Triggering a light show with midi...and running a click-track to the drummer.

[lukesample]

I?ve been doing some research on how to use midi to trigger my light shit. It?s really very basic, but I may need your guys' help in figuring this out.

Basically, the midi notes numbered 1-126 are assigned to individual ?scenes?. So, lets say scene 1 is white lights pointed straight up. Well, I would send midi note 1 over to the controller which would then align the lights to be straight up and white. Midi note 2 may then trigger scene 2 which could be blue lights pointed straight out.

Thus, by playing note 1, we get white straight up?and then playing note 2, we get blue straight out.

What I then need, is either a piece of software or a sampler or something that will send our drummer a click and also send out the midi notes at the correct time to the light controller. Assuming we play to the click, our lights can be triggered automatically by the midi notes, dropping the need for a light operator.

Would something like vegas video do this?or is there a cheap little rack-mount unit that could pull this off without having to deal with a laptop? I know nothing about this midi shit. Once again, all I need is the ability to send a click track to the drummer while at the same time send midi notes to the controller.

Oh, one other thing: Would it be possible to not only send him the click, but also give him a live mix of vocals, guitars, and bass? This really isn't a requirement, as we could have pre-recorded tracks in the mix where he is getting his click-track...but it may be better to actually have the live instruments in his mix as well.

Help me out here guys!

[brandondrury]

Okay, here's the way it works. Midi is recorded and "played back" with a sequencer. Back in the very old days, bands/groups/whatever like New Order where using Ataris for this. Sequencer's themselves do not play sound. They just store and play back midi messages.

For audio, you must send the midi coming out of the sequencer into a synthesizer or sampler. A synthesizer creates sounds with some algorithm. This is why synths were known for having horrid drum sounds in the early days of midi. Samplers came around and allowed you to trigger real sounds that were recorded with microphones or whatever. This improved the "organic qualities" of the tone.

Of course, midi can be used for other things. My Rocktron Prophesy guitar preamp uses midi to switch between presets. I'm pretty sure that I can tap out delays on my midi controller as well to control delay times, for example.

In your situation, it sounds like you are wanting to use a sequencer to trigger your lights, which should be not too much different than triggering a kick drum sample with midi. It should be possible, for example, to program a simple 4/4 kick - snare - kick - snare type of beat into a sequencer, but instead of routing the midi out to a kick and a snare, it would be routed to a blue light and a white light respectively.

The good news here is midi files are sort of a universal deal. In other words, you can swipe midi files off the internet that play 50 Cent songs or Braveheart themes, load them into a sequencer, setup the midi so that it triggers the right instrument, and you could literally have an orchestra playing back the Braveheart theme. I'm not sure you would want to run Braveheart through your lighting system, but this means that you could program your light sequences on a software sequencer and then dump those midi files into another sequencer if you so choose.

CHOOSING A SEQUENCER

This is where the research needs to be done. There are multiple styles of sequencers. There are software sequencers like Cubase (and a few Open Source / GPL programs that have gotten nice reviews) and there are hardware sequencers. You can find hardware sequencers in stand alone boxes (possibly in rackmount form) and you can find them in any nice keyboard. If a keyboard can play back a demo song than it has some sort of sequencer (even if it's quite primitive).

Vegas Video will not do this. Vegas has almost zero Midi capabilities, which is a bummer.

LIVE SEQUENCERS

If your drummer needs a click send to in ear monitors or whatever, than you will require some sort of audio device. Midi in itself won't create audio. It's needs a sampler or synth to pull this off. Although your main purpose for the sequencer is to program lighting, you still require one audio out channel. You can run that click into your mixer, but only give it to the drummer. This is simple on a board like a Mackie 1604.

Laptop
I've never dealt with this sort of thing at all, but my gut tells me that a laptop is probably the way to go. Computers are not known for extreme reliability (and this needs to be taken into account), but they are known for flexibility. You could easily trigger lights and feed a click to your drummer at the same time with a laptop. Of course, you are going to need some sort of audio interface that has at least one mono audio out and a midi out. I'm sure there is an affordable M-Audio box that does this via Firewire or USB2.0.

Changing Songs
The other issue is how to change from song to song. I'm not sure at all about that one. Either the drummer will have to do it or the someone working in tandem with the drummer will have to do it. Some programs allow you to load up 10 different instances of the software. Some will not. Of course, midi playback shouldn't be that big of deal, I wouldn't think, but there are some serious issues to ponder here.

1) I'd definitely give your drummer a live mix of the band. Your players will have to be damn tight to not push a drummer in a live situation. Guys who can relax and not push a drummer in a studio often act very differently on stage. Bras aren't being tossed at you on stage.

2) There needs to be a contengency plan for everything. I mean everything. The click will get unplugged. The midi will lose sync or randomly switch from "Midi Out" to "internal midi". This would mean that your lights would stop and your drummer might be hearing keyboard tones that are entirely off key (but on time).

I'd definitely spend some time practicing your live shows. When big boys with big crews put on big rock shows, they reherse not only the music, but the show. Since you are trying to do everything yourself here, in essence, you are putting on a very big show. My gut tells me that you may be best off finding some help. If your show is this big of deal, you probably have a few fans that would love to learn how to use lighting....maybe not.

Brandon

Brandon

[lukesample]

Alright, this being said...here is my plan:

My current idea is to use some type of recording software to record a midi keyboard performance for each song. This performance of course is not musical at all...it is just a sequence of notes that will trigger my lights. Recorded at the tempo of the song of course.

Now, assuming that I am understanding this correctly, if both my software and laptop allow for midi out...then I have no need for a synth because the lighting controller will read the raw midi I recorded to the track. The controller will have no need to hear the midi being played as a cello or whatever.

Also, I do not plan on having the midi performance playing the click. I plan to have the software itself output the click separately from the midi.

So, the software I need will need to have the capability to:

Record, or load up a pre-recorded midi performance, then output this through a laptop.
Output a click-track to the mixer.

Will Cubase do both of these things?
What about the el-cheapo version of pro-tools? I am a little bit familiar with this system already and it appears this software would handle this task with ease. (I already know how to work the click-track and record with this software). Also, this would allow me to load up different backing tracks if we ever wanted to go that far.

I also need to find the firewire, or usb 2.0 box to have the proper outputs coming from the laptop as you said...and I should be set.

The feasibility of this has yet to be determined. It will of course have to be highly rehearsed as you said, and there are a billion things that could go wrong. A chance you take I guess. The beauty of lights though is that if the drummer has to rip out the monitors to finish the song...the only thing that will screw up is the lights. Which, even off-time will not be that big of a deal.

I have seen a lot of bands playing to click-tracks recently...including a fairly big regoinal band with no outside help. We'll find out real fast though when we practice it for the first time.

Having someone come to every rehearsal and play the lighting controller like and instrument would be like having another band member. This would be fairly difficult to pull off, but may be an option when we get a nice fan-base. Somebody would probably be willing to do it.

[brandondrury]

Also, I do not plan on having the midi performance playing the click. I plan to have the software itself output the click separately from the midi.

Well, whether you are triggering the click directly with your midi track or using the software (which will either trigger a midi click internally or play back an audio click) doesn't really matter all that much. The end result is you'll need analog audio coming out of a soundcard and you'll need midi out going to light rig.

A simplest midi system has 16 channels all capable of sending 1-127 messages / notes. Your lights will probably only need one of these, I'm guessing. You could have one of the other channels feeding your click track. The reason I'd at least try this first is it guarantees sync. This gives you more flexibility with your playback system. In other words, you could use a much more lightweight program for playback of the real performance even if you program with some crazy sequencing software. In fact, it may actually be possible to use media player.

I'd rather use media player (if possible) than some really heavy softare like Cubase for playback. There are reliability issues with the more hardcore programs, but just the ease of having your drummer double click on a midi file in a Windows folder and he instantly gets his 8 count, may be the most realistic from a time standpoint. I'm not positive if Media player will send a midi out...but it may. I have a feeling that some media player will send midi out.

What about the el-cheapo version of pro-tools?

There is no el-cheapo version of pro-tools that I'm aware of. There's the $25k Pro Tools HD3 and there is LE which is bundled with the Mbox (cheapest 2 channel soundcard @ $450 if I remember correctly). Pro Tools LE will handle midi just fine, but I wouldn't pay $450 to get it and a two channel soundcard unless you have a use for the 2 channel soundcard.


What you are trying to do here is pretty stupid and I highly respect that! I've never known of a person going this far out of there way to entertain there audience. Let's keep hammering it out. I'll help as much as I can.

Brandon

[karlanderson]

I'm actually going to be doing precisely as you are describing for my band. I play keyboards/bass in the band. We've been playing to sequenced tracks with a metronome for years, so the only next step we're facing is getting setup properly to do this with lights. We have four light cans per side and two Marting moving-yolk lights for the rear of the stage. My light controller accepts midi. Currently all of our tracks/metronome are played back on a yamaha DAW controlled by our drummer. This is what we are going to do: We're going to ditch the Yamaha and start running all of our sequencing/click in Pro Tools LE live. We are getting an M-Box 2 Pro to handle all of the I/Os involved with audio and midi. Once we have all of the soft/hardware needed I'm to set all of the lights up at a local church and use a pro tools midi track to record all of the midi changes to match the pre recorded sequenced tracks. Should be a snap. My one question is how it'll work to program fades and stuff. I don't know if the cans will respond in a similar way to the moving lights. I'm excited to try this....good lights add a lot to a live show. And it would a lot cheaper than having a different person run lights. I don't need to pay pro tools and hourly rate Anyone else have any experience with this type of thing?

[herdman8]

Hey gyes. I want to be able to control my ligths with midi as well. How do you have it hooked up so that 1 midi message controls a light.
I would be running it with pro tools le. And build a midi sequence to the tempo of the song.
But i don't know how to do it.
Out Pro tools VIA MIDI, to a lighting board?
You said its pretty easy i would love to hear how you are doing this.
ITs pretty smart if you ask me.
thanks alot
Brian

[ToddF]

I also am looking into doing this. I'm glad I finally found this forum. Tomorrow I hope to talk to a guy who does this with his band, so I expect to learn some secrets.

For the MIDI side, I figured I'd code the show using Finale. I'd just create a music staff that has the basic structure of the song, then add another staff for the scene triggering. I'd save the song as a MIDI file with the original staff removed. That way I'm programming the light show in terms of phrases, verses, choruses, quarter notes, and other musical terms. Programming in terms of milliseconds makes more sense for a DJ then a musician.

I'm stuck on figuring out what DMX controller to use. I figured the best route would be a software controller with a 3d visualizer. That way I could program the whole show without plugging in lights.

If I go this route, I'm hoping I can use a midi female-to-female adapter to hook my computer's MIDI-IN to MIDI-OUT. Will this work? That way I can go out from a media player and into DMX controller software.

Another problem is triggering song starts and ends, plus I'd want an emergency trigger that I could hit if the band goes out-of-sync with the show. I'd rather have an unsynchronized show then a badly synchronized show.

I've not yet spent a dime on DMX, but hope that I could get this effort going for about $1,500. I wouldn't have many lights at this price, but I'd expect that by $3,000 I'd be able to program a pretty cool show. I hope I'm in the ballpark.

The week part of my knowledge is DMX controllers. I figure once I get the right one, I'll be able to extend over time, but if I get the wrong one, I'll have to sell and start over.

Ideally some company would offer this as a packaged solution. It makes me wonder if I should quit my job and start this company. I'm sure I'll leave this up to someone else.

Has anyone on this forum found an end-to-end solution yet? Please post!

- Todd

[ToddF]

Another thought I had was that the click track could be linked to a simple scene that flashes a par32 pointed at the band. That way you don't need to hook everyone up with in-ear monitors, or require that everyone follow the drummer and his headphones. I'd hate to require that the drummer start every song.

This leads to another thought. Use multiple staves in Finale to group similar DMX scenes. For example, the click-track is one staff, wash lighting is another staff, and effect lighting is a third staff. This would allow me to program the click-track light in terms of quarter notes, effect lighting in terms of song sections, and wash lighting in terms of groove patterns and accents. All the staffs come together in when I create the midi file.

I presume the DMX controller would be able run multiple concurrent scenes with different start and end triggers, but that's the weak part of my knowledge.