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Hi. I'm a pianist/vocalist who now also DJ's, more often at the same event/wedding.
I use a Kam LED PowerBar, pair of ADJ Comscan LED Scanners and some other non DMX lights. I'm also thinking of getting the ADJ Spherion Tri-LEd for the mirrorball effect.
I am trying to create more distinction and interest with lights between my DJing and piano/vocal performances.

I've found the Sound Active modes on the PowerBar and Scanners great for DJing but too aggressive for the piano sets. The Built in Chases in the Scanners are also too mad to my taste for the piano sets. The footswitch control on the PowerBar is a bit fiddly also...SO

I was hoping (in theory) to be able to use DMX (so I bought MyDMX) to control the lights with much more ease and efficiency....(i.e 2 settings!)

I've had a bit of nightmare and got my head in a pickle now with what to do. I hav'nt been able to achieve what I thought would be easy! ADVISE WOULD BE WELCOMED TECHNICALLY AND/OR CREATIVELY

I was really chuffed with MyDMX in the creation of a piano set/ballad type setting - This utilized a slow open rotation of the Scanners and subtle static lighting for the PowerBar. I could imagine a slow white LED movement of a Spherion Mirrorball added with this also...

I was planning on a second setting to simply switch all DMX devices into Sound Active mode for the DJing.
However, my plans were trashed after I realized
that the Comscan scanners do not have a DMX Sound Active command/option (my mistake - should have checked - I assumed this would not be an issue as a newbie to DMX) and the PowerBar DMX Sound Active mode is pre-fixed as being much slower and not as 'good' as the non-DMX Sound Active mode.

So, can anybody advise on my options -

1. Give up on DMX and make do - as a typical musician I'm now getting bored (I also hate the fact that you cannot dim the PowerBar without DMX and also can't easily switch between DMX and manual control to further limit flexibility!)

2. Try not to get hung up on Sound Active mode for DJ'ing? - maybe try and program quick Chases in MyDMX for the PowerBar and Scanners? - Sound Active modes just seem so effective but DO OTHER DJs using DMX rely on Sound Active mode for small scale events?

3. Is there more advanced DMX software with effective ways of controlling Sound Activation via i.e. mics attached to the computer to apply DMX Sound Activation optional control to certain scenes/set-ups?

If anybody can advise I'd be really really grateful.
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This is something I wish they had included in MyDMX. Sound active is cool when it works. :-)

What I do is simply to create some fun active scenes, regardless of being reactive to the sound. I daisy chain several scenes together in a loop, so I have a few "mega-scenes" for fast tunes, and a few for slow.

I was lucky in my last job, though- the lights had a DMX command for sound active, which was really neat (but not terribly useful in my theatrical function). Just got some new lights in with my new job, so we'll see what they can do, hopefully tomorrow.
quote:
Originally posted by RedEye:
Just unplug the DMX cable when you want sound active and the Comscans, and most but not all of the other lights, will revert to sound active when they are no longer receiving the DMX signal. Thats how I get around it.


@RedEye: I need to do this for my uplighting (SlimPar 56). If I set all my uplights to sound active in myDMX 2.0 and then disconnect the DMX cable from the myDMX unit, will the uplights stay on sound active mode? Will I be able to control all of them back once I connect the DMX cable back on? Appreciate the feedback. Thanks.

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