MIDI Show Control

Flyboy

Member
Despite the possibly misleading subject, this is in fact about lighting. I'm currently programming the light boards (an ETC Express 48/96 and Jand's Hog250) for my university's production of Big Love. As a project for myself--and since I can't run the show and most likely won't have a qualified board op.--I wanted to try setting the Hog as a slave to the Express, and subsequently fire both sets of cues from one board. From what I've discovered, it seems that I might be able to do so using the MSC functions of both boards. However, I know little to nothing (closer to nothing) about MIDI protocol and haven't been able to get the boards to talk to each other yet. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.
 
Go find a book by John Hunington called Control Systems for Live Entertainment. It will tell you what you need to know, and the two manuals for the consoles will be able to get you the rest of the way. It's a book I don't let out of my gig bag, ever.
 
That book is amazing. I have it. Make sure to get the second edition. It will get you going.
 
Sorry OT but my old master carp Went to Eastern Washington. Nice kid, By old I mean ex he moved on, left me here, abandoned ...... it's too painful to talk about. nevermind. :mrgreen:
 
I will be doing something simualer next week (hog 1000 slaved to expression 3) and from my reading of the manuals you need to set addresses for MSC on both desks and then make identical cuelists. The cues dont have to have the same set of info in them just the same number or they could be dummy cues. From my understanding everytime you hit GO on the express it will send GO CUE STACK ONE CUE# over MSC . I am not sure if the dummy cues would be needed or if the hog will wait for the right cue before runnning its next one.

Let my know how it turns out or if I need to be more clear
 
I know it is definitely possible to have the Express fire cues on Hog via MIDI. I'm not exactly sure how to do it, but I imagine you should be able to figure it out if you look through the manuals for the two consoles.

-Dan
 
...Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

-On your Express 48/96, Push SETUP 6 ENTER to go into the Options Settings.
-Push 2 ENTER then ENTER 1 ENTER, which will leave the MSC receiver disabled and set the transmit device ID to 1.

-On the Hog, push the SETUP key and then INPUT PANEL on the right bottom touchscreen. Turn on MIDI IN at the top right touchscreen and verify that the Show Control Device ID is set to 1 (it is set to 1 by default).
-The Express A/B Go Button will control Cuelist 1 (Check the Cuelist Directory, Pig+List, on the Hog to move around stuff if you need to). The C/D Go Button will control Cuelist 2.

-If you want to have the ability to push the BACK button on the Express and also have the Hog step back as well. Open up the floppy disk from the hog on a PC and find the file in the SETUP directory on the disk called MOREOPTS.TXT and open it in Notepad in Windows. Change this line;

Code:
midi_step_back = 0

to this

Code:
midi_step_back = 1

and save the file. Push the blue button on your hog (or if you have a hog500/1000 hold down the ENTER key while powering on your console and do a CLEAN START) and reload the show disk. (You always push the blue button when you reload a show like you're supposed to at the beginning of the day, riiiiiiiiiiight??)

-j
 
Wakkoroti ! You rock ! Now that was an answer ! Definitive, to the point.

No guessing going on there !
 
So, good news: I got the boards talking to each other a few days ago. It was like wakkoroti noted about A/B Go firing Cuelist 1. I went in and realized that even though my cuelist was loaded on Fader 1, it was actually Cuelist 5. After reorganizing my lists, everything worked just fine. Thanks alot for all the help.
 
From my understanding everytime you hit GO on the express it will send GO CUE STACK ONE CUE# over MSC . I am not sure if the dummy cues would be needed or if the hog will wait for the right cue before runnning its next one.
Let my know how it turns out or if I need to be more clear

...and by the way: The hog does wait for the proper cue#; the dummy cues aren't needed. But I haven't played with the stepback feature yet, so it might need dummy cues for that to work properly...don't know yet.
 
...and by the way: The hog does wait for the proper cue#; the dummy cues aren't needed. But I haven't played with the stepback feature yet, so it might need dummy cues for that to work properly...don't know yet.

No dummy cues needed. The Express sends a complete MSC string which includes cue and cuelist number every time the GO and BACK button is pressed.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back