midi control

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johnpennyblack
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midi control

Post by johnpennyblack »

I wish to run the Daslight DVC2 Gold alongside Sonar 7 but cannot find any midi drivers, can anyone point me in the right direction as I can see no information on the midi inputs anywhere? much obliged, John
John
Andre
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Post by Andre »

DVC2 allows for scenes to be triggered by MIDI note.

So SONAR 7 will need to send the channel and Note out.

You computer will need some sort of MIDI interface to be able to send and receive these MIDI signals between the two programs.

Once you have a working interface I have found the easiest way to setup the scenes to be triggered by MIDI is from the LIVE page in DVC2 and right click the scene you want triggered then click properties and you will see a section for selecting the MIDI channel and Note.

I am afraid I can't help more than this on SONAR 7.
Andre
johnpennyblack
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Post by johnpennyblack »

Hi Andre, thanks for the reply, I already run my light show using Sonar and have a Midisport 4x4 for the usb to midi interface which, for the lighting, connects to a pair NJD MDC128's which then converts midi data from notes or as in my case continuous controllers into DMX data. You may have misunderstood my query, my problem is that I do not see any midi input devices for the DVC2 Gold interface that I have. It does not show up as a midi input in my midi devices although in live mode I can choose the midi channel but not the scource, thus my problem of how to get a midi note into the DVC using the output of my choice? I can get it to trigger from a keyboard but not from Sonar. The midi sport can send out 64 channels of data but I can not see any of them as an input for the DVC2 prog. I hope this clarifies my query and hope that yourself or maybe Daslight can enlighten me, once again, thanks for your help, regards John
John
smokeAndMirrors
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Post by smokeAndMirrors »

John, are you aware of this:

http://members.nextra.at/hubwin/midi.html

I think it might be what you want.
A lie goes half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
johnpennyblack
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Location: Wales

Post by johnpennyblack »

Hello smoke and mirrors, many thanks for the post, I wasn't aware of that little program and I have downloaded it and tried to instal it. As yet I still can't get Sonar to react with the DVC2 but I shall keep reading to see what I am doing wrong. I am finding the installation a bit odd maybe I'm missing something staring me right in the face! We didn't get home until 4.30 this morning after gigging in Carlisle so my brain is slightly mushed. Do you use this program yourself? Any tips on how to set it up would be very welcome, kind regards John
John
smokeAndMirrors
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Post by smokeAndMirrors »

johnpennyblack wrote:Hello smoke and mirrors, many thanks for the post, I wasn't aware of that little program and I have downloaded it and tried to instal it. As yet I still can't get Sonar to react with the DVC2 but I shall keep reading to see what I am doing wrong. I am finding the installation a bit odd maybe I'm missing something staring me right in the face! We didn't get home until 4.30 this morning after gigging in Carlisle so my brain is slightly mushed. Do you use this program yourself? Any tips on how to set it up would be very welcome, kind regards John


I don't use this now - it goes back to my Cubase 5 VST days - but in theory it should do something like what you want. It is an old bit of software (pre-XP and Vista) so it's touch and go whether it works. There's also "LoopBe1" (Google for it) which does the same on XP. If that fails, search for "MIDI loopback". You may find what you need.
A lie goes half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
vianney
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Post by vianney »

Now DVC2 can use also MIDI command. you need that your control included some midi interfaces. We dont supply any midi interface (harwadre).
johnpennyblack
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Location: Wales

Post by johnpennyblack »

Hi Vianney, thanks for the reply. I do have an interface, it's a midiman midisport 4x4 and I am also experimenting with the loopBe1 prog that was suggested. I can see this in Sonar but not in Daslight so further testing is required. If this can be resolved then the sale of your DMX interface should go up considerably from the shop I program for because there are loads of Duo's out there who find it very difficult to run complex light shows using Sonar but your device and 3d renderer make this a piece of cake as the main amount of hard work comes from actually setting up all your lighting in a venue that you can program in. Linking the 2 programs is the key. We shall keep trying! kind regards John
John
johnpennyblack
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Post by johnpennyblack »

Just an update on the Sonar thing, using the midisport 4x4 I have found that by taking one of the outputs (in my case output C) and returning it to the A input the scenes are able to be triggered from the Sonar program. I thought a loop would cause a problem but this does not seem to be the case. It also only worked when I used input A, others just sent it nuts with note off faults. Many thanks to everyone who took an interest in my problem, I now have a perfectly married pair of programs! Kind regards John
John
t.o.t.s.
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Post by t.o.t.s. »

Hi!

New to the forums and was just wondering wondering how your SONAR/Daslight setup is working? I've been contemplating doing something similar (currently still using SONAR and a older NSI lighting console) and was wondering how your machine was handling the load of both apps running together? What are you using computer wise?

Thanks!
chvad
johnpennyblack
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Post by johnpennyblack »

Hi, the laptop that I'm using is an HP Pavillion with an AMD Turion Processor and 1 gig of ram. It is now two years old so not really massive in power.The program is Sonar 7 Producer and the latest Daslight version. Up to now the machine works perfectly and I have had no problems running the two programs although I have yet to get a full time second monitor to view that the Daslight is actually doing what it should be doing, not that you have to have one but I have found that working live you need to keep a check on things and the two progs take up a lot of the screen. I have found that I have to not use the midi input 1 of my midisport 4x4 (untick the input) in Sonar 7 because the Daslight only seems to work with the first input. I have taken output three back into input 1 and if you didn't disable the input it just loops and cocks everything up! I don't know why this works but it is the only way that I have managed to get it to run properly. I have made an ins list for Sonar and named all the notes as scenes and you can enter them from piano roll if you wish. I have also made an ins of controllers, this gives you twice the amount of scenes you can asign, 128 for the notes and 128 for the controllers. I hope this info has been ok for you regards John
John
t.o.t.s.
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Post by t.o.t.s. »

that's great info man thanks!

Basically the shows I run are kind of (hopefully) "set and forget". I create a playlist in Sonar that loads sequences as I need them and those sequences contain midi notes to trigger my board. Ive got a DualCore 1.8 gig and 3 gigs of ram for my laptop so judging from your results I should be WAY in the clear in terms of system power which is good to know.

It's good you brought up the second monitor option.. I hadn't honestly thought of that! :)

" have found that I have to not use the midi input 1 of my midisport 4x4 (untick the input) in Sonar 7 because the Daslight only seems to work with the first input."

Also good to know! I currently have only one midi port so it looks like I may need another. You never got the midi loop back program working?

Thanks for the info!
johnpennyblack
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Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:26 am
Location: Wales

Post by johnpennyblack »

Hi again, I did run the loop back prog but found that it wasn't required in my situation. Once I had sorted out the routing everything was perfect. We also load a playlist and our files use both midi and audio out of 4 different outputs. A and B are all used up with 32 midi channels and output 3 is used for the Daslight so as it doesn't get confused and the fourth output runs another 3 midi channels for other lighting controllers ie 2 NJD MDC128's which are midi to dmx converters and an NJD MP820 which we use to switch analogue lighting channels. I don't know whether you have heard of the MDC128's but I have not found anything as cheap and that works so well. If we want precise movement we use the controllers in Sonar to draw the movement from point to point which is far more acurate than having to work out the timings for the lighting positions. I am still in the process of changing all of our tracks into using the Daslight but as yet have not finished all of them, until then we are still on the manual controller for our live gigs for the moving heads and lasers. I have used the Daslight on numerous lighting hire jobs though and find it very easy to do an onsite prog for the customer. I am in a duo with my wife and run all of the show from our laptop, we have done so for about 12 years now using different versions of the Cakewalk programs up to the present version and before that we used Roland sequencers, best of luck with your sequences hope the info has been useful to you, regards John
John
t.o.t.s.
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Post by t.o.t.s. »

so lemme see if I have this correct....

You are using the NJD MDC128 and creating a virtual lighting console WITHIN Sonar via widgets? Is this correct or am I imagining things?

I've been using cakewalk for years now with lighting as well but mainly alongside my NSI MC1616 which has both microplex and DMX protocols. Problem is, it's a bit of pain these days with it's extremely limited memory (16 scenes) and I've now started looking at software packages to try and speed things up. Are you moving away from the NJD MDC128's? In regards to software... have you liked using Daslight? It seems odd for me to have come across someone working in the same capacity as I, so I'm pretty excited you have found ya'! Thanks for sharing all the info!
johnpennyblack
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Post by johnpennyblack »

Good morning, well it 's morning here! I have also been using Cakewalk for years starting with Cakewalk 3 up to Sonar 7 which I love. I used to make all sorts of widgets using Sonar 2 but they decided that later versions didn't need a widget maker because of all the new control services and I have set up a Behringer BCF2000 unit but with only 8 sliders it was a bit awkward, but I still adamantly kept Sonar 2 on my machine just so that I could make them! We have been using for a long long time a Peavey PC1600 which I have upgraded to the x version and slowly but surely I turned to that to do the lighting control. It is in all probability very similar to your controller except it is only the midi protocol and works in conjunction with the MDC128 converters. I set up all the scenes that I want with the controller and just send faders, that's it. When we had scanners I used the piano roll page to draw the cc's in manually thus pan and tilt were both very precise this took some time though as you can imagine. The results were worth the effort though. Also the analogue stuff was done with note on data so that was extremely easy to record using the MP820. Just one pass was normally enough to record 8 channels of the analogue lighting. I have set up the PC 1600x to have certain presets that when you move a slider it will ony move from say cc119 to 120 and another cc7 to 8 and when you record the movement in real time the scanners would move to the preset extremes. I just had lots of different start and finish points and that worked fantasticly for doing quick movements. Just filling in the colour and gobo data later. Drawing the controllers is the easiest for using the fades and colour mixing if you want perfect timings but I have also set up the Peavey with the controllers for our front lights four sliders for four colours and from these you can easily record in real time because you see the colour mix as you do it. There are also scenes associated with the preset for all of the desired preset colour mixes which are sent using the programable buttons for flashing lights etc. Our front lights are now only washes that come from 4 "icolour4" lights (used for side fill)and 2 rarer "Octilights" which are the brightest colour changer I have used, (no longer manufactured they need a dimmer pack though). I have sold most of the other front lights and only have 2 Martin Pro400's (out of 4) and 2 Constella colour changers left which are hard to shift. These were all too heavy and were blitzed by the Octilights anyway. I did like the gobo's with the Pro 400's for doing guitar solo's makes you feel special ha ha! I am doing some programming with a couple of Lanta G100+'s and a Lanta RGYO350 laser at the min and have made the fixtures in Daslight but the units have a problem in so much as the controller has to send a command to go manual first but as soon as you do the lasers come on and miss the selected patterns so timing the first step is critical in getting it to come on with the right effect at the second step without flicking through pattern 1. In Sonar7 the Peavey has been set up with all the laser controllers and I send faders for whatever I want it to do then go into the edit page and move the input control back 48 ticks, this works every time as long as you don't do any other movement . You can stretch and move immediately after with no probs though so I may stick with that and only use the Daslight for the im7s moving heads, DJ Squeezes and iShow 4. The main work for the lights then is done with the Peavey and the moving heads and effects are done with the Daslight because of the speed and virtual controller, if you used the Peavey there would be far too many controllers to handle. My email is [email protected] if you want to discuss anything else off topic as it seems I'm going on and on about what we do and not a lot about the Daslight product which is a fantastic unit and what this forum is about! I used to have the Martin one but didn't like that at all and never used it. Regards John
John
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