Control/Dimming HOW TO control LED LIGHTS and DIMMER PACKS using MIDI ??

Hi Everyone I just joined this site and wanted to understand something that baffles me about MIDI and Light control, because I've never worked with it before.. I also don't know anything about sound.

I have an OBEY 70 Chauvet 512 DMX controller (MIDI compatible) that I use to control two dimmer packs and three Par 38 LEDs.
My question is how do I use MIDI to control these by a foot swith/controller????
If this is at all possible please help!
 
MIDI is not a lighting control protocol per se. It's a musical protocol. Some dmx controllers have the ability to receive midi, and take that signal and output dmx depending on it was programmed to do. To use midi, you'd take your dmx controller and assign certain dmx values to the desired midi notes. I'm sure someone else can give a better explanation. I'd suggest reading the Obey manual, but manuals for dj equipment are notoriously incomplete, so maybe try to log onto the Chauvet forum for help.
 
Your Obey 70 controller can accept MIDI Note commands to activate scenes. You need a MIDI footpedal that can transmit the right MIDI note commands to do what you want. See the manual for details, but this is possible and I have heard of many people who have done just this.
 
Essentially, rather then using MIDI to control lights, you can use it to have the lights take cues from the music without prompting.
 
Your Obey 70 controller can accept MIDI Note commands to activate scenes. You need a MIDI footpedal that can transmit the right MIDI note commands to do what you want. See the manual for details, but this is possible and I have heard of many people who have done just this.

Thanks! But now another question.. will the MIDI footpedal be able to transmit the parameters of color change, strobing and dim capabilities that the LEDs have???
 
MIDI is not a lighting control protocol per se. It's a musical protocol. Some dmx controllers have the ability to receive midi, and take that signal and output dmx depending on it was programmed to do. To use midi, you'd take your dmx controller and assign certain dmx values to the desired midi notes. I'm sure someone else can give a better explanation. I'd suggest reading the Obey manual, but manuals for dj equipment are notoriously incomplete, so maybe try to log onto the Chauvet forum for help.

I'll be calling those guys to figure out if the Obey 70 can bring up the cues from MIDI with all the parameters of the scenes that I've built. Because I'm worried it'll only turn on or off and not the strobing, color change and dimming my LEDs have.
 
Thanks! But now another question.. will the MIDI footpedal be able to transmit the parameters of color change, strobing and dim capabilities that the LEDs have???

You have to program scenes. The controller only has MIDI access to scenes. If you program a scene that has color and strobing in it, you will be able to send a midi note command from your controller with a footpedal to access that scene.
 
You have to program scenes. The controller only has MIDI access to scenes. If you program a scene that has color and strobing in it, you will be able to send a midi note command from your controller with a footpedal to access that scene.

Sweet! That's a relief to hear. I did some research and according to what I found I need the Obey to be slaved to the sound board and/or have a laptop running the software and a MIDI user interface to connect my board. Sounds like a lot of steps compared to how I thought it would be just plug in the footpedal to the back of the board and send the commands that way. Am I missing something here??
 
Not to trash your "console" but the Obey 70 is not exactly premium gear. You might want to take a look at the Enttec DMXIS. It's a pretty cool new solution for the music and dj crowd that has a lot more power than your Obey 70. All you need is $250 and a computer/laptop with 1 gigahz CPU 500mb ram. If you don't have one check Craigslist for an old laptop (you could probably even run it from a new sub $300 netbook, check with the manufacturer to be sure). There's a short demo of it at the end of the video I shot in the Enttec booth at LDI 2010 check it out here.

Another solution that is probably $50 cheaper but a little harder for you to use is getting an Enttec DMX Pro USB-DMX converter and downloading the free Champsys MagicQ software. This software I think is more powerful than the DMXIS software above, but it's also really for more of a professional programmer. The DMXIS is definitely meant for an entry level person to use.
 
Sweet! That's a relief to hear. I did some research and according to what I found I need the Obey to be slaved to the sound board and/or have a laptop running the software and a MIDI user interface to connect my board. Sounds like a lot of steps compared to how I thought it would be just plug in the footpedal to the back of the board and send the commands that way. Am I missing something here??

If you have a MIDI footpedal that transmits MIDI notes you just hook that pedal in to the back of the board, set it to auto mode, and go for it. If you need help with this head over to the Harmony Central Lighting Forum, there're a bunch of folks over there who have done just this that will be able to help you out.
 
If you have a MIDI footpedal that transmits MIDI notes you just hook that pedal in to the back of the board, set it to auto mode, and go for it. If you need help with this head over to the Harmony Central Lighting Forum, there're a bunch of folks over there who have done just this that will be able to help you out.

Awesome I will def. talk to those people!
 
Not to trash your "console" but the Obey 70 is not exactly premium gear. You might want to take a look at the Enttec DMXIS. It's a pretty cool new solution for the music and dj crowd that has a lot more power than your Obey 70. All you need is $250 and a computer/laptop with 1 gigahz CPU 500mb ram. If you don't have one check Craigslist for an old laptop (you could probably even run it from a new sub $300 netbook, check with the manufacturer to be sure). There's a short demo of it at the end of the video I shot in the Enttec booth at LDI 2010 check it out here.

Another solution that is probably $50 cheaper but a little harder for you to use is getting an Enttec DMX Pro USB-DMX converter and downloading the free Champsys MagicQ software. This software I think is more powerful than the DMXIS software above, but it's also really for more of a professional programmer. The DMXIS is definitely meant for an entry level person to use.

That's alright I know the obey wasn't my board of choice when I first started with a budget. Hopefully the time comes to get an upgrade. I've checked the links and from what I saw, it seems I can work with the Enttec DMX Pro USB. I like the fact the software is free and all I need is my Macbook. It should run ok although I think I don't know if I want to use my own laptop to take on shows everytime. Thanks for the help! I will def. try to get my hands on this.
 

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