Keyboard control

Sorry guys, I tried to ask a question an made a poll instead.

DjBlast, Welcome to the forums. Sorry for the delay in answering your post. In my dmx this is not entirely possible. Because even with a mouse you don't "turn a scene off" you simply select a different one or a blackout scene. So if you set up your midi triggers to trigger a different scene or a blackout scene you should be fine.
Sincerely,

Well, you can assign a note value to a channel, but then the velocity value will determine DMX settings(2:1 ratio MIDI to DMX). It gets goofy doing things this way.

But to confirm what Jingles said:
No, you can't do that in DMX. I wish you could, but it's not looking at note off values. The only way you're going to accomplish this is to trigger the scene you want next.

So, let's say you have 4 scenes:
Red, Green, blue, White and blackout
Red is assigned to note 36, green to 37, blue to 38, white to 39 and note 40 to bLackout(C, C#, D, E-flat, F). You make your scenes in MyDMX, let it to learn the TRIGGER(I forget how to do this, I haven't used MyDMX for a while), the punch in the appropriate note you want to be the trigger. That scene will remain in effect until A: Your cycle/next is initiated after the alloted time has passed, or B: you initiate a new trigger, going to the next scene or C: if you did it right, the scene will either hang at the last step or LOOP as requested. Either way, it would stay ON scene.

Let me state that when your programming your midi triggers too the scenes in the program PLEASE be VERY careful as in this current release there is no way to erase a midi trigger from a scene unless you overwrite to a different one.
Sincerely,

I've had MyDMX forget triggers. I forget what I do to make it do this, but it's typically some sort of mistake on my end or the software crashes.

Either way, I recommend going a step further than what Jingles says. I like to document everything. If you're programming a trigger, know what the trigger is and document it, because MyDMX won't show you that something is programmed(CC for a channel or a trigger), so you need to know what is or isn't assigned a trigger or MIDI command. You can't deal with something blindly.

Thanks for the reply.

I understand the scene/trigger concept. I am looking for a more manual bump effect on the keyboard. Maybe modify the keyboard settings to remove velocity and add midi off?

What do you think?

Thanks.

What are you trying to accompish? Are you trying to jump to the next step or scene?

I am trying to manually control the operations of my lighting. I am not interested in scenes. I want to be able to control with the keyboard, traits like shutter open/close, relay pack channel on/off, strobe on/off, etc.

Thanks!

How do you midi map the scenes to keyboard keys?

same as you would any other function. I believe it is hold down ctrl and right click. Let me know if that works.

Tried that, waiting midi command, hit key on keyboard, waiting goes away, hit the key no response.

Tried misc buttons as well, same process, no response.

Any ideas?

Link me too your midi controller product page. thanks.

M-Audio Oxygen 49 Keyboard


Thnx

1: What OS are you using? Yes, it's important, especially with many M-Audio products. MyDMX didn't like a good many items I had under Windows XP, but as soon as I used them in Win 7, MyDMX had no issue with it.

Example:
The OLDER MIDISPORT 2X2(when the were MIDIMAN), which uses the SAME DRIVER as the MIDISPORT 2X2 Anniversary Edition, the older worked fine, but the newer did not. This was in XP. Under Win7, both work fine.
Testing with MIDIOX showed the interfaces worked fine regardless of the OS, and Sonar Home Studio worked fine under XP with both interfaces(I have not loaded this under Win7, it's not recommended). ProTools recognized both interfaces under both OS's.


So, first, what is your OS?

2: Regardless, test with MIDIOX.

3: Reboot with the MyDMX hardware disconnected. Once loaded, connect the MyDMX hardware directly to the computer.
Also connect(unless already connected) the keyboard. Any USB and/or firewire MIDI devices must be connected before launching MyDMX.
If you're using a MIDI interface, connected via USB or firewire, whatever you plug in behind the interface is irrelevant from the point of view that the connection from the computer to the MIDI interface is the critical component.

ALSO, with MyDMX, you can only have ONE MIDI source, and unfortunately, it's not clear what that will be until you go and try stuff and it's too late.

4: DO correct me if I'm wrong, I'm nowhere near a machine running MyDMX right now, but I think you have to be in the edit window or something to assign a MIDI trigger to a scene, not the USER window. You have to go into this page with all sorts of options. Right-mouse click on a DMX channel brings up the MIDI Learn option. MyDMX lacks the ability to "forget" a MIDI command through direct user interaction(say, I want to forget this command... nope). I have had MyDMX forget the MIDI assignments many times though. STILL, it's critical that you do some documentation so you can know what you are or are not using. Are you using that same key for channel control AND triggering?

There's lots of questions to be answered, and the fact that you're new to the software just means that you'll need to provide more answers AND ask more questions. My advise: JUST KEEP ASKING!! I really don't care if you think it's a "stupid question". If you have a question, then ask it. It sure beats getting frustrated and giving up.

Don't quit. We're trying to help. Help us to help you and everyone will be happy.

Thanks for your time Chris!

Windows XP sp3

All other midi functions work withe myDMX, faders, dails, etc. Just not the keyboard keys. Actually works really good with the program.

You know I've never used a midi keyboard with my dmx before but let me take a guess, My dmx might record the velocity value in which the key was first pressed. So say velocity, 55. so unless you hold the key at exactly velocity 55 it is not gonna play that scene. Hope this makes sense. I'm not a midi expert, that's why I had Chris check this post out.
Sincerely,

Exactly James. There has to be a way to disable velocity so no matter how you hit the key it triggers 255.

Is there a way to manually assign a key in myDMX?

No. Not that I have seen. Seems to be all taken care of in the background once you click the assign midi trigger button. I'll bring this up to our techs and see what we can do about it.
Thanks.
Sincerely,

Well, without knowing more, it might be something in regards to configuration on the controller, but I doubt you're doing a "local off" thing, where the keyboard actually only SENDS anyways, doesn't actually trigger the keyboard. I don't think the controller in question is a sync, it's merely a controller.

There is potential for your drivers though, considering you're using XP, based on my experiences with XP and M-Audio products.

In regards to triggers on SCENES: velocity is ignored. Only the Note ON(MIDI channel and Note #) is acknowledged. Everything else is ignored. This might also work with patch recall as well. I haven't re-assembled my vast keyboard and drum MIDI rigs to test this, so I'm actually at a loss to test some of this.(4 keyboards, a rack of synths and a full electronic drum kit with 4 sound units and multiple trigger inputs)

Regarding Channels:
Those are not triggered as per such. Those are intended to be used with some sort of CC functionality, where you get the Channel and Controller value, with the functional value being continuously variable within the parameters(0-127). The problem with using a KEYBOARD as a controller(as in a MIDI NOTE) is that MyDMX does in fact use channel and Note to qualify which DMX channel to apply it to(assuming it's assigned). The issue is that it then uses VELOCITY as the CC-type data. This makes FULL ON nearly impossible, as well as FULL OFF.

Also, another thing to take into consideration:
You MUST SET THE CHANNEL to be either HTP or LTP for it to work live in the USER window. Very critical.

Now, I've had no issue triggering scene using a very basic keyboard controller, such as the Akai LPK25. It does send velocity. If I assign a note to a scene, the scene is triggered regardless if I slam the key or tap it, just has to have the value generated. Again, MyDMX is this case is merely looking for channel and note value and ignoring the third byte(Byte 1 channel, 2 is type, third is value).

Also, keep MyDMX in the foreground and DO NOT run another MIDI application at the same time with the exclusion of MIDIOX.

Also,the LPK25, I was unable to get this unit to work in XP SP3 with MyDMX. Works fine with Win7 64-bit Ultimate on the same machine.

Short of that, you can often disable velocity on the keyboard, PROVIDED it can support that. Or, you can find a MIDI filter, but those are designed to work at a hardware level. That means it's expecting to go through an actual physical MIDI connection. These can get costly, because the issue is the boxes have to be very active and have almost NO lag. It's the lag that is the key issue. They make filters for all sorts of stuff. They aren't so common these days.