Control/Dimming Looking for way to control lights via MIDI and DMX

[novadrummer317]

Hey everyone. I am very new to lights, but my band and I have been looking to kinda downsize the amount of people we bring on the road IE our light guy. We have a few options that I will list as of right now

Some Custom Built light rigs w/ construction lights (goes behind and above drums)

few small par cans

2 Light boxes

2 Strobes

As of right now we have been controlling them w/ a stage setter 8 and 2 dimmer packs. The stage setter 8 has midi in and outs..

My Problem. I play w/ Reason and Garageband live...reason for my click and garage band to cheaply trigger samples.

I wanted a way to possibly send the midi data out somehow to control the stage setter 8. Or maybe there is another program. I am pretty lost. On lights and can't really find anything.

Any help would be awesome!

Thanks so much

 

[Morpheus]

QLab is a fairly decent program...
It doesn't re-trigger cues though until it's already completed... but it does audio, video, midi, etc. etc...
there's a free version, not sure what the limits are for it. The 'packs' are what you buy to get upgraded functionality.

Figure 53 | QLab | Live Show Control for Mac OS X

 

[millamber]

You want a bunch of lighting guys to tell you how to make your lighting guy unneccessary. My professional pride is hurt a little...

 

[novadrummer317]

Haha it's more so we are just trying to have a more automated way of doing everything. Our light guy is also our Merch guy and he would rather just do merch, plus I would like to have more automation control

 

[Syphilis]

The free Q Lab is not so great. You said garageband, so I assume you're operating a Mac, which is good because the PC QLab (if there is one, I seem to recall using it) is not so great, either. It's the only above-amateur audio program I've really tried to learn, and it's not intuitive at all, but it'll sure get the job done better than garageband.

Also, I have no idea how to do it, but the technology exists to control simple lights like strobes with a foot pedal, which I imagine would be helpful for a musician looking to drop his light op.

 

[jmissall]

You want a bunch of lighting guys to tell you how to make your lighting guy unneccessary. My professional pride is hurt a little...

my thoughts exactly~! Sorry if you want to reduce the lighting guy going out on tour, but the clubs can afford to few extra hunderd...remember that lighting, is an art just the same as music.