The Lighting Controller

Hi All! my name is Nero, I'm a guitarist playing in cover bands for the past 8 years or so. As a musician my main focus has always been to have great sound at gigs, I didn't pay attention at the importance of lighting until lately and now I've started investing in lighting.

I've tried other DMX software but so far I like ShowXpress the most because of the features like creating pages, macros, solo buttons within pages and momentary buttons.

The one thing all the apps i've tried have in common is the fact that they either need somebody dedicated to controlling it unless you are doing a timeline which in a live band situation is not always possible. MIDI itself adds a lot and with a MIDI footcontroller I'm able to assign commands to macros and I can easily have a button for the intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, guitar solo, break and outtro of a song, BUT that requires 7 MIDI buttons each assigned to the respective Macro, If I wanted to do that for a show with 60 songs I'll be looking at a few hundred commands which means i would have to switch from bank to bank to control the entire show.

All of the above could easily be condensed to 4 buttons:

Previous Page
Next Page
Previous Macro/Scene
Next Macro/Scene

With Previous/Next buttons assigned to MIDI now I can organize my pages so i can go from one to the other one, as soon as you hit next Page it will move on to the fist Macro/Scene of that page which could be a blackout or a scene with my lights dimmed.

A set up like that would only work on a page with solo buttons but I think it would make hands free operation a reality for musicians who are playing an instrument and can't stop playing to click on a button no the screen.

There are lots of other things that can be done like having "Master Buttons" which for example could trigger a scene so now you have a 5th button on your MIDI controller that every time you press it you are sent to a strobe for all your lights or a blackout but as soon as you let go you are brought back to the previous scene/macro you were on, also having the option to overwrite those custom buttons on a per page and even per scene basis would make the software so much more powerful.

So now you have have let's say 5 custom buttons, globally button 1 can be blackout, button 2 strobe, button 3 momentary Blinders, button 4 dim lights for in between songs, and button 5 any custom scene. Then on page 1 you can have it set up so that button 1 instead of blackout it will trigger a certain scene where all your lights go RED, so only on that page when you hit that 1 button you get red lights but all other you get blackout.

I'm not sure that i'm explaining my thoughts clearly, I'm a programmer myself but it's hard to explain it's easier to program the concept, unfortunately I don't have the time nor the proper experience to even attempt to build an application like that.

I hope any of these ideas are seem by the Dev Team and they are considered in some way to allow easier control for musicians who can't stop playing their instrument during the show.

These are just my thoughts/suggestions.

Thanks.

Noted.
Waiting for feedback from other users.

Hmmm. There is a long thread already about a cuelist introduction. Wouldn't that be a great idea also for music players..? They can stack their scenes after each other and go through them with
one (Midi-) button.

I want to say that a long time ago already: This is an awesome software with a HUGE potential.
I am sure many people, not just lighting designers for bands and DJs are looking for a good software. And there is for example this gap with the cue list. If this one would be filled, the software will be a complete-equipped program wich can serve the lights for every task: Theater, DJ, Live bands, Pixel animation, Timeline Lightshows and more.
The first one is missing yet and this is exactly the point which can convince people to use this software.
I know, you just brought out V7 and you've got enough to do, but wouldn't that be exactly the feature, most people are looking for ?

Just an idea...
Regards
Lighter007

We recently had an internal meeting regarding a third tab in Live, for such requirement.
We checked all users suggestions in the forum, and we were not able to find a clear solution.

Some users want one list with a "go" function.
Some users want two lists with a fade slider.

Moreover, our software does not manage only "cues" (a "cue" is only one step in our software).
So the first question is does the list have to manage steps only, or scenes, or macro of scenes ?

You can imagine that, depending of the answer, the job is totally different.
We think that users will not enjoy managing only steps ("cues"), but they want to manage scenes or even more with macros.

If you are able to propose a solution suitable for our software, with some pictures, we propose you to open a thead "[request] new screen "cue list"" in "General software (V7)".

The ability to sync/transmit to MIDI time code and or SMPTE would become a preferred option as well...

Support, Thank you for looking into the "Go" button function. In answering your question, I would find value in having a button that would move to the next step in a scene when pressed.

I am working on a first layout for the cue list.

Lighter007 wrote:Hmmm. There is a long thread already about a cuelist introduction. Wouldn't that be a great idea also for music players..? They can stack their scenes after each other and go through them with
one (Midi-) button.

I want to say that a long time ago already: This is an awesome software with a HUGE potential.
I am sure many people, not just lighting designers for bands and DJs are looking for a good software. And there is for example this gap with the cue list. If this one would be filled, the software will be a complete-equipped program wich can serve the lights for every task: Theater, DJ, Live bands, Pixel animation, Timeline Lightshows and more.
The first one is missing yet and this is exactly the point which can convince people to use this software.
I know, you just brought out V7 and you've got enough to do, but wouldn't that be exactly the feature, most people are looking for ?

Just an idea...
Regards
Lighter007

work with the theater as a hobby ... and I found many interested in the PC-based systems but without cue list ... he is not useful!

I wish it was the list of scenes to actually run step by step being able to insert (can be changed at any time) for each scene time Fade in and fade out independent

sorry for the English.

I like Frabob's. Would need to add name of scene, button, macro, midi send, or music that is being cued.

Yes, I would like to see all those available to add to the cue.

Also, it'll need to be added to the live mobile app with Go, Back, or select which cue to go to

Keyboard shortcuts for go, back, stop all, freeze, etc.

There will be alot to decide, but glad this is being addressed. Thanks