Fades with DMXIS in Logic Pro X

doorbum
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2021 6:51 pm

Fades with DMXIS in Logic Pro X

Post by doorbum »

I'm trying to figure out if there is an easy way to use automation in Logic to produce fades on my light fixture with DMXis. It seems like it should be a simple procedure, but I'm not finding any information on how to do it searching online. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
coryjbergquist
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:53 pm

Re: Fades with DMXIS in Logic Pro X

Post by coryjbergquist »

What sort of fades are you trying to do? I'm still learning, but in general I've been using the "Saw Up" and "Saw Down" Type in the Oscillator section when I need to fade lights in or out.

To fade in from dark to light, you can open up DMXis, select the channels you want to fade, go to the Oscillator section in the bottom right and change "Type" to "Saw Up". You can set the Amount and Speed depending on how fast you want it to fade in and how drastic you want the Saw Up to be (completely dark to full brightness, or somewhere in the middle). So let's say I have one light and I want it to fade in blue. I'll open DMXis, make sure my main dimmer channel is up to 100 and all other channels are set to 0 (this might vary depending on your lights), select the blue channel, in the Oscillator section change the "Type" to "Saw Up", set the Speed to 4 bars because I want it to fade in sort of slowly, and the Amount to 100 because I want the blue channel to go from 0 to 100. This will make the blue fade in over 4 bars over and over again as long as this preset is running.

Lets say I have 2 lights and I want to fade from light 1 to light 2. I like having maximum control, so I make several presets: one that only has light 1 at full brightness, another that only has light 2 at full brightness, and finally I have a "fade" preset that has light 1 fade out using a "Saw Down" type, and light 2 fade in using a "Saw Up" type. Then I'll launch these presets with MIDI via Ableton so I can control exactly when they fade. This is sort of tedious, but I like the extra control and this can be expanding to any amount of lights that you want.

As a side note, I'm not sure if it's different in Logic, but I'd be cautious if you're automating your DMXis plugin similar to instrument plugins (dragging the automation lines etc.) because if you're controlling more than 15 or so channels at once, it can be pretty heavy on CPU use. It's a little harder, but it's a lot more efficient using the DMXis Banks and Presets, and then just controlling with Preset is running by firing MIDI notes to the channel that has DMXis on it.
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