DVC2 GOLD

[chrisb]

Hi Guys
I'm on the brink of buying a DVC2 Gold. Having taken a look at both versions of software (VC1 and VC2), I'm still a little confused about whether I can control the live operation.
I run an Eagles Tribute band called Desperado, and the lighting we require is fairly basic, and at this stage we can't afford a lighting tech.
My thinking is to send a midi signal triggering a click to our drummer, whilst syncing to a midi sequence, sending midi note data to the DVC2 GOLD to control the lighting fixtures. That's the theory !
Having read some of the posts I'm concerned about....
a) How the midi data is received by the DVC2 GOLD
b) Whether to use a hardware midi controller to send the data or a laptop running DVC1 or DVC2
c) Use the DVC2 as a stand alone controller.
Hope someone out there can give some advise.
Thanks.
ChrisB

[Andre]

Hi Guys
I'm on the brink of buying a DVC2 Gold. Having taken a look at both versions of software (VC1 and VC2), I'm still a little confused about whether I can control the live operation.
I run an Eagles Tribute band called Desperado, and the lighting we require is fairly basic, and at this stage we can't afford a lighting tech.
My thinking is to send a midi signal triggering a click to our drummer, whilst syncing to a midi sequence, sending midi note data to the DVC2 GOLD to control the lighting fixtures. That's the theory !
Having read some of the posts I'm concerned about....
a) How the midi data is received by the DVC2 GOLD
b) Whether to use a hardware midi controller to send the data or a laptop running DVC1 or DVC2
c) Use the DVC2 as a stand alone controller.
Hope someone out there can give some advise.
Thanks.
ChrisB

a) The Midi data is not received by the interface. You need to have a midi interface on your computer, the midi interface sends the data to DVC2 to interpret and act on according to what you have set for your scenes in the editor or from live.
b) A hardware controller would be the easiest solution or even from a midi enabled keyboard. you can get midi foot controllers to send the midi data to the midi inteface on your computer.
c) not the best thing to do for live shows, you would have to create complex scenes and just let them run. Would need to be near the interface to change to next scene. Have no real option to stop the show or even have a break.

Option you have not thought about, having a laptop on stage with a touchscreen connected to it and then you can launch your scenes from the "Virtual Screen" (looks like a LCD monitor) on the menu. See this post for more info on the "Virtual Screen".

Hope that helps,

[chrisb]

Thanks Andre, appreciate the reply.
I'm trying to negate the need for a musician on stage to have to trigger the light scenes/sequences mid song.
Do you know if it's possible to send out the midi control data via a lap top computer running say 'cubase' incorporating the control data within a song sequence ? Would this method of midi control data be accepted by the Daslight controller ?? This is what I was trying to explain in my original post, probably not very well !!
Thanks
ChrisB

[Andre]

Hi Chris,

The Daslight does not give a monkey from what the midi signal comes from, it is sent by whatever, recieved by the midi interface and that send to DVC2 which then acts on it accordingly.
So the short answer is yes you can send midi from Cubase or any other program.
If it's on the same laptop then I think you need a program called LoopBe1 which takes the midi signal from one application and sends to another application (think internal midi cable). It can be found here http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html

I gave up on using midi ages ago with DVC2 as it was not a full implementation, apparently it is much better now and I might take a re-visit, except that I am at the moment re-writing all my shows for LightFactory and that has 3 hardware wings on Ethernet, no need for midi but can connect a hardware console using midi to enable me to have upto a 1000 submaster faders.

Hope that helps and good luck and let us know how you get on.

[chrisb]

Hi Andre
I'll now buy the controller. Whatever the outcome and method of control I think this the way to go for us. Seems the easiest and most cost effective way of producing a synconised lighting show.
I will let you know the outcome, and thanks again for your input.
I'll keep an eye on your website for the live shows and pop down if you're in the area !
Cheers
ChrisB

[vianney]

You can trigger by Midi Note and Midi commande with DVC2.
It works fine now and we corrected the problems of 2008.
Thank you Andre for the MIDI tools.

[Ryger1]

You need a simple cheap USB MIDI dongle plugged into your laptop.

Run the MIDI dongle software and use it to then tell the Daslight software which scene to turn on & off.

Run the Daslight DVC2 interface in Live mode - this is the only way for the interface to know what to do.

You are effectively using your keyboard or sequencer to run the midi dongle - the dongle to run the DVC2 software - the software to run the DVC2 controller.

If using Sonar 7 - I have been told that you can output from that via a midi dongle and then patch back into the laptop via a second dongle. Somewhere on the Forum there is a couple of guys that do something like this regularly without any problems.

[William008]

Some more data - I have had a go at utilizing the product on an establishment of Windows XP 32 bit utilizing the same PC. It works impeccably. The issue is by all accounts at whatever point Windows 7 is utilized.

I've likewise attempted re-introducing Windows 7, and the same thing happens.