Need help using MIDI

[trswen05]

I have a Macbook Pro and have been looking into switching over to MIDI to run the light board, sound fx, etc.

I ran into the software QLab and it looked like something I would be able to use.
My question is- How exactly would I use this software to control the light board and if possible, the other things I may be able to control with it? I am in no way familiar with MIDI and I am not sure how to set it up, what advantages it would give me, what disadvantages, and if it is worth looking into. We have the Innovator 48/96 and our sound board is the Allen & Heath GL2800. Any input would be great.

 

[audeoguy]

A couple months ago we used Qlab at my church for a Drama/Song sequence. It worked quite well. Basically, you'll need to get a USB to MIDI interface (you can get a cable, or use some other device you might already have like an MBox) and set up MSC or Midi Show Control Cues. I'm not sure what the MIDI capabilities on the Innovator are, we used a Congo. But the sound effects would need to be loaded into a cue in Qlab and then just take an output from your MacBook into the sound board.

You can group cues together in a folder on Qlab so you can trigger multiple cues (say a sound fx and a MIDI show control cue for your lightboard) at exactly the same time.