Hi guys,
I’ll try to explain this as briefly as I can, but after 6 weeks of headaches & stress, it may be a long one.
I’ve been trying to find DMX software that will allow me to have individual access to each fixture’s channels, so that I can program each channel independently along a timeline, just like a DAW. 13 programs later & I’ve come to the conclusion that DMX software developers are trying to make life as incredibly complicated for users as they possibly can. None of the programs I’ve tried can do what I need. It’s insane, because what I need to do is so simple, it’s not even funny. The closest is Enttec’s DMXIS, but it will only allow users to program 1 sequence at a time. Useless if you have 4 sets of moving heads & want to program them all differently. I’ve even spoken to the developers of some of the better programs in person & they just don’t seem that bothered about creating something that, I guess, ‘Rewires’ with a DAW, so that solo artists can simply & easily program a light show to run in sync with their songs. It’s like I’m talking a foreign language to them! What’s so bizarre about creating timeline based DMX software with a bars & beats grid??? VenueMagic have created something close, but have left out the bars & beats grid, so there’s no way of syncing up the lights to a beat. They didn’t think that bit was important for $700 software.
The only software that I’m actually making (very slow) progress with is Lightjams. Sadly, it’s the most complicated & un-user friendly program I’ve seen for people like me who just want the simplicity & ease of a DAW style programming interface. You can link all it’s attributes to midi, so I’ve tried setting up midi automation tracks in Cubase Pro 10 to control what I need. The problem, as we know, is that midi is 0-127 & DMX is 0-255. So, the moving heads are stuttering as they move because they’re only receiving half the data they require. Another brick wall…
Lightjams offers a VST plugin though. The only problem is, unlike the DMXIS plugin, it is an audio track plugin, not an instrument plugin. Therefore, even though I can assign the plugin’s 64 knobs to automation tracks in Cubase, I can’t see how I can save/export the ‘light show’ audio track automation data as a file, so that I can drop that into a different Cubase project each time I want to create a new live show. Another brick wall…
Is there any way I can save just this audio track automation data as a file??? The lamps seem to be responding well to the midi automation, so I just need to assign the plugin’s knobs to the moving heads’ X Y channels. That way, like a midi file, I can just place the data under each audio file as I’m building my new live shows.
Any help or ‘out of the box’ suggestions would be greatly appreciated here. I’m getting tired from all the climbing over brick walls. I’m coming to the conclusion that I’ve been born 20 years ahead of my time & the technology or imagination for what I need hasn’t been thought of yet…
Andrew