Playing luminair with a backing track

[Jimmywoo]

Hi all,

I am in a band that uses backing tracks along with live instruments and I want to start using lighting to enhance our live shows but I can't seem to work out how to play them with the "touch of a button".

I am hoping to create a sequence for song 1 for example that I can trigger both the lighting and backing track at the same time and when the song ends the lighting ends, and so on to the next song.

I am using an iPad with luminair that is connected to the lighting using a Ethernet DMX controller that is linked to the apple airport for wireless connectivity.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank youJames

 

 

 

[paulears]

I assume the iPad is also providing music playback? If so I'm not sure the usual audio apps can drive the lighting controller? In an external system, you could have a proper sequencer - like Logic, or Cubase on a PC send MIDI to control a lighting package, but I don't see how you'd get the iPad audio app to trigger the LX? Scene playback is available via the internal mic - so not sure if something like Soundplant could be set up to link the audio in to the audio app out - but these kinds of control are pretty simple. When the song finishes, you don't want the lights to go out, and I'm not certain that's an easy one to get around. You need an expert who has the system working.

[lorem ipsum]

I have been researching this kind of setup for a friend's band and came across another potential solution:

ipad plays backing and timecode, sends backing and click to audio console, sends timecode track to laptop running lighting software, then to lights via an Ethernet DMX controller.

 

an app such as Syncinside combined with a cheap usb sound card and an ipad camera connection kit gets you the four channels of audio out of the ipad

http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/Technology/Tablets/iPad-Accessories/iPad-Chargers-and-Cables/APMC531ZMA

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/syncinside-backing-tracks/id603233612?mt=8

 

The tricky bit is getting the LTC timecode (which is encoded as a standard mono audio signal) into lighting software.

 

There may be an software solution that can do this, but I have tested with a borrowed Rosendahgl mif4 timecode converter box which converts the LTC timecode into MIDI timecode which goes into a laptop via the usb connection. (but these aren't cheap)

 

In my case, this triggers cuelists in the Martin M-series software.

 

The advantage of a timecode solution is that you can mix up the order of songs, and the lighting controller will automatically jump to the corresponding cues