So I bought a Wolfmix lighting controller, which has been great to use as a standalone device at parties etc. It accepts midi triggers for basic presets, which is great, but the developers for reasons unknown to me didn’t allow for midi automation of strobe/blinder/fog etc. I was previously planning on triggering strobes etc through drum pads/midi - that’s obviously not going to work now.
So, now I am considering just manually controlling my Wolfmix to prerecorded versions of our live songs and literally just recording 512 channels of DMX into a VST Live DMX track for each song (including strobes/blinders on cue etc). Presumably then I could get consistent light playback every time we play the song without even bringing the Wolfmix. Couple of questions: (1) is that possible if I get an enttec open usb pro with DMX in; (2) will replaying the 512 channel DMX stream along with our live stacks take a bunch of resources and create pops/clicks/latency? I have a M3 Pro laptop that does fine with a very VST heavy project (running at 65-70%) and I’m concerned that another track with 512 channels could create problems. I vaguely remember someone commenting on some DMX issues that were going to be solved in future releases. Can anyone who may have tried this let me know what you think? Thanks!
There’s a fair number of us using DMX tracks on Windows and macOS.
I would suggest you look at an artnet node rather than a usb device. I run my artnet over wireless and it’s flawless. There have been issues with some of the usb devices, mostly solved now but artnet is “universal” and doesn’t need a driver whatever you use it on.
DMX tracks can affect audio due to the amount of data, that’s well documented elsewhere. There is a process in VL to reduce some of the duplicate messages, which worked for me, but you’d have to try it in your setup to see if it works for you.
Also highly suggesting ArtNet instead of USB2DMX. and think
you probably won’t have any problem with an M3. Also the new “reduce DMX events” will improve performance. I have over 800 DMX chs, played on i7 intel laptop. There takes a song change currently 6-12seconds.
Therefore you probably need to test your concept and data density.
With only one universe and below 100 channels used, it works flawlessly, loading times at song change max 1-2 second for me.
I use a USB interface and i can confirm enntec open dmx pro works as input and output (there is an option to select correct protocol for each usb interface).
After you record the dmx track, apply the new function to reduce events on the recorded track, this will eliminate a lot of duplicated and unuseful events from the recorded track, speeding up the loading times.
Only remaining issue is that at song change, if you have lots of dmx data, global stacks (like the singer microphone) audio will stop for a quick glitch during loading, this is been working on by the developers to fix it. can be annoying if the singer is talking during song change.