Trigger and synchronize timelines in a show.

create synch shows with video, audio and lights

Trigger and synchronize timelines in a show.

Postby Pauluzzz » 27 February 2019, 08:44

I have been programming lights synchronized with songs for the last year using the Live Timeline and I got now a decent package of songs (House, Trance, Reggaeton). What I use to do is to create a macro per timeline and let the software to run them one after the other automatically. Lightcontroller plays the song and the corresponding video and runs the lightshow all by itself. Just great, partytime!

During a show I would like to add some more flexibility however in selecting the song and moreover, I’d like to see the songs mix into one another to get rid of the pause between the songs. So, I have been working with Virtual DJ, loaded my songs in there and per track created a POI to trigger the corresponding timeline in Light Controller. Works smoothly, selecting a track in Virtual DJ will get the lightshow running without problem.

Except … that this only works if VirtualDJ actually finds the POI within the song. And this is my problem, I created a POI at exactly the start of each track in VirtualDJ, because my timelines all start at t=0s in each song. This works fine as long as Virtual DJ plays the track right from the start. But if it starts mixing … the software may skip the initial part of the track to jump in where it sees fit. And so in some cases, it won’t see the POI and the timeline is never triggered. I could fix this per song, set the POI a bit later in each song and adapt the corresponding timeline to where the POI will start, but this heavenly depends on VirtualDJ’s mixing enthusiasm, sometimes it skips a whole 10sec.

I asked in Virtual DJ forum whether it can be forced to trigger POI anyway, but got no reply, other than a suggestion limiting the mix options to force Virtual DJ to start at the beginning. I guess though, that lightshow synchronization is a common thing and that other users must have gone through this before me, which I ask here and see how other users have addressed this issue.

Thanks in advance!
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Re: Trigger and synchronize timelines in a show.

Postby support » 27 February 2019, 09:55

It will take some time for reprogrammation, but in our opinion, the best for you will be to forget the timelines in our software and to rebuilt the new "timelines" in the song track with several POI's to trigger buttons in Live.
Afterwards, you could start the song wherever you want, and the sync will become ok at the first crossed POI.
The Lighting Controller
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Re: Trigger and synchronize timelines in a show.

Postby Bob_be » 28 February 2019, 00:36

The suggestion of Support would be the best way to go (recreate the light show in Virtual DJ using POI's and buttons).

However, if you created a custom light show then your going to have to fine-tune the starting point in Virtual DJ. You will have to figure out when the start point is for each song. In the POI's window, there use the option to show all POI's, will help decide where the starting point is (if your using Automix). If your free styling, then the only option is start each song at a specific time.

When you exit out of the POI's window, use the lines in the waveform display to determine where the song starts and the light show will start. The further into the song the POI's is for the light show start, the more time your going to have to trim off the beginning of your light show.

On our setup, before we started using Virtual DJ, we had to plug in the audio line (we had 2 sound cards), manually start the timeline. Wait until the song ends, then start a new song in the DJ software, push around 9 Live buttons to turn lights back on then finally turn the Timeline button off. After getting Virtual DJ, I designed it so that the songs are played from and thru Virtual DJ (removed the audio in Timeline) and trimmed the beginning of the custom light show. It took alot of work the get the timing just right, but once I did, life became MUCH easier. Now, with Automix running it will load the song, trigger then timeline, play the light show and sing together. When the song ends, it will trigger the 9 buttons automatically. No human intervention required. The only thing we have to make sure, is that the light show songs are not played back to back. In your case, you can design it to be played back to back.

I have programmed 2 songs via POI's in Virtual DJ and the control you have is much nicer. I can pause the song at any time and start it back up and the buttons get triggered as the song progresses. The other method, if a song is paused the Timeline will continue, messing things up.

Hope this helps.
Bob
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Re: Trigger and synchronize timelines in a show.

Postby Pauluzzz » 28 February 2019, 07:39

Thanks folks! Indeed, I'll cut the timeline in 5 or so parts and assign each part to a button and then trigger these buttons through the POIs in VirtualDJ during the track. I'll see whether I can keep it simple by just picking exactly 0, 1, 2, 5 and 10s exactly in each track. Will have to cut the videos, too, though. Oh well, never a boring day.
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