DMX USB Lighting Controlling

Hi djmatt431 and welcome to the forums.

Software vs hardware controller is a preference thing. I can say of the high end to ultra high end, everyone uses hardware controllers (consoles).

At the level you are looking at, it is a preference thing. Check out MyDMX. It is AMDJ software and will probably do everything you are looking for. You can also download the software and play with it for free to see if it is to your liking. The next step up is Compu Live. It is much more advance then MyDMX and has more features. Again, software is free download. I wouldn't buy Compu Live at the moment however, since a new version called Compu Show is coming out relatively soon with even more features. Jingles would have more details on that.

Also keep in mind what functions you want/need as well as what you plan on adding to your lighting rig later on. You don't want to get a Scene Setter and then add a bunch of intelligent lights later on. At this level, software based controllers are probably the best bang for the buck. It isn't until you get into the few grand range and medium size light rigs that consoles really start to outshine software controllers.

I see.

I found one thing on youtube and google that sounds very good, and easy to use called freestyler and i would get a DMX USB Pro

Is that a good choice? I know that the dj scan 250 is not a light that people use anymore and it might be very old because i cant seem to find it on the internet but i think it should work with this. What do you think?

Well i personally cannot recommend free styler. Why not try downloading one of our software and playing around with it? They even have a 3D visualizer so that way you can see what your doing in real time. The dj scan 250 is a DMX-512 intelligent fixture. Meaning it will work with ANY Compatible DMX-512 Controller wither it be hardware or software.
Sincerely,

Okay how come you do not recommend free styler? it looks simple and easy to use and its free.

I want to get the Enttec Pro thingy USB DMX and that will work with alot of other software, which one would you reccomend? I really dont have alot of money to spend on software.

Let me know, thanks!

I would recommend MY DMX By ADJ. The Reason for that is i work for adj doing my dmx support and use the product. I also use compu live and support that product aswell.

i understand although i only have around $150 to work with.. not $300.00 So freestyle is a horrible program or what are you saying.


Let me know, thanks.

I've sent you an email.

I'm not going to waste time researching Freestyle.

Here is my attitude, and I have to take this into consideration as I am on a different project(or two) where budgetting is tight and I have to factor in what I can get for the buck. It may also mean I don't do certain things and find other available options that will suffice. Let me put it this way, for $6, I can make it work. But I want a more elegant solution than burn it to a CD-R because the response of CD is sufficiently too slow. But I digress.

In my project, I could spend around $150 and get the job done for ONE PART of the project. But, if I save up a while or if funds become available, I might spend around $500 or more for a better hardware solution. If pressed, I can just burn the long tracks to CD-R, which may be the option I have to use regardless, and still rely on my sampler for FX.

The same attitude applies true for lighting. I see if you stick within your budget to buy it now, I see you shorting yourself and then not having funding available for something better, such as MyDMX. I also have MyDMX and am very pleased with it. I have to ask: Can you hang onto that $150 and maybe be able to hang onto it long enough to maybe double it via earned income? I can even turn you onto some dealers who can give you decent pricing on the product. These are dealers who I have bought from and would/will buy from again.

Depending on what you need, sometimes it is best to hold off. There is almost always something "better". But what is better? I recommend buying a good product that has active user support: MyDMX. I think it's money better spent. I think spending MORE on a better product will save you money in the long run. What if you don't like Frestyle? $150 down the crapper, gone, wasted. Not a good idea. I want you to avoid losing money. We will all over the course of our careers spend some money on some bad stuff for a huge variety of reasons. Best to listen to the advise of others to try to avoid the same mistakes.

Sometimes we waste money on crappy gear, and crappy gear is flat out crappy gear and should be avoided. Those bits of gear tend to go away quickly as well. Most of the time, we just end up buying a good bit of gear which just may not be perfect for something.

Example:
Working with a vocalist. He brought his own Shure Beta 58, which has never been a favorite of mine, but I will eventually buy two of them. This microphone was not a good mic for that guy. I switched him to a Telefunken ELA M-80, which worked better, but ideally I should have moved him to a Shure SM86 or a Audio Technica AE5400(the James Hetfield vocal mic of his choice these days). Ideally, a Neumann KSM105 would have been better, but I don't have one of those. That and a Shure KSM9 would be sweet to have in the mic cases!

Don't be short sighted. Save up and spend more to get better so you end up saving money in the long run. Take my word on it.

You make alot of sense.

What kind of pricing can you get me on the Mydmx. I think if i got it for a little cheaper it would be sold.

I only have 1 moving head and 1 scanner.. so i need to also have some Extra money for a new DMX light such as a LED dmx light too, which i can see american dj makes!

Chris, for once that whole thing changed my mind, and made sense. Great job . Very very good. Become a salesman.

Chris will not be able to mention pricing on this forum as it is probably below Our minimum advertised Price (a.k.a M.A.P.) and we do not allow user to post any pricing that is below our M.A.P.
Sincerely,

I have to agree with Chris and speaking from the high end of things, this is not a business where you can do things on the cheap if you want to do them right, not have issues with failure/compatibility, and/or issues with product not doing what you want/need it to do. I see it all the time where I walk into a show that isn't mine and the client has cheap gear that doesn't do what they want it to do. The last example I can think of is when I had to do a show on Hog PC instead of a console. Well, the laptop they gave me wasn't exactly in the best of shape and the screens kept bugging out. I also couldn't color match the LEDs as well as I wanted to/could have since I didn't have encoder wheels. Fortunately for me, I had my laptop which fixed that problem, but didn't fix the other though the client didn't complain about it, just something I knew I could have done better.


Off topic rant to Chris. I love how people assume what mic is good for them. People see the blue band, see that a Beta costs more then an SM, and assume its better. What they don't realize is the frequency response on a Beta 58 cuts off much sooner then on a SM58, which hurts some vocalists. The other thing I get a lot of is people using Beta 87s or SM 86s when they should be no where near them do to how their voice is. Sorry about that, long day. /rant

Okay.
Not to go against american DJ products, and/or MY DMX.. the enttec can go with these programs.

Controllers
JS DMX Project
Dlight (Win & OSX)
SchwartzPeter (Win)
LSC Clarity (Win)
Chromakinetics - StageConsole , ColorFusion , and other tools for Win /OSX
Brookshire Software VSA
OSF Solutions inGenius MLight - (Windows)
Freestyler - (Windows)
Chamsys (Win & OSX & Linux)
MAX & Pure Data (Win & OSX)
ShowMagic - (Windows)
TJShow
Chameleon (OSX)
LightsOn (OSX Framework)
Madrix - (Windows)
DMXweb Windows, Mac OSX and Linux x86(Open Source)
Fire One Flames - DMX Controlled Flame Projectors !



Please let me know if any of those are good.

Seeing as this is an AMDJ forum, sponsored and run by AMDJ, and AMDJ makes a competing product with all the ones you have listed above, I don't think anyone in good taste can say anything about the products above, particularly if they are 'good'. No offense.

There are plenty of DMX software packages, ranging from free to super costly. I'm sure the PC HOG package Serra Ava talks about is more on the high-high side of things, but you have to consider that packages like this are owned my companies using this to make money and don't have time for the BS and crap that goes with "lesser products". We're talking about people depending on this for their livelihood. Admittedly, most folks using this stuff could easily fall back to a console and do just fine. That's the difference between professional and weekend warrior.

Not to knock a low-cost package such as MyDMX, or the much costlier(and more feature rich) Compu Live and the up-coming CompuShow.

In my case, despite having channels to spare on my DMX Operator, I was simply outgrowing what I wanted to do with that console, but I couldn't see needing something as advanced as Compu Live. As my priority is SOUND first(I am a sound produciton company), MyDMX fit right in a nice niche. I could have spend a couple of thousand easily on a console with the features I wanted, but honestly, it wouldn't have done me any good. Why? The 3D Visualizer in MyDMX, as I can't visualize this stuff on my own. Oh thank goodness for that one feature. Of course, myDMX offers so much more but that was one thing that I immediately latched onto because it filled that void that could only be resolved by setting up the lighting rig and incurring a HUGE electric bill!!

Sales? Oh, me? No. I like being a tech. Much less stress!

SerraAva:
I've just never cared for the frequency response of the Beta 58, it's got a few funky bumps, especially that honky spike around 380 that just drives me nuts, but it also has a rise in the 3K area to help make female vocals stick through a tiny bit more. Mics are a very "personal" thing, and performers who can afford to take the time to "shop around" and have some money come up with some good solutions and travel with their preferred microphones. There is this one band I work with and they always request SM58s, and you know what? They get SM58's. No guesswork: they know how to use those mics and the mics work well with them.

The same idea transfers directly to lighting from a standpoint of "right tools for the jobs". Serra Ava brings up a great example. Cheap gear cuts you short. If it's a commodity type item like a Par Can, then OK, that's a bit different, but even so, a Par64 isn't always the same as another Par64. Not to knock the ADJ line but the retail ADJ Par64's are an inexpensive fixture, while the ones I see on tours are significantly beefier and more rugged.

The best thing to do is exactly what you're doing here. "Hey, I got an idea or need, so I better discuss it." This is something MORE people should be doing. It takes time, but it saves money.

It appears I may not have to spend any money on my current project. It appears some of the extra stuff that came with my Pro Tools M-Powered 7.3(7.4) will work just fine. We'll see, I have a bit more to do.

I have FreeStyler and the ENTTEC open dmx usb.
It works great! even better is that if there are lights you have that aren't in the freestyler then you make it. I got my open DMX for $70 bucks and a free program compared to $300 dollars or more.