DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

RichG
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DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by RichG »

Hmmm... Which product to choose. DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro? Is there a comparison of these two products somewhere?
Dave Brown [admin]
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by Dave Brown [admin] »

DMXIS and DMXIS Platinum both keep things simple - direct access to DMX channel faders and a straightforward workflow. They are also optimised for hands-free automated shows.

D-Pro follows a more traditional workflow, with groups, cues, cuelists, finer control over timing of attributes. It was designed with hands-on use in a theatrical setting in mind. D-Pro can cope more elegantly with complex rigs and advanced programming, but it requires more effort to master.

Having said that, over the years we have bolted various features onto both DMXIS and D-Pro, such that our customers are using both programs in a variety of interesting scenarios. There are bands using D-Pro driven from Ableton, and theatres using DMXIS on a weekly basis.

It's really best to download both programs and try them yourself.
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mibmusic
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by mibmusic »

Thank you for your help but I’m afraid I can’t make a final choice, yet. Could you please help me out a little bit more? Our band plays songs with backingtracks and guiding (so clicktrack and spoken directions) and we would like to add some specific light effects (and fog) to enhance our show at specific points during a song. I think that can be done with either DMXis or D-Pro, am I correct? I mean creating a very nice lightshow per song!

But how do we select songs (or cues if that is what they're called) and start them? Can we use MIDI to do that? We use Setlist Maker on an iPad which is great for doing lots of cool stuff. (Check it out! Lol) In our case, by selecting a song on the iPad, a MIDI signal (MIDI program change) is sent to our Roland SPD-SX sample pad. As soon as we hit a pad, two linked pads with each a track are fired. One track is the sample (Main-Out of the SPD-SX to FOH) and the other track is the guiding. (SUB-OUT of the SPD-SX to IEM) The solution with SLM is perfect because our setlist usually changes per show and within SLM it is pretty easy to make changes to a show just dragging the songs in a different order.

So with SLM we can sent any MIDI signal to any device and the Roland SPD-SX is able to sent a different MIDI note for each fired pad. Having all this said, which of the two options (DMXIS or D-PRO) would be best to do the job?
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by Dave Brown [admin] »

Couple of questions. How many lights will you have? Do you want to project video?
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by mibmusic »

Hi Dave, nice to meet you here. We (will) have something like 2 fog machines and about 4 or 6 lights/movingheads. All venues have some default lights but we want to add some. I don’t think we will use video, but on the other hand....
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by Dave Brown [admin] »

(Note : DMXIS Platinum is now called Show Buddy Active)

I think both D-Pro and Show Buddy Active would be overkill for you. I suggest instead you go for an ENTTEC DMXIS.
DMXIS comes supplied with a USB-DMX hardware box, which plugs into the laptop running the DMXIS software. (With D-Pro and Show Buddy Active, you would need to buy hardware separately)

DMXIS is very simple to program. And if I understand Set List Maker - each song can have an automation track containing MIDI events, which can in turn be transmitted to the DMXIS software on the laptop, to trigger your lighting scenes in sync with the song.
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mibmusic
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by mibmusic »

Hi Dave,

The DMXIS box does not have MIDI IN/OUT and I am afraid I am going to need that one way or the other. I cannot connect the iPad to both the SPD-SX and the laptop and then expecting a solid solution. So I recently decided to buy the Enttec DMX USB Pro MKII.

Other thing is working on the iPad is much more difficult then working on the laptop. And last thing is that when NOT sending specific notes, we still need basic lights. So my thought was that the SPD-SX should always be the key product to launch lights.

Hope this helps, lol. O and I don't mind spending money, as long as it does what I need it to do.
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by Dave Brown [admin] »

mibmusic wrote: Thu Nov 29, 2018 10:59 amThe DMXIS box does not have MIDI IN/OUT and I am afraid I am going to need that one way or the other. I cannot connect the iPad to both the SPD-SX and the laptop and then expecting a solid solution. So I recently decided to buy the Enttec DMX USB Pro MKII.
Be aware that MIDI on the PRO MK2 only works with specific programs - it does not appear to the laptop as a standard MIDI device. See the Enttec product page (under "Inbuilt MIDI") for details.

You might be better purchasing a dedicated MIDI interface, instead of trying to do MIDI & lighting control from one box.
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by mibmusic »

Thank you for that! But overkill or not, can D-PRO do the job?
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by Dave Brown [admin] »

Certainly. You can easily switch D-Pro scenes using MIDI commands.
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Re: DMXIS Platinum or D-Pro?

Post by mibmusic »

Thank you Dave! For your quick respons and time.
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