Anyone on here doing stage or lighting design?

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 5:30 am

I'm sure demand has something to do with it being expensive but with the recent huge drop in price on intelligent DMX lighting on a consumer level hopefully that will change.

From what I've seen the software makes absolutely no sense to me, literally and figuratively. Lighting is just as visual as a movie and therefor the software should have that. You should have a virtual room or stage where you can graphically put your fixtures and program your show and watch your show on your monitor and sync it all to an audio track just like what you would do for movie editing. I find it kind of lame when the GUI on a software package mostly just mimics a hardware controller. What's the point? I'm sure there are probably some high end packages that do exactly what I am saying, but again, damn expensive.

By the way, Live should be the perfect music program for you to integrate your light knowledge. Maybe we can swap brains for a month.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 10:52 am

What makes Live lighting and video control and performance easier for me are Live clips and two nested virtual MIDI buses. I have a separate Live track for each DMX channel (about 120 tracks) and although there are lots of CC values and curves to draw, they're all done and used over and over as Live clips. By using the same CC curves with audio, video, camera control, and lighting, it's easy to get all four working together. There's also a separate Live MIDI track for each video layer.

The first virtual MIDI bus makes a preset for each fixture, such as the six DMX channels it takes to make a single laser preset, such as "Panning Circular Tunnel." Using MIDI effects, Follow Actions, and a beat-detection plug-in makes the presets more interesting. Again, all of the presets I make are named and dragged into Live's browser as Live clips.

The second virtual MIDI bus makes a preset that combines presets of all fixtures and video and is assigned to a Faderfox button. My blue Faderfox buttons are lighting, green video, red lighting/video combos, and black camera and G-Force/Whitecap visualizer controls. Again, MIDI effects and Follow Actions are used here, and the combo lighting/video clips are choreographed so that the lighting and video work together (Panning Laser Tunnel works with Panning Video Mask, for example). Some are one-shots that I use sometimes with an audio sample, such as a cymbal crash, a lighting blinder flash, and a nuclear mushroom-cloud video clip chromakeyed over live camera feed. Using random Follow Actions on the one-shot can randomly choose a different video clip each time the one-shot is fired.

To build a library, simply drag individual DMX channel Live clips into session view, then drag the resulting MIDI clips back into the browser to make a preset for that fixture. Drag presets for each fixture back into session view, and back into the browser to make complete lighting/video scenes. Add MIDI effects, Follow Actions, etc at any stage. Done. The hardest part is naming the Live clips so that they make sense!

Recording a MIDI track of the second virtual MIDI bus automates the lighting and video for an entire track. I still get freaked out watching the lighting and video all run itself, and the Follow Actions and MIDI effects can make it as automatic or manual, fixed or random as you like. And obviously everything is tied to Live's tempo, so all sequences, fades, etc are tightly synched. AFAIK, even higher-end DMX solutions don't tie pans/tilts/fades to the tempo.

All done directly in Live with no additional software (apart from the freebie KT Drum Trigger). Camera pan/tilt/control done with freebie Sony VISCA software.

There is a 100ms delay in the CC>DMX translation, but that doesn't bother me, as I already delay the audio to the PA by 200ms to compensate for the video capture card delay. The lighting and video clips are all quantized so that all lighting and video are tightly synched to the audio.

It does take some organization (couldn't do it without spreadsheets!) and initial work, but the results are well worth it, and audio, video, cameras, and lighting can all be performed single-handedly. I haven't gotten into racks yet, but they're another powerful lighting and video tool.

This system makes it easy to do trendy glitchy/stuttery lighting and video, too. I'm just learning how to incorporate the same CC values and curves into Flash movies to synch Flash parameters with the lighting.

chalkline · Post by **chalkline** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:40 am

I trained as a set designer for 3 years with a designer from the royal opera house,
I was fantastic, but in all fairness probably the hardest out of all the technical artistic crafts to get work in! You have about the same chance as becoming a constantly working actor as you would set designer, so I moved into lx as a way to get into sound in large venues!
In all respects, apart from the programming of a desk, then it is all about being a button monkey, no offence, again still pretty hard to get into serious lighting design!
I now work as a sound production engineer in a very large london venue, and at least mixing is still live, ok some button monkeymanship involved with some of the playback systems like SFX, but I have managed to design a few large shows this way, it seems easier to prove your worth as a sound designer!
I personally couldn't think of anything more boring than pointing lights and putting colours in them, but I will say when you see an exceptional lighting designer then it becomes a piece of art!

Anyway think I completely went off topic with that, basically stick with sound, you will all sorts of weird audiophiles coming up to you to ask you questions like what colour tape to use with an MKH2!

dbaudioware · Post by **dbaudioware** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:56 pm

beats me wrote:Lighting is just as visual as a movie and therefor the software should have that. You should have a virtual room or stage where you can graphically put your fixtures and program your show and watch your show on your monitor and sync it all to an audio track just like what you would do for movie editing.

There are lots of PC based visualisers - you could easily use one to visualise a DMX light show created on your Mac.

[Mac + Live + DMX Interface] >>> DMX cable >>> [PC + Visualiser + DMX interface]

I find it kind of lame when the GUI on a software package mostly just mimics a hardware controller. What's the point?

Jands make their profits from hardware, and most Jands customers probably use Jands hardware consoles for live shows - so their software will naturally mimic the hardware.

ze2be · Post by **ze2be** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:29 am

BongoBennie wrote:As cool as I think that is, I don't think Ableton is capable of doing the things that the modern lighting control software is capable of, do you run any lighting software at all? At the same time, the average high end USB to DMX dongle costs around 2 grand per universe, so maybe if you CAN replicate the ways of a lighting console, you are on to something big!!

DMXIS?

www.dmxis.com

furrybum · Post by **furrybum** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:10 pm

I personally couldn't think of anything more boring than pointing lights and putting colours in them, but I will say when you see an exceptional lighting designer then it becomes a piece of art!

I'm an audio visual technician, the company I work for do everything from corporate events to festival work, and I totally agree. I think you need a passion for it to be honest. Setting up lighting for shows is one of my least favourite parts of the job. The sound design and data/video side interests me a whole lot more.....but you can't deny that a decent light show takes things to another level entirely. In the same way, a half arsed light show can make you look like a wedding dj!

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:33 pm

furrybum wrote:...a half arsed light show can make you look like a wedding dj!

Wedding/Corporate DJ/VJ here... not necessarily so...

Lighting is my least favorite part, but when audio, video, and lighting are well-designed and tightly integrated, synched, and choreographed, the combined synergism can be SO much greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Example (used in James Bond-themed charity fundraiser to Propellerhead's 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service): Preset automatically sets both cameras to night vision mode, alpha masked night-vision scope style Flash graphics (crosshairs, scrolling range numbers, etc) over green live dancefloor cameras panning, tilting, crossfading at the beginning of each measure, green laser tunnel panning and tilting to follow the cameras, green LED uplighters chasing around the room, with a synched whooshy 360-panning synthy sound.

furrybum · Post by **furrybum** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:20 pm

Wedding/Corporate DJ/VJ here... not necessarily so...

Lighting is my least favorite part, but when audio, video, and lighting are well-designed and tightly integrated, synched, and choreographed, the combined synergism can be SO much greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Example (used in James Bond-themed charity fundraiser to Propellerhead's 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service): Preset automatically sets both cameras to night vision mode, alpha masks night-vision scope style Flash graphics (crosshairs, scrolling range numbers, etc) over green live dancefloor cameras pan, tilt, crossfade at the beginning of each measure, green laser tunnel pans and tilts to follow the cameras, green LED uplighters chase around the room, with a whooshy 360-panning synthy sound on each measure.

Obviously there are exceptions. I'm generalising. In my experience your AVERAGE wedding dj seems to put in very little effort. I'm sure your shows would prove me wrong and I apologise for any offence caused.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:25 pm

No offence taken!

I DO hate the semi-literate, working-class, uneducated reputation that the mobile/wedding DJ industry has developed.

Unfortunately, they've probably earned it!

furrybum · Post by **furrybum** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:32 pm

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 2:56 pm

wow furrybum, is that Bjørn Lomborg? Creepy.

furrybum · Post by **furrybum** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 3:03 pm

That guy has a crazy nose

BongoBennie · Post by **BongoBennie** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:57 pm

I must say, the DMXIS is the most exciting thing I've seen in a while... below are other things that are on my lighting "list"...

http://www.highend.com/HESDirect/showpix/showpix.html

http://www.highend.com/products/digital ... g/dl_3.asp

http://www.martin.com/product/product.a ... stagebar54

http://www.martin.com/product/product.a ... t=Lcseries

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:04 pm

dude, the STAGEBAR?!?

that thing is 1770 euros, for pete's sake... Find me the guys who are willing to pay that kind of money, I have big metal tower in Paris to sell them!

BongoBennie · Post by **BongoBennie** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:21 pm

Machinate wrote:dude, the STAGEBAR?!?

that thing is 1770 euros, for pete's sake... Find me the guys who are willing to pay that kind of money, I have big metal tower in Paris to sell them!

chump change

http://www.barco.com/corporate/en/produ ... gennr=1914

this thing is about $80K, Ill take 10 please!!!

ps, we have one of those towers in vegas too