DMXIS Wish List

RichG
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DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

I looked around a little, but did not see a feature Wish List for the DMXIS so I thought I'd start one...

I'd like to see these functions added to the Foot Switch control:
1. Tap Tempo
2. Load First Preset in a Bank (I'd use this to load a static scene for in between songs)
3. Load Last Preset in a Bank (I'd use this to load a Blackout scene for in between sets)
RichG
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

After digging into it a bit I see there is a "Last Preset While Held" function for the switches. This is great and can momentarily be used for Blackout (assuming the use of a momentary switch)... but I'd like to build on it and add the Load First and Load Last preset options to the footswitch list. If anything, to get our bearings back and start at the top of the preset list.
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

A few more items added to my wish list... Many older midi controllers are set in their ways. All do PC's. Some do CC's. A few select ones do Note On/Off. I'd like to expand the midi capability of the DMXIS to deal with the shortcomings of old midi controllers:

1. Assign a specific PC to DMXIS bank control (Up, Down, First, Last)
2. Assign a specific PC to DMXIS preset control (Up, Down, First, Last)
rad3d
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by rad3d »

RichG wrote:A few more items added to my wish list... Many older midi controllers are set in their ways. All do PC's. Some do CC's. A few select ones do Note On/Off. I'd like to expand the midi capability of the DMXIS to deal with the shortcomings of old midi controllers:

1. Assign a specific PC to DMXIS bank control (Up, Down, First, Last)
2. Assign a specific PC to DMXIS preset control (Up, Down, First, Last)
Bome's Midi Translator (http://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator) is wonderful for roping old midi controllers into doing new tricks. It can easily be used to transform PCs to specific Noteons, CCs, etc - allowing for mapping to DMXIS' midi learn functions.
RichG
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

rad3d wrote:Bome's Midi Translator (http://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator) is wonderful for roping old midi controllers into doing new tricks. It can easily be used to transform PCs to specific Noteons, CCs, etc - allowing for mapping to DMXIS' midi learn functions.
Thanks! This looks to be what I need!!
ChrisDuncan
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by ChrisDuncan »

Bome's is awesome and has been around forever. I used it back in the late 90s to solve some problems and it really saved my bacon.
Christopher Duncan
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RichG
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

After digging into DMXIS more I've come up with some new wishes...

1. Redesign the UI.
I'm not a big fan of the DMXIS UI. The limitation of 32 discrete faders per page is like an 'old school' light controller board. If you want to line things up nicely then you end up skipping several channels. I'd like to see a 'Fixture Based' interface rather than a 'Fader Based'. I have an Elation Magic 260 controller that is fixture based. It was a little tough to get used to, but I quickly saw this was the way to go. You select a fixture and it automatically assigns fixture numbers. No channels are wasted between fixtures. You do have the option of forcing assignments if you want.

2. Make the window size adjustable
I run DMXIS on a small laptop and the fixed window size makes it tough to see. I'd like to be able to resize the window.

3. See control screen and preset screen together.
I'd like to be able to see both the preset screen and control (fader) screen at the same time.

4. Have both Fade In and Fade Out settings.
Right now we have a Fade to next. Sometimes I'd like a gentle fade in with an abrupt fade out.
rad3d
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by rad3d »

Sounds like you might want D-Pro...
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by ChrisDuncan »

I second the D-Pro recommendation. It's only a couple hundred bucks but very feature rich and flexible.

I started out with Dmxis and found myself confronted by similar limitations. For many people with straightforward needs, Dmxis is a great solution. In my case I needed more and D-Pro turned out to be a good choice.

Both are good, I think it's more a matter of the right tool for the job at hand.
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

ChrisDuncan wrote:I second the D-Pro recommendation. It's only a couple hundred bucks but very feature rich and flexible.
Hmm... You guys have given me something to think about. D-Pro might be the way to go for me. I'll admit- I'm not familiar with D-Pro. What interface do you use with it? What advantages does it have over something like Freestyler?
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by ChrisDuncan »

D-Pro plays nice with your existing Entec / Dmxis interface, so no new hardware required.

My lighting rig is currently down so I'm working from memory, but fixture groups and the degree and ease of programmability are night and day. My lighting rig has 16 color changers, 14 moving heads, a couple of follow spots and a few other effects. Trying to do even a modest light show for one song in Dmxis took me 8 hours. After getting the basic groups, etc. set up, in D-Pro it was around an hour, and I was easily able to do more.

This isn't disrespecting Dmxis. It's a different style of lighting console (Dave has an article somewhere on the site explaining the two types of lighting consoles / concepts) and is excellent for its intended scope. When you start getting into larger rigs and a higher volume of programming, you're asking it to do things it wasn't really designed for. Something like D-Pro is.

Dmxis is scene based. You set up a "look" and store it as a scene, then recall that scene. You can have some moving head stuff in there, but the scene frame of reference is what it's built around. With D-Pro, you can have 45 different actions firing off at 45 different times in a more independent manner. You can mimic this to a degree in Dmxis by masking out things in scenes so that only a few fixtures change, but this quickly becomes cumbersome if you're doing anything non-trivial. In D-Pro, complex things naturally take time and effort but you're not fighting the system trying to make it do something it doesn't want to do.

I'm sure I haven't done a very good job of explaining this, but if you're trying to do any kind of intricate or complex lighting design, it's going to be a lot smoother ride with D-Pro. I'd recommend downloading the pdf manual to get a feel for the concepts and what you can do with it.

There's no shortage of lighting software out there, and I poked around and looked at a lot of it before moving from Dmxis to something new. The fact that D-Pro is designed to work with the Dmxis hardware was a factor, and price wise it's also a pretty serious bang for the buck. Dave has also done a good job of walking the line between power and usability. You don't need a degree in rocket propulsion to use it, it's pretty easy to grasp the concepts and get right to work.

Hope this helps.
Christopher Duncan
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RichG
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

Very interesting, Chris. I spent a LOT of time getting scenes set up in DMXIS. My rig isn't as extensive as yours, but it does have some complexity to it (6 Movers, 4 Scanners, 2 Lasers, 1 Fogger, 20 Washes). VERY glad to hear it works with the DMXIS interface! I'll take a look at D-Pro and flip through the manual. Thanks!
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by ChrisDuncan »

After I got my fixtures and groups set up, I then started building a library of cues, e.g. turn the movers yellow and change to the star gobo, etc.

I'm flying from memory here, but I believe I was able to set up the cues and then separately assign them to appropriate groups. For instance, at one point I could fire that cue for the front movers, another time the back ones, or a group with just the four corners, etc.

Also, I don't know what your setup is, but I was running Cubase for backing tracks and lighting / video. So, I had a midi track set up that pointed to D-Pro and I would use that to fire the cues. I had Cubase and D-Pro on the same laptop so I had to use one of the MIDI loopback programs to wire that together. Then I sent a separate midi track out to the hardware, which went to laptop 2 running Resolume to trigger the video events.

D-Pro had (and caused) no problems running at the same time as Cubase. So, I set up all the groups, cues, etc. in D-Pro, then did my programming in the midi track of Cubase.
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RichG
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by RichG »

ChrisDuncan wrote:Also, I don't know what your setup is...
I'd love to have a Midi setup that plays backing tracks and controls the lights, but with the variability of our live performances I just picture it getting out of sync. We'll occasionally do impromptu breakdowns, or maybe the singer skips a verse :P .

For my current setup, I'm using a DMC Ground Control (Original, not Pro) to send Midi PC messages to a laptop running DMXIS. The Ground Control has two rows of buttons. I set it up so the top row controls the movers and scanners while the bottom row changes the washes.
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Re: DMXIS Wish List

Post by ChrisDuncan »

On behalf of singers everywhere, all i can say is, "oops." :)

That sounds like a great rig for flexibility. I'm a big fan of Midi for that very reason. Works great in software, compatible with just about every piece of hardware out there.
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