Synchronisation audio with timeline

[Five4aFool]

Dear Daslight,

I'm a new user to Daslight 5. We've purchased this software mainly to program a lightshow synchronized to our music.

To achieve this I've imported an MP3-file with only a clicktrack to the timeline . Then I've set the timeline to bars and adjusted the BPM accordingly to the audio-file and programmed a superscene with the lightshow on the timeline. So every song has its own superscene. When we play the superscene we send the audio to the drummer as a clicktrack and the lights should play synchronized with the audio-file.
However, in the beginning of the song it is synchronized but at the end of the song the audio is behind the lights. It seems that the audio is played slower than it should. The .wav form of the clicktrack is exactly at the barlines from the timeline. At the end of the song, most of our songs are approximately 4 minutes, it differs about 1/2 tot 1 beat. This seems like a bug to me or am I doing something wrong?

Kind regards,
Frank

[chrischris]

Hello Franck,

I hope to save you some time with your issue. Regarding audio in Daslight, you can forget about precision in measurements, especially if you're working with a click for your performances. I’ve tried all the versions, tested a lot of things, and every time, the accuracy has been clearly random and really not up to par. The solution for me was to put the audio on a track in a DAW (Reaper, Logic, Cubase, etc.) and synchronize Daslight and the DAW together via an Akai controller (APC25). For example, I assign the superscene to a pad, and I assign the start of my song on the DAW to the same pad; this is the only way to ensure correct and synchronized starts every time. I only use the Daslight audio timeline to do my lighting programming, and then I mute the track and switch to live mode. The DAW handles the audio, and Daslight takes care of the lighting. I hope this will also help others who want to include audio in their light shows. By the way, if the Daslight team is reading this message, please try to fix this issue in the next versions. Thank you.

[Five4aFool]

Dear Daslight,

Can someone from Daslight please react in this thread?

Because what chrischris writes is very disappointing. The main reason for me to purchase Daslight is the timeline-feature and the ability to program lights to imported music. If the music and lights are not synced than the software is pretty useless.

Could you please update me on the progress to fix this bug?


Hope to hear from you soon!

[chrischris]

Dear Daslight,

Can someone from Daslight please react in this thread?

Because what chrischris writes is very disappointing. The main reason for me to purchase Daslight is the timeline-feature and the ability to program lights to imported music. If the music and lights are not synced than the software is pretty useless.

Could you please update me on the progress to fix this bug?


Hope to hear from you soon!

Open Daslight, import an MP3 onto the first audio track, then import the same MP3 onto a second audio track right below it. Then play them... press the spacebar to start playback several times, and you’ll see that the tracks are out of sync 7 times out of 10, and never with the same delay. This will already give you some insight into what I mentioned in my first post.

[Five4aFool]

Dear ChrisChris,

So now I'm trying a different approach.
I have linked Cubase throught midi with Daslight. I can send and receive midi and BPM information.

Could you advise me on the best way to synchronize the lights? I Could make one superscene per song and trigger the superscene once at the start of the song and tell the superscene to follow the BPM , or I could make multiple scenes and program in Cubase with midi-notes every action that Daslight needs to do. Than I will end up with a full midi-song to trigger the lights. Which solution is the most reliable?

Thanks in advance for your reaction,

[chrischris]

Dear ChrisChris,

So now I'm trying a different approach.
I have linked Cubase throught midi with Daslight. I can send and receive midi and BPM information.

Could you advise me on the best way to synchronize the lights? I Could make one superscene per song and trigger the superscene once at the start of the song and tell the superscene to follow the BPM , or I could make multiple scenes and program in Cubase with midi-notes every action that Daslight needs to do. Than I will end up with a full midi-song to trigger the lights. Which solution is the most reliable?

Thanks in advance for your reaction,

Let me explain how I generally work. First, I create a superscene for each song. If I have 15 tracks, that means I will have 15 superscenes placed in 15 different banks. A superscene includes several elements:

1- An audio file of the song to be synchronized, which is only used for programming the superscene. (It’s recommended to set the BPM in Daslight to match the tempo of the song while programming. Once the editing is complete, it doesn’t matter if the tempo changes slightly.)
2- All the lighting scenes you want to use for each projector in your superscene.

Once your lighting programming is complete and works with the audio in Daslight, you go to your DAW (for example, Cubase) and place the audio file on a track. Then, you use a MIDI controller (I personally use an Akai APC25) to tell Daslight to start the superscene when note C1 (for example) is triggered.

In Cubase, you need to set up a MIDI marker (I'm not sure if Cubase allows this) to trigger the song with the same note C1. In fact, Daslight and Cubase will start simultaneously when you press the C1 note.

Important: Be sure to mute Daslight's audio to hear only the sound from Cubase.

I advise against the other method you mentioned, which is writing all your lighting sequences in MIDI via Cubase during the song. This would send too many MIDI messages, increasing the risk of bugs or system crashes.

It’s clear that getting a clean result takes time. Currently, I have 3 spot moving heads, 4 PAR LEDs, and 6 theater projectors. Creating something nice and professional for a 15 to 16 song show took me over 6 months. I also regularly come back to the project, as there’s always something to improve, especially when working with the 3D visualizer, which doesn’t always reflect reality.

One last thing: I’m not sure Cubase is the best solution for this kind of setup, in which case, try using a software like Reaper. I know there’s a template that allows you to write multiple MIDI containers (kind of like a playlist) and it even handles pauses and start points easily with MIDI. It’s important to know that in your DAW, the idea isn’t to create a new track for each song. All songs should be on the same track throughout the show. The order of the setlist doesn’t matter, but it’s essential to create a specific marker for each song, linked to MIDI notes or pads that must match exactly with those created in Daslight at the start of each track. In the end, the BPM doesn’t matter here; what counts is that the audio from Cubase starts exactly when Daslight starts.

I hope I’ve clarified some of your questions. I recommend checking out this video about a template in Reaper that works well in sync with Daslight: https://youtu.be/aqQyKdFa6Y4?si=EVbnJVpIIA6vPFvd

[Five4aFool]

Wow, thank you for your extensive description!
I'm gonna try your workflow. Seems like a reliable method.
We have 30 songs, so I'm up to to a good amount of work

Kind regards,