I just got some colorstrips to help light up the dancefloor, and I am a little confused when it comes to DMX control. I know it gives you a lot more customization as far as setting the colors of the lights, fades, and scenes, but is it really that advantageous over using DMX over sound-activation since it seems rather difficult to manage both DMX light control AND DJing music?
Is DMX control supposed to be only used with the help of a 2nd person? Sorry for the noob questions.
you can do it solo however if you have no lighting experience i would not reccomend. you will need DMX controller or a USB to DMX to control them. if you did it right, you could set up say a Midi Fighter to control things like color, strobe, intensity etc, from a laptop set up close to your cdjs. there is a reason that the DJ generally doesnt run lights too however, when pulled off correctly, it can be amazing.
We use a DMX controller and love it. You can program scenes in it and easily click into a scene to use it. I typically have at least several programed prior to an event…For formal events such as wedding or quinceneras, I find out ahead of time what the color will be. I then program the speaker scrims and uplighting on the wall behind the board with the color scheme and put the LED PARs as a wash on the dance floor in the color. Then, for slow songs, have a lower intensity lighting with slow fading color washes and no other effects. On dance songs, hit the button to turn to sound activated and turn the dancefloor lighting on. That way, you don’t have lasers and moonbeam effects, etc, while the first dance is going on and they are trying to get pictures.I also have one that is all UV lights that I have used at blacklight parties. On the controller, just select a scene number and you are there. There is also a all blackout button which, as stated, sends a blackout signal to all the lights. This is nice so you don’t have the rig turned on from setup on, only when needed. This is what we use:
Only weird thing is we wanted the full control of the Swarm Wash and that is 18 channels, so we use fixture 1 and 2 to control it. 16 channels of fixture 1 and the first 2 channels of fixture 2.
I say “we” because it is a my daughter’s company and we run it as a family business. My son and daughter are the DJs and I am typically there for the setup and tear down and, depending on event, will typically be around in case whichever on the board needs a bathroom break or anything. We (usually me unless there is special stuff she is working with) will program the lights ahead of time, typically, unless we know we will setup and have a long wait time before beginning to play which isn’t often.
Then, whomever is the actual DJ of the event will go through all the different scenes to test and learn which is which and it is a press of a button when the song begins. My daughter actually likes to label the board so she doesn’t forget which scene is which between setting up and going live since it is sometimes a few days to a week between. (She is the primary DJ since it is her company and my son is usually at college…she did use him last Saturday since he is home for Christmas.)
Awesome thanks, yea I would definitely label the board.
Would you happen to know what all the different scenes you lay out? I was thinking maybe 1-2 wash scenes, and then the rest be different light strobes/fades? Is each scene suited to a genre?
Let’s see if this works…This was a Thanksgiving meal we did on Fort Hood for the soldiers. During the dinner portion, we alternated red, green, red scrim, green scrim, red, green for basic lighting. During the beginning of the time for dancing, we turned on the red and green lasers and left the red and green fixed wash. When we went to the dancing (Wobble, Cha Cha, etc.) we went sound activated in all fixtures. We also had a Scorpion Script, which I plant to get an IR repeater for because the IR is on the front of the fixture. Had it say Happy Thanksgiving Ironhorse DFAC. It is a pain to have to walk to the front of the lights and turn on.
(Couldn’t get it to work as an image…link to FB post.)
And at a 16th birthday party, they had a black light party. Swarm wash and all LEDs were set to UV with additional blacklights and UV lights on other stands around the floor as Scene 4. Had supporting blacklights on all night, main lights were UV after they had the “Twister Paint Party” where they had neon paint and painted each other the color spun while playing Twister. Couldn’t find a pic of the setup for this one, I think I may have it in a video but will need to look. Scene 1 was pink wash effect, scene 2 was dancing sound activated for LEDs and Swarm with the lasers off and Scene 3 was everything sound including lasers. This was using a truss instead of the T-Bars.
Rebekah actually setup this party and started it, then participated in the black light festivities and I took over DJ duties and I get tired of lasers so had the scene without for me. You can also change any light on the fly. They dropped an earring or bracelet or something on the right side of the dance floor, so I brought that light up full intensity and white so they could find it without disrupting the black light paint stuff. Rebekah said the only downside of being a DJ is when it is a friend’s party and she is hired to work instead of have fun. This was one of her best friends, so I told her split the money with me and I would take over after setup and gig started if she built the playlists and did all the pre-work.
Thanks for those descriptions! I’m going to go to Guitar Center later today and see if they have any DMX controllers I can buy and play around with. I am worried I’ll have the same experience as your daughter as I’ll be DJing my sister’s wedding, but I think I’ll have a great time if everyone else is having a great time. Plus no date for me so I don’t have to worry about that
I STRONGLY RECOMMEND USB TO DMX SOFTWARE. That will solve your issue with overlapping channels. Those cheapo DMX controllers don’t have enough programming options. I promise if you buy that little bullshit DMX controller, you will very quickly find its NOT what you’re looking for
I bought an ADJ Operator which seems to be fairly well reviewed. I was considering USB-DMX boxes, but I don’t really want to have it loaded on at the same computer as my DJ computer since I’d have to alt tab to access the software.
We use the ADJ dmx2 usb interface on windows Pc. Most lighting fixtures are available in the library to just drag and drop into your lighting universe.
Once you have your fixtures assigned by the software it is a simple matter to programme and label the scenes as required. It will also run sound to light. There is also a facility for auto fade up / down between or at the end of scenes.
As in previous posts we use preset colour scenes for weddings and have a variety of dancefloor mood scenes depending on the music being played. The scenes can be pre ordered to match the playlist so a single tap in the ‘Live’ window will move to next scene. (The same scene can be added multiple times). You could also have save the lighting scene in a MP3 tag for future reference.
I had looked at the MyDMX or Chauvet ShowXpress and thought long and hard about them. Asked for advice from a number of people in multiple markets (I stage manage at a local theatre, so asked many lighting designers and directors) and the overall advice I got was get a board first to learn on and get comfortable with so you understand all the basics, then you can move to computer, if you want. The Operator was less expensive and didn’t require additional software to be running in the background and flipping between them or a second computer (would be my preferred method.) Other then the Swarm Wash, which can be run in a 2 channel mode but with less control, every other fixture is well within the 16 channels available. Now if only the Scorpion Text was DMX…grrrr. Hind sight is 20/20. Won’t buy anything without DMX again.
The company I work with have just started using this, and I’ve been given the job of setting up the scenes, which I’m getting on with. That idea of saving the light scene in a MP3 Tag is a superb idea!! I’m gonna use that..
Ahh, I didn’t think about a MIDI controller, could have just hooked up my Push to control.
Oh well, a lot of the DMX Usb interfaces are outside of my price range, and I wasn’t sure how good the cheap knock offs were whereas I know the ADJ Operator is a solid piece of hardware.
So I’ve got the lights set up pretty well now with scenes and chases, but I’m having an issue with the lights syncing up on basic color flashes.
I have two colorstrips connected in DMX on different addresses with each of the two having a slave following it. For some reason, the two pairs of colorstrips do not flash simultaneously. Rather, one pair will flash followed by the second pair. Also, the 2nd pair of colorstrips are not extending and simply duplicating.
Now, I think the problem might be because I have one colorstrip with a slave out and a DMX out to another colorstrip. However, I don’t see how I’m supposed to route these otherwise.
I have never tried using a slave on a DMX chain, but, initial thoughts are…what length are your DMX cables? And, if you are slaving them, could you try setting 2 fixtures to the same address? I have though about trying that because the uplights behind the booth are always the same color or always sound activated right now, so could use 1 address. Just never tried it or looked it up. But, I have been told anywhere over 100ft of cable should have a terminator on the end DMX unit. Apparently it is good practice either way… I am still fairly new at DMX, but those were my thoughts.
This will absolutely work. I have either 2 or 4 uplighters connected to my DMX system depending on the size of the room, but they all have the same dmx address and do the same thing. If you wanted all 4 colorstrips to do the same, set them all to the same address. Or if you wanted 2 pairs, set 1 and slave 1 to the same address, and then 2 and slave 2 to a different address.
I tried setting them to the same address, and then the top pair of lights were out of sync as well which really confused me. It seems as if there’s some sort of lag?
I wanted to use the slave because I wanted to extend the strips rather than just duplicate (it treats the two lights as one long light).
