DMXIS & ABLETON bank and preset organization

audiblecreations
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:35 am

DMXIS & ABLETON bank and preset organization

Post by audiblecreations »

I am stuck on what to do in regards to the organization of my banks and presets within Ableton. I am using DMXis as a return channel and have 2 midi channels (one for triggering banks, and the second for triggering the presets within that bank) being sent to it. I have a large light show and with 12 pars and 6 moving heads. The problem is this...

I have over 200 songs. Each song has a corresponding midi note that launches its bank which limits me to 128 songs (limit of piano roll/midi notes available). I need more notes on the piano roll. Since that's not possible, I was thinking I could have one generic light show bank that could serve multiple songs that I don't normally play instead of each song having its own "Bank". The problem with this is then it will be harder to customize each song that uses that generic bank.

https://imgur.com/Jj1R4Q7
https://imgur.com/hIi3oRZ

What would you do? Any tips on how to organize would be greatly appreciated! I apologize if this is too much info or it's too broad.


Additional info: I am in a cover band hence the 200 songs. I have 100+ presets in my first bank that I copy a few from and put into each individual song bank depending on the color and mood Im going for. Im still using Live 9 and have not upgraged my apple laptop to the newest OS since I hear they don't cooperate well. Also note, I started deleting some songs from the main bank list so the pictures may show some missing if you're going by alphabetical order.
cgrafx
Posts: 176
Joined: Sat May 28, 2016 8:52 pm

Re: DMXIS & ABLETON bank and preset organization

Post by cgrafx »

If you build your presets in modular form as looks rather than songs, you can have an infinite number of songs.

For example.

program 1. Front Lights Red
program 2. Front Lights Blue
program 3. Front lights green
program 4. back lights Red
program 5. back lights Blue
program 6. back lights green
program 7. Solo guitar
program 8. Solo bass
program 9. solo keys
program 10. solo drums
program 11 chase back lights on
program 12 chase back lights off

with judicious use of masking the front, back and solo settings all can work independently from each other.

So you can not only turn on front lights Red, but add green and blue as well so any combination of RED, GREEN and BLUE (On or off) can be called up creating 6 colors from three presets.

It does take some time to configure buts its a lot more flexible allowing you to build your lighting cues from those program building blocks, rather than a single bank for each song.
audiblecreations
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:35 am

Re: DMXIS & ABLETON bank and preset organization

Post by audiblecreations »

I greatly appreciate the response and I am just now getting back to my lighting programming. I have just gone through the preset creation process that Dave has described. Which is:

"Try this approach to speed up the creation of presets:
* Create a new bank for each group of lights in your rig ("drum spots", "front light", "uplighters left" etc)
* In each bank, create a handful of useful presets, for those lights only. Use the "Channel Masks" macros to disable all channels not in this group of lights.
Now, you can quickly assemble a full preset as follows:
* Load one preset in turn from each of the above banks.
* Run the "Enable all channels" macro.
* Save the finished preset in your song bank (assuming you're using a "one bank per song" approach)
If you create just 5 banks with 8 presets in each, this technique lets you quickly program over 32,000 unique looks. "

I now understand what you were stating about judicious use of masking by going through Dave's process and really seeing how masking can blend multiple presets to create a new one. Slightly confused still how I can have an unlimited amount of songs by creating presets in modular form. Would I just use the same bank for every song and midi trigger the various presets within that bank?
cgrafx
Posts: 176
Joined: Sat May 28, 2016 8:52 pm

Re: DMXIS & ABLETON bank and preset organization

Post by cgrafx »

I now understand what you were stating about judicious use of masking by going through Dave's process and really seeing how masking can blend multiple presets to create a new one. Slightly confused still how I can have an unlimited amount of songs by creating presets in modular form. Would I just use the same bank for every song and midi trigger the various presets within that bank?
Yes you use the same bank(s)/Program(s) for every song and select the ones you need to create the specific look for each song.

DMXIS acts as the repository for the basic building blocks and your external program (show buddy, Ableton, etc) uses the building blocks to build scenes for each song.
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