First off, suck it up and man up. This is a nasty industry. If you're gonna get yer feelings hurt, it's honestly best to tuck your tail between your legs and exit now. Otherwise, you're gonna be hurt a lot.
Let's look at a few things:
When a band is doing their own sound, there are two major problems, all tied together. You can NOT hear how your mains are interacting with the room. Certain rooms have certain modes and frequency response curves(that can be easily found). Also, since you're mixing FROM the stage, you can't hear what your mix sounds like out there, and NO, it's not the same as your "mains foldback" or headphone mix.
Get an RTA/analyzer, analyze the room. Wow, now you've at least knocked out the room inconsistencies as well as now are able to repeat this at other places. Now, maybe(MAYBE!)what you hear in your cans or foldback is the same as what the audience hears, but I betcha it ain't. Why? Unless you're fully electronic and are using amp simulators, it ain't, because you've got stage wash spilling out into the audience, and so you have to mix to take that into consideration as well, and you simply can't hear that.
The simple task of running an RTA even through the house system(is there one or do you lug you own?) can often greatly improve your overall sound. It's amazing how many house systems are done poorly. An RTA/analyzer can make some amount of headway. It can't do everything but it gives you an extreme advantage.
Then again, perhaps your audience doesn't care that you guys up there sound like ass. But, even so, let's say you're a really good band. Why not help ensure you don't sound like ass by having it done properly? Trust me, you want that and your audience wants that. The club owner would probably prefer it although the reality is he don't give a crap as he just wants asses in seats and drinks sold, which is rather annoying.
Respect yourself, respect your craft, get a sound guy.
Lighting CAN really enhance a show. While you can run it from the stage, it's best to hand that task off too. You really want to be up there as a performer, not a technician. You got better things to do. See if your sound guy will do it for you. He may or may not have a hand free.
I find bands that do their own sound suck at being a band and suck at doing sound. And if you add in lights, that just adds another level of sucking. Why? The musicians are too busy being distracted, or at least one is and that brings the whole thing down.
Doing too much can make even the best bands sound bad. You should be distracted by people trying to rush the stage trying to touch you guys or dodging undergarments being thrown at you. Those are good distractions!
But, you're not going to listen to any of that anyways.
Looking at MyDMX, here's what it can do:
1: It is scene based, but scenes are not static scenes UNLESS you want them to be. Scenes can contain multiple steps, allowing you to do things like movements, or pulsing or whatever you want it to do. Your imagination and willingness to put in an effort are the main restrictions.
2: With the FX generator, you can use MyDMX to quickly make some fairly complicated things with things ranging from color changers to movers and scanners. For example, let's say you have 2 moving yoke fixtures, and you want them to do counter-rotating circles. Wow, honestly, that's a lot of programming all by itself if you had to do it by hand. Nope, just use the 3D Visualizer and enter the FX generator and dial in where you want your circles and tweak your phase and you're done in seconds. It will generate the steps you need to make it happen AND let you safe it for future re-use.
"OK, that's fine, but I want to add wash to the scene"
I'm not going to go into how to do that, but let's say that it's not difficult to do that. Should take you all of 15 seconds once you know the "trick", which isn't difficult either.
"OK, smart guy, I want to re-use what I did but make some little changes"
Same deal. A few things can be done easily. You can copy scenes as much as you want.
3: MIDI control. While MIDI implementation is not the best I've ever seen, MyDMX can support controllers(such as a fader/knob control surface) for controlling DMX channels directly, as well as(and at the same time) MIDI devices for the purpose of triggering scenes. This can range from sequencers to footpedals to keyboards and more. Cool. And since you're planning on a food pedal, here's the thing though, you have to have note on/off control from your foot board to make this happen as scene triggering works off note on events. I know more foot boards work of patch changes, so read your manual.
5: Want to do chases? OK, it can be done via going from scene to scene, but you have to "hard program it" and that COULD be an issue for you, but that is an "It depends how you work" thing. Or you could make a scene with many steps to get your chase. What is better depends on what you want.
6: Sound active. MyDMX is not sound activated. This is a feature you may have grown to need or love, but it's not supported, sorry. Using sound activation to bump from scene to scene won't be allowed.
Enough for now.
.