Charlotte_R Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 Hi all,I'm currently working on a project to control a lighting desk through movement of a dancer and I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good way to get midi commands from the dancer to the desk?The problem I have is size. I need a solution that is small enough to fit on a dancer, so preferably something that is beltpack sized or not much bigger. I'd like it to read in a resistance and then convert it to midi, transmit it wirelessly and spew it out to a lighting desk.My initial thoughts are to use an arduino to read in the resistance values and convert to midi timecode at mic levels. Then send this to a standard beltpack and receive it out as audio from the receiver. Then, assuming that it is at the correct signal level from the receiver, into the desk.Would this work? Can anyone suggest a better solution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 Why have anything attached to the dancer? You could use an Xbox Kinect sensor and the software from vvvv.org to create a gesture-based midi controller. If you need to cover a wider area than what the Kinect can handle, I’ve used vvvv and a modified webcam to track infra red markers and then used this information to drive some projected effects. Using a clever bit of maths I could have the projected effect follow the infrared markers quite closely. It should be straight forward to adapt this technique to generate midi commands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 If you want to stick with your original method, I would use an arduino at both ends and use a pair of the 2.4GHz modules e.g. NRF24L01 to send data between them. Then the arduino at the receive end can output the midi. Midi timecode SMPTE is not a digital signal as it is a modulated audio frequency, it would be complicated to generate this with an arduino.An example of the wireless link is herehttps://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/arduino-wireless-communication-nrf24l01-tutorial/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ontoprigger Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 lighting is not really my thing other than rigging systems for them to hang from, but have worked with systems like http://www.zactrack.com/ and https://blacktrax.cast-soft.com/ and others like D3 technologies who all have tracking products Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 If you’re sold on the Arduino route then take a look at the Wemos D1 mini Pro. Tiny, programmable in Arduino ide with a new board file, built in battery charging, built in WiFi, option of an external antenna or an on board one by default. I’ve just got one working this week taking Artnet over WiFi and converting it to WS2811 to drive a load of led’s on an Artnet controlled poi project. Not a huge learning curve from Arduino, just watch the pin numbering as they’re not 100% the same, but there are plenty of resources out there to explain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitlane Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 MIDI Timecode seems an odd choice of control signal. Would something like a Continuous Controller (CC) message be better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Midi timecode SMPTE is not a digital signal as it is a modulated audio frequency,... Actually the OP only mentioned 'midi timecode' which is a straight forwards MIDI signal: a 31.25k baud serial stream. So that really wouldn't work as a source for a radio link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Midi timecode SMPTE is not a digital signal as it is a modulated audio frequency,... Actually the OP only mentioned 'midi timecode' which is a straight forwards MIDI signal: a 31.25k baud serial stream. So that really wouldn't work as a source for a radio link. Mmm, that's why I thought she meant SMPTE version which would potentially travel over radio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanSteely Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 With the 2x Arduino implementation what would be the maximum expected latency? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Rather than the complication of sending midi wirelessly, why not do Arduino at both ends and just send data between?If you choose to use a Teensy at the receive end with a separate module to handle the wireless connectivity then the Teensy can be set to appear to a usb connected computer as a USB midi device. Really easy to do and lots of example sketches out there. Use a Wemos d1 mini on the dancer for its’ size, onboard WiFi and battery charging capability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte_R Posted October 14, 2018 Author Share Posted October 14, 2018 Thanks guys, I'll look into the arduino wireless link thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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