Skip to main content

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Are you talking about a blackout scene? You do need to program your own blackout scene. Just set everything to ZERO and there you go. I made two: One is an IMMEDIATE lights out and the other is a slow fade to blackout. I think I did it stupid-slow like 10 seconds.

Sorry, I didn't see this. I was busy doing shows, making DVD's and working on other projects. At 7PM on march 27th, I was deep into a small show. The rest of the weekend I was working on a rush job on a DVD because the guy left town March 31, and it needed to be done in both PAL and NTSC, so I had a time-taking NTSC to PAL conversion that I couldn't avoid. I finished that on Monday and all Tuesday I was working at an office on their network issues. Plus, I don't work for ADJ! No, that's not an ADJ slam. I would just go out of my head in boredeom if I had to work on lights. I'm a sound guy, I'd rather be at my audio desk any day of the week.

My suggestion is to make a blackout scene. Then, make multiple blackouts via copying the first one, except program different fade times. Lump them all together in a quick to find location. Heck, program a trigger, be it MIDI or a keystroke so you can get to it quickly.

Now its only 01:35 in the morning here, and I'm wrappng up another DVD project which will be picked up in about 16 hours. I'll design the label in the morning.
Chris,

I have the blackout button solved (Thank you Jingles) but was hoping there was something that would allow me to do this on the fly. To program it for every scene/ chase I have, would take way too much time (for now). I know I will eventually get really good at programming chases but I am not quite there yet. I have learned a lot so far and I keep learning with every show I do. I am hoping to have a scene programmed for every song the band plays but the library is too vast and they switch it up every show. Which leads me back to hoping there is someway to slowly fade the lights from full on to black out on the fly without having to program each scene/ chase to do it. Not too mention if the band is playing a bit fast or slow which would throw off the timing of a programmed scene / chase. Anyway, I hope I am making sense in what I am looking for?

Thanks!
Ric
Sure:

Program a key to be your blackout on MyDMX and it's resolved. You can hit it whenever you want. "ON THE FLY!" Whee!

Seriously, one of the issues with a band playing to something else is as you stated: bands are not necessarily going to be tempo-perfect, so they are going to speed up and slow down. it's just a fact of life. The best way to try to get around this is the following ideas. These vary depending on what people feel comfortable with:

Click track. Typically delivered to the drummer. Drummer locks to tempo. Drummer will often have click track delivered to a set of cans to be worn for that song(or songs). Click track can be delivered via multiple methods, including CD, DAT, MIDI sequencer or even a pre-sequenced track(sans click track). Click tracks are rarely delivered through wedges. This overall provides the best methods of syncronization. Also, putting a pre-recorded track INTO their monitors helps as well. This is what will generally keep things in sync, ASSUMING you're using pre-recorded tracks of some sort.

What you could do is the following:
MIDI sequencer, with a rough but fully working version of the song on it. Say, Sonar or something else inexpensive and affordable. MyDMX is on another machine. Sonar generates the click track. Following me?

TWO LAPTOPS: One sequencer, one MyDMX. 2 MIDI interfaces.....

Following?

1 PRO Audio interface is recommended. USB or Firewire is fine, you don't need much especially if you're mainly using this Sonar computer for triggering MyDMX and not for backing tracks.

The MIDI sequence is for song programming reference. Hell, it dones't even need to be MIDI, it could just be a raw but accurate mix so you can work out timings. Then you can program MIDI triggers into MyDMX and then have Sonar trigger them. SEnd click track to appropriate monitor sends. In my case, I'd burn a matrix input and send that to the drummer to save an input on the console.

If the band can give you a few seconds per song to load the right song, you're good. Hopefully they do set lists, but I get what you're saying as many bands simply do not do this, they just "go fer it!".

Syncing to something else restricts bands and perhaps the natural energy they may be trying to build off of. This is part of the live act.

My other suggestion is to get a dedicated lightng director/programmer/operator to deal with this. This is your best overall option. That guy can pay attention to what's going on and if necessary, advance the scene as needed even if the previous one was not done yet.

Another option is to encourage set lists and stick to them. This is what the big boys do, but it's not always a "set in stone" thing as many times they'll switch it up on the fly anyways so you still have to be ready.

I think my stupid-slow blackout is programmed to the "-" key. Easily accessible, quick to reach but not so accessible as to cause accidents.

You're not in a win-win situation. You'll have to come up with compromises to make it work. It CAN be done. But, if you're doing TONS of scene changes, you're doing too much. There might be an intro scene, outro scene, verse scene(s), bridge scene and chorus scene(s) and if applicable, modulation scene. Just have a "key strokes" guide per song and you should be OK, then end each one with a blackout, then it fades to maybe a half-on all white or something so the audience can see them again.

Add Reply

Post
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×