Mixed bag of DMX lights - advice needed!

[Kooldood]

Hi All,

 

I've got a mixture of lights that I've used in standalone mode for my band; I'm using the following lights:

 

Chauvet 4Bar / Chauvet O'Beast / Chauvet Storm FX laser / 4 x Stairville PAR 56 (8DIP) / 4 x ShowTec PAR 56 (10DIP)

 

Up until recently, I have set up 4 PARS on a T-Bar as washes (on a fixed colour), 4 PARS behind the band on a fixed colour as uplighters. The rest runs as sound to light and does it's own thing.

 

I thought I'd give the DMX a go; I wanted to be able to control the PARs from the stage and get some slow fading chases so bought a Chauvet Obey 3 and a load of DMX cables (not mic leads!) from a friend. This worked with the Showtecs but didn't work properly with the Stairvilles. I've since learned that DMX channel 1 on the Stairville PARs controls the mode hence they won't work with the Obey 3.

 

My next "bargain" was a QTX FC-1 "DMX" floor controller that was for sale in a second-hand shop locally. I bought this cheaply thinking I could add it to my system and control something but I've since found that this seems to be unique to QTX lights and is not DMX so it's next to useless.

 

Having bought two pieces of kit incorrectly through ignorance, I've tried to do some research but still don't fully understand DMX.

 

I'm looking at getting a Chauvet DMX 40 as I understand this will allow me to reprogram DMX channels so as a starting point I can sync the Stairville lights together with the Showtecs . Will the Obey 40 allow me to control the kit I currently have or should I start selling bits off and start again? Is the Obey 40 over the top for what I need - should I buy a different controller?

 

Any help or suggestions would be gratefully received as it's been fairly expensive so far!

 

 

 

[Jivemaster]

Hopefully you can find DMX personalities for all your lanterns, then you can work out how to programme them.

[Kooldood]

Hopefully you can find DMX personalities for all your lanterns, then you can work out how to programme them.

 

Personalities? Another new term for me to get my head around!

 

The 4PAR has the most channels (sixteen) I assume by this, I can start one set of lights at channel 1, a second set on channel 17 etc? This will give me "personalities"? Will the Obey 40 work?

 

 

 

 

 

[paulears]

Sort of. The problem is that there is no standard for how your 16 channels are laid out, so the controller you use must know, or be able to be programmed with the way your individual mix of lights are laid out. You are correct that with a 16 channel fixture, then the next one would start at DMX channel 17 - but if your fixture has dimmer (as in on or off) on channel 2, and colour on channel 1, then this is no good if your controller thinks channel 1 is for pan and channel 2 is tilt! So each fixture must have it's individual personality able to be programmed in, or already in it. There are now thousands of these personality files, and new ones get created all the time. Some of these disco style controls are able to have new personalities added, but not by means all. Many only have their own brand personalities on board. This is why your results so far are poor. More professional systems can cope with almost any combination, but by virtue of this tend to be a little more complicated, and for a hardware one, with real knobs and buttons - the price was very high. There are many software versions available that run on a laptop or computer. These might be more suitable, and certainly cheaper.

 

Remember that DMX is not really a 'thing' at all, just a communication language between bits of kit. It connects them efficiency, but cares not a jot if the things actually work. It delivers packets to specific addresses. If these are not understood, that's not it's problem, hence why there seems much misery. If you buy a hardware product check with the supplier that it can talk to your kit. With that spread of kit, I think it doubtful but I don't know your controller.

 

If you do choose a software solution, there are some great ones, but they all need effort and time to learn.

[Jivemaster]

Personality in this context means what DMX channel does what. I have some kit that is four channels, X,Y colour and gobo. some items use 50 plus channels.

 

Not everything out of China has the same personality, even two batches of the same Chinese thing can have different personalities,

[david.elsbury]

You could do worse than looking at Enttec DMXIS - it's a pc based system with a DMX output dongle and a foot switch, designed for guys such as yourself who want to programme scenes and be able to switch between them while playing your instrument. Yes it's probably a bit of a learning curve, but it should be able to cope with all of your DMX kit :)

[Kooldood]

You could do worse than looking at Enttec DMXIS - it's a pc based system with a DMX output dongle and a foot switch, designed for guys such as yourself who want to programme scenes and be able to switch between them while playing your instrument. Yes it's probably a bit of a learning curve, but it should be able to cope with all of your DMX kit :)

 

Thanks for the responses ... I think I might look at the DMX dongle route first as this might be the cheapest way to get to get up and running and start to understand it a bit more.

 

 

 

 

 

[david.elsbury]

If you choose to go that way, choose the software FIRST then the hardware afterwards- not all hardware works with all software. There are many options, take a look thru the Lighting forum here or do a google search with site:blue-room.org.uk on the end - the inbuilt search is a but rubbish.

[MarkPAman]

If you choose to go that way, choose the software FIRST then the hardware afterwards- not all hardware works with all software. .

Actually look at both together!

 

If I read it correctly, you want to use a foot controller on stage, so make sure you can get the hardware to do that. It may not exist for some software, or may cost a lot more with another.