parky58 Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 In addition to the hire jobs I do , where I use a Jester 12/24, together with par cans, dimmers and led fixtures etc, I also play in a band where we have successfully used NJD spectres with their foot controller for the last 5 years. We have now moved to an LED only system which comprises of some LEDJ 4, 6 and 7 channel fixtures. I have bought their STOMPAR foot controller to control them but it is as much use as a chocolate fire guard. The functions I need in particular are the ability to do a faded black-out and colour selective chases/scenes, so I will need a controller with at least 16 channels. I have looked at the Ryger USB-DMX which would appear to do the job but I would like to know if there are any similar, less expensive units worth looking at. I don't want to go down the line of laptop with foot switches, but something quick and easy to set up at the venue. Any ideas? Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 How about a Lanbox and a Midi Foot Controller? Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parky58 Posted May 11, 2012 Author Share Posted May 11, 2012 Thanks for the idea Josh. The lanbox would be too expensive an option for me but you gave me an idea about using my Jester 12/24 with a midi foot pedal. I have looked into this and seems the Jester's submasters can be controlled by a midi note. I have a yamaha MFC05 which operates on channel 1 and changes midi channels 1-10, so no note information. Has anyone got any idea how I can achieve this with another type of foot controller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 Something like Behringer FCB1010 will do midi notes but it's not very cheap... http://www.thomann.de/gb/midi_footswitches.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted May 12, 2012 Share Posted May 12, 2012 Gut your foot controller and replace its electronics with a HighlyLiquid MIDI cpu board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parky58 Posted May 12, 2012 Author Share Posted May 12, 2012 Thanks for your replies chaps. I have investigated both the Behringer foot pedal and the midi cpu board and decided due to cost to give the CPU board a try. I have ordered one and will report back on my progress. Cheers, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitlane Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 Use a PC running MIDI-OX to convert the messages from your foot controller to the type of MIDI message you need? A cheap option at least good enough for prototyping what you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affe Posted June 7, 2012 Share Posted June 7, 2012 Hi, A few years back I found a USB foot switch, I bought it out of curiousity to see if it could work on an idea I had. The software application let you select which key on the keyboard to emulate. It worked but the interface was a bit, how to say, cheap chinese looking with some unreadable characters here and there. But it worked. I used my foot to press enter for a while... really I wanted to use it with a two camera setup to select camera. Looking like two camera men involved, but is was only me selecting camera with my foot. Quite cool. Affe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parky58 Posted June 10, 2012 Author Share Posted June 10, 2012 JOB SORTED! I bought a midi CPU from Highly liquid. I can now operate the Jester submasters using 12 footswitches. The CPU was about £25 and about another £50 for a die cast box, switches and PSU. I have programmed the CPU to fade in and out on the first 6 channels for static scenes and instant operation for chases. It took me a while to communicate with the CPU, but only because I used windows 7 on my PC. A windows XP machine worked straight away. The Highly Liquid forum provided me with lots of info on how to achieve what I was wanting to do, and the hardware and firmware manuals were very comprehensive. Thanks to the chaps who helped me on the forum and thanks again to dbuckley for the suggestion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrboo Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 bit late now but I would say also look at Enttec Dmxis http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&pn=70570&show=description&name=dmxis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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