure if I want to go that route either... decisions, decisions... Oh, and I just found THIS: http://piengineering.com/accessories/xkrack.php pretty interesting

So how hard would it be to make an Xkeys product (like the one I just posted link to) work with mydmx ONLY and not interfere with Ots?

[Jumpin' Jeff]

The Xkeys device would not require it's own display interface as well. You could dedicate the entire display to Ots, and use the XKey device to control yor lighting.

With the xkey software, you can assign each key to a script. (I don't recall  if I had it set up for an uncompiled script or not, but I think you can.) Each script will obviously not need to be very large, so you'll have lots of small scripts. Each script will perform it's own special task. One button could execute a blue cue to set all the lights to output blue in myDMX. Another Red, and yet another random.

My recommendation would be to set up one row of buttons to do color changes like this, another row for movement, a third for shutter control, etc.

I actually used my xkeys to control Ots in the past, and have my ots control scripts on the web here... http://users.indytel.com/~jsmain/downloads/Scripts/Dead link.JJ

With the current Ots, I will likely use it directly, and set up MIDI control of my lights using my M-Audio Trigger finger for control as I can't get the xkeys user interface to see my xkey device. The SDK software sees it just fine, so I may opt to create a new software package that executes my ahk scripts or run them directly with c# as well.

[Mike Sinclair]

I think I will just stick with alt-tab but I'm going to go back to the X500 and HC4500. Since the 4500 has the digital readout and I can have it count down time remaining on a song, I can have MyDMX up on the laptop and still be able to see where my song is with the controller. I was an advocate for the MC6000, but I think for everything I do, the 4500 might just be the best for my system.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

As I'm learning MIDI currently, I may incorporate this in my next DMX control as I mentioned with the triger finger.

[Mike Sinclair]

I ended up using MyDMX with Easy Remote to control lights via an iPad. I am switching over to Luminair since it is a standalone app and doesn't require the program running on a computer. Has anyone used Luminair? I bought the software today and ordered an Enttec ODE, but that won't be here for a few days. I can't wait to give this a try.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

I saw this topic active in the who's online area, and thought I'd mention I purchased a Raspberry Pi recently with the A7 processor and 1G memory, for $35 and shipping. It is my intent to purchase an add on 7" touch screen, and use my Open DMX dongle to connect with the raspberry Pi, and make it a dedicated DMX controller.

Anyone else doing this? 

[DICEDJ]

Been using Daslight software and dongle almost as long as I've been using Ots (forever).

Easy to programme light scenes, move seamlessly from scene to scene. Works with X Keys (already in use for Ots) so keeps the setup as minimal and efficient as possible.

Keys on Xkeys allocated to preset scenes and able to recall without any more real estate on the laptop and sits besides Ots on the big touchscreen.

Not going to alter things unless Ots or Das don't work.


Andy