OK, so I had to design a 6 hour lighting show, which due to issues surrounding my personal life(which gets crappier day by day, in case you wanted to get all nosy on me), it got reduced to 30 minutes and would loop. To give them a degree of control, I hooked up my little Korg nanoKONTROL so they could power on/off my Mystic, Vertigo and Sunray III. I wanted to hand a additional 6 lights, but time wold not allow that for reasons tied to the previous group using the room.
I ran this show without a safety net. The DMX Operator was in a rack that was at the outdoor portion of the venue(where the concerts were) and was never even brought inside. It was going to be MyDMX or nothing for this show. MyDMX handled this show like it was nothing, which of course helpes build my confidence of MyDX. Don't get me wrong, I am not getting rid of my DMX Operator, but MyDMX is increasingly my go-to adn it's making my life easier.
My "Big Show" scene contains 2018 steps, and is largely made up of scenes copy/pasted into this big long scene.
The system was to be used by what I thoguht was going to be 3 DJ's, but turned out to be 5, but that's not a big deal. What is important is later on.
And now it's later on. For reasons unknown, my lighting show would not repeat, but I will deal with that later on after I see if it's my fault it didn't loop. But, the show went on.
I gave 2 of the DJ's "training" and they took to it quite well. I told them "here is the big show" and I said to feel free to jump into any other scenes I've made, but the Big show one is the hands-off one that runs for a half an hour. The training was by no means extensive or intense, just a quick gloss-over, but it was sufficient for these guys to get it real fast.
I didn't stay in the room, I can't stand rave music. However, the kids at SacAnime do, and LOVED what the DJ's were doing, and the DJ's LOVED my lighting. Once my show stopped working, they started having fun with my other scenes and kept things going.
Let me say a couple of things about the DJ's. First off, they are decent DJ's. Second, they aint dopes. 2 of the group I've worked with before, which helped a lot. The other three were really nice and also easy to work with. If they read this, I will say it was an enjoyable experience working with them.
Now, back to the point here: Granted, they weren't doing show design or scene programming so they were not really getting deep into myDMX. With minimal training, they were able to quickly walk up to the MyDMX computer(which I am posting this from) and use the software as a user for a show with confidence.
Granted, the DJ's aren't owners of MyDMX, none of them have seen it before. Also, none of them claimed to have any real familiarity with actual lighting control outside of this remote power-switching device ADJ used to make years ago. They used it last year, it basically toggles on/off channels via what I think was a long DP-9 cable.
While this was never an intended application for MyDMX for what I purchased it for, this is a strength for MyDMX. An easy to use interface, point and click access. From someone who is having to come up real quick from fast training, one can be quickly up and running with a big light show if they guy behind the scenes did their job in the first place with designing scenes.
I guess MyDMX can be as difficult or as easy as you want to make it out to be. For these first time end users, it was easy. For me, doing lighting design, my difficulty is coming up with stuff.
Each time I use MyDMX in a live situation, I am more and more pleased with it and still learning some new things about it here and there. Now that I can give crash course training and leave things alone, then hey, more power to MyDMX. This able to walk away easy of use is definately something to be capitalized on.
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