[QLab] Syncing 2 MacBook Pro's?

[Niklas Ekström]

Hi guys,
I'm a rookie in Q-Lab world. Hope to learn a lot after this.

We are a band traveling around the world with a show that contains backingtracks and videofiles for some of the tracks that we hook up to the venues video screens. We always fly and will try to not check in any gear (to avoid overweight and lost luggage). Thats why we need a simple safe system that always work. Before we had more complicated heavy systems (and expensive)..

So now we have invested in Q-Lab and I have some problems:

I need some help syncing 2 MacBook Pro's.
1 MacBook Pro called from now one "Audio mac" with 8ch audio out. The other MacBook pro is called the "Video mac".
I have installed ipMidi (http://nerds.de/en/ipmidi.html) in both of them so I can hook them together with a ethernet cable instead of midi cable thru 2 midi interfaces.
In each MacBook I disabled the AirPort. I have connect the computers with an normal ethernetcable (also tried with an crossed ethernetcable).
I changed the Ip address in the Audio mac to 192.168.0.1 and the video mac to 192.168.0.2.
Then I put the audiofile and a midi message in a group into Q-Lab @ the audio mac. After that I put the videofile into the video mac with a load que and trigger this group with a MIDI message.

I'm not able to get this to work. I't seems that the computers not talking to each other. If I try to do the same with the AirPort then it works, but it's not that fast so it not syncing exactly.

Maybe there is some easier and safer way to do this for our show?

Thank you in advance!

//Nik

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[Matthew Haber]

When you have the computers connected like this, can you get other communications between them (file sharing, etc)?

Matthew Haber
Theatre Designer
www.matthewhaber.com
617-435-9257

[Christopher Ashworth]

On Feb 3, 2011, at 12:29 PM, Niklas Ekström wrote:

> I'm not able to get this to work. I't seems that the computers not talking to each other. If I try to do the same with the AirPort then it works, but it's not that fast so it not syncing exactly.

One tool that can help troubleshoot:

http://www.snoize.com/MIDIMonitor/

This can show you if the MIDI messages are getting across the wire at all.

Also, as Matthew asked, check to see if you can do normal OS X things, like file sharing.

Best,
Chris

[David Thomas]

Hi Niklas,

FYI, I don't believe ipMIDI should be necessary to make this work. The
capability for MIDI-over-IP is built into Mac OS. You can just set up a MIDI
network in Audio MIDI setup.

Best,
DT

On 2/3/11 2:40 PM, "qlab-r...@lists.figure53.com"
<qlab-r...@lists.figure53.com> wrote:

> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 18:29:42 +0100
> From: Niklas Ekstr?m <eks...@mindless.se>
> To: ql...@lists.figure53.com
> Subject: [QLab] Syncing 2 MacBook Pro's?
> Message-ID: <2406074C-0AAF-4BEA...@mindless.se>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

>
> Hi guys,
> I'm a rookie in Q-Lab world. Hope to learn a lot after this.
>
> We are a band traveling around the world with a show that contains
> backingtracks and videofiles for some of the tracks that we hook up to the
> venues video screens. We always fly and will try to not check in any gear (to
> avoid overweight and lost luggage). Thats why we need a simple safe system
> that always work. Before we had more complicated heavy systems (and
> expensive)..
>
> So now we have invested in Q-Lab and I have some problems:
>
> I need some help syncing 2 MacBook Pro's.
> 1 MacBook Pro called from now one "Audio mac" with 8ch audio out. The other
> MacBook pro is called the "Video mac".
> I have installed ipMidi (http://nerds.de/en/ipmidi.html) in both of them so I
> can hook them together with a ethernet cable instead of midi cable thru 2 midi
> interfaces.
> In each MacBook I disabled the AirPort. I have connect the computers with an
> normal ethernetcable (also tried with an crossed ethernetcable).
> I changed the Ip address in the Audio mac to 192.168.0.1 and the video mac to
> 192.168.0.2.
> Then I put the audiofile and a midi message in a group into Q-Lab @ the audio
> mac. After that I put the videofile into the video mac with a load que and
> trigger this group with a MIDI message.
>

> I'm not able to get this to work. I't seems that the computers not talking to
> each other. If I try to do the same with the AirPort then it works, but it's
> not that fast so it not syncing exactly.
>

> Maybe there is some easier and safer way to do this for our show?
>
>
>
> Thank you in advance!

[luckydave]

> FYI, I don't believe ipMIDI should be necessary to make this work. The
> capability for MIDI-over-IP is built into Mac OS. You can just set up a MIDI
> network in Audio MIDI setup.

He's using ipMIDI on my advice, since it doesn't require any setup to use as one port. The Audio MIDI Setup version often involves at least opening the app every time you boot the computer. My understanding of Niklas' problem is in the wired network, not the signals.

luckydave
luck...@figure53.com

[sam kusnetz]

> FYI, I don't believe ipMIDI should be necessary to make this work. The
> capability for MIDI-over-IP is built into Mac OS. You can just set up a MIDI
> network in Audio MIDI setup.

i can confirm that apple's built-in midi over ip is not stable enough for us. the connection is not simple to set up and needs to be reestablished after a reboot, so i also recommend ipmidi.

cheers
sam