Do you use MIDI?

[ishboo]

I was just on the phone with Lehigh who makes our light board on the topic of the MIDI controls that they advertise are working on their console however they have yet to get around to programming it. Their reasoning was this "MIDI is very rarely used in a theatrical setting so it is the least of their concerns". I know it isn't that common but I've used it for a handful of projects so my question is this: In theatrical settings have you ever used MIDI or is it as rare as they say it is?

 

[JChenault]

I voted yes - but...

I am a developer of a moving light program intended to work in conjunction with a conventional console. Out product supports midi - (among other interface methods) and I am testing it in a show now.

Would I be using it if I were not using our moving light console - no. But I am using it right now in our venue.

 

[derekleffew]

...or is it as rare as they say it is?

One can't help but wonder why every other console manufacturer implements some MIDI capabilities if there was no demand? I can't think of a (decent) console that doesn't have MIDI!

 

[ishboo]

Thank you. I know it's not in the highest of demand but people do use it and I've been waiting almost 2 years for our console to implement it, I've had countless promises and excuses from Lehigh about it's coming soon when all of their spec sheets and brochures say it is a working feature. I'm glad I'm not going crazy there is some demand for MIDI.

 

[porkchop]

Although (on the Maxxyz at least) it's communicated through 3 pin XLR isn't SMPTE run through the MIDI protocol. Could be totally wrong but that's what I thought (looked in the glossary for a reminder but still not sure). If so all three touring High School Musical on Ice units used it for about 600 lighting cues per show and all of our video, all sent from the sound board (8 - 12+ shows a week). I'd say it was pretty important to us.

 

[derekleffew]

Bacon-Ax, you're confusing SMPTE LTC with MTC. Some consoles can only implement timecode via MIDI, but if it has an XLR3, it takes SMPTE directly. I'm fairly certain the Maxxyz, as with most upper-level consoles, can do either.

 

[porkchop]

Bacon-Ax, you're confusing SMPTE LTC with MTC. Some consoles can only implement timecode via MIDI, but if it has an XLR3, it takes SMPTE directly. I'm fairly certain the Maxxyz, as with most upper-level consoles, can do either.

It probably can, it has one input labeled MIDI with the usual connector, but the one labeled SMPTE is 3 pin XLR. I thought I read somewhere that SMPTE was based on MIDI, but I guess not.

 

[NickJones]

Our vision mixer can interact with the auido desk so when I switch to a DVD or Computer, it automaticly brings up the volume for the video. Problem is we don't own a didgital audio desk, so it's not much use. It's not much use to hook up to a keyboard (piano) or anything, but I'm pretty sure that you can use it with software and a MIDI to USB controller to sync music up to lights.
Nick

 

[Eboy87]

Not lighting related, but on Miss Saigon, we had the Cadac fire a MIDI message to Qlab for sound effects. For those cues, just hit next on the Cadac, and not only were the correct channels unmuted, but Qlab fired the sfx with that one button press. Very handy.

 

[calkew5]

We also use MIDI with Qlab to activate sound cues from the light console. I understand it can work both ways, whether Qlab fires light cues or the console fires sound cues. It saves having to pay two board ops.

 

[TheDonkey]

We also use MIDI with Qlab to activate sound cues from the light console. I understand it can work both ways, whether Qlab fires light cues or the console fires sound cues. It saves having to pay two board ops.

Asking some of the CB veterans here: Isn't that a really bad idea? Ie if the smallest detail changes, there could end up being a whole scene in silence or something like that? Like if someone grabs the wrong mic?

 

[NickJones]

Not that I'm really a CB veteran, but if you want music to play as the lights come up, it works fine, if an actor grabbs the wrong mic it doesnt effect it.
Nick

 

[calkew5]

Yeah, if you're using reinforcement it's a bad idea. When we do musicals there's a guy running mics. But if you're doing a straight show without mics, and all the sounds cues you have are doorbells, telephones, and transition music, it works great.

 

[marcusianl]

Can such a rig work with any other cue software besides QLab? If so, could someone post a link to a guide as to how to set up a MIDI cue trigger and what other programs it would work with?

 

[ishboo]

I have been pretty successful using MIDI with Sound Cue System and a little Behringer DJ board. The manual for Sound Cue System is quite straightforward and the forums there are the best support forums I've ever seen. I has a question about setting up MIDI and the guy who wrote the software downloaded the manual for my board and put together a step by step tutorial specifically for me and what I was trying to do so if you get stuck anywhere you can always find help there.

 

[domiii]

At our community theatre I use an ECT Express 48/96 and Sound Cue System. In our small combo tech booth/box-office space is at a premium so I have one board op that controls both sound and lights. We do not use mikes, our house is only 99 seats, so I don't have to worry about them.

Sound Cue System is great, inexpensive and stable. I have MIDI working both ways. The Express sends and receives commands. If I am running late for a show, as long as all the equipment is powered up (and you have a knowledgeable stage manager), I can even start the pre-show music and curtain warmers from my house using Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection by firing the first cue remotely from my home computer.

Keep in mind that MIDI is tough to use with a Vista machine. Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decide to remove the native MIDI support from Vista so if you are using MIDI with anything stick with XP.

 

[Chris15]

Get to the really pointy end of this game and you can get the opposite happening - the replay triggers the console. Shows like olympic ceremonies, EVERYTHING is time code synced... Since it's all rehearsed multiple times, lighting triggers off it, pyro triggers, video and you can quite easily set up your console scenes to trigger as well. This is also why all music comes off replay, not the live sources. Note however this does not apply to talking heads, they are the epitome of unpredictable and they run live, but musical items are timecode... (Talking heads are typically being captured on 2 or 3 capsules for redundancy, refer to my previous ramblings about redundancy in high level systems...)

Recall safes on a digi desk exist for a reason...

So yes, if your console doesn't support LTC, then enabling MTC so you can at least sync it with a 3rd party device in line (say a Motu Timepiece) is a very useful feature...

 

[TimMiller]

sometimes more complex shows i will link 2 hogs together using midi. Based upon the show, i will either use one console for show, and other console following as a backup. Or i will trigger the other console off of the first one for extra flexability.

 

[BCG45]

I'm the TD of a community theatre in Massachusetts. We use LightFactory (LF) for lights and SCS for sound, typically each running on its own PC. For the sound system, we have a Presonus Firebox that has MIDI In/Out and on the lighting system we have an Edirol USB/MIDI interface. LightFactory can be controlled via MIDI and SCS can be controlled by as well as send MIDI messages, so we use SCS to trigger lighting cues when called for (like coordinating lightning and thunder for instance).

The only downside of this arrangement is the need to connect the two PCs together with MIDI cables. For this reason, I'd like to get away from using MIDI. I'd rather do something over the network (LF supports telnet, for instance, but SCS does not). I've looked into MIDI over ethernet packages, but the ones I've found are clunky to use at best. Anyone know of good networked MIDI solution?

LF and SCS can be run simultaneously on the same PC, in which case a virtual MIDI port such as LoopBe can be used to link the two applications with no MIDI hardware needed. That's our backup strategy at my theatre - we usually have a laptop with both lights and sound cues loaded and ready to go in case one of the main PCs fails (it's yet to happen to us).

This fall, I'm doing lights for another group that has an older ETC board that supports MIDI. I hope to use it to coordinate a couple of sound cues with light cues.

Bruce

 

[bdkdesigns]

One thing that I have become annoyed with is a lack of MIDI on the EOS. It supports MIDI commands but I can't have the EOS trigger them directly from the console itself.

The kicker to me is that the ION does have MIDI native. We thought we could easily hook up the ION into the network to trigger sound effects however we ran into a small problem. After talking to Anne at USITT, I discovered that the ION literally becomes a clone of the EOS when hooked up into the network. This meant that the MIDI becomes disabled when running in line. We were pretty excited to have our EOS running master, with an ION right next to it in backup. Then in the house we set up the other ION as a client to trigger the sound effects. She mentioned that we could have made an ION the master and had that work however having the EOS the master disabled that feature. With the ION being fairly new at the time, we didn't find that fact out until I talked to Anne even though we had a few calls into ETC at the time. I'm not sure if that has been changed with the newer software releases though offhand.