[QLab] Matching Light cues to a song

[Matt Lathrop]

I am high school student and we are trying to put together a opening to a show we are doing where we will basically have a light show. We would really like to be able to sync the audio with the light cues and I understand the best way to do this is through MIDI. Is that correct? If so I need a bit of help, right now I only have the demo of Qlab but plan to purchase a rental if I can be sure this will work. I got a midi file of the song we are using online and put it as a cue in Qlab now what I need to know how to do is at a particular beat of that song to have a MSC message sent to our Ion counsel. Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Matt
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[Ted Pallas]

Doesn't work like that (to my knowledge.)  One thing you could do would be to have a series of MSC cues with a series of pre-waits on them timed to different beats you want to accent with lighting all "Go" at the same time in a "fire all children" group, with the music included, and not fire until their pre-wait is complete.  It's not elegant, but it's something.

Ted Pallas
Live Media Designer
Sandwich Construction Consultant
ted dot pallas -at- gmail dot com
516.286.9661

[Andy Dolph]

That's exactly how I would do it. I'd use an audio file of the song,
load it in to the audio editor of your choice to make it easy to find
the timings I want to trigger cues on, then use that list of times to
do what Ted describes.
I suppose it would be theoretically possible to do this with a midi
file of the song, but keep in mind that there is no audio in a midi
file - just information about when to play notes, how long or short
they are and such... think of it kind of like a more detailed version
of what would be in the sheet music....

So for that to sound decent, you'd need to feed the midi that's being
played to a good synth or set of synths (which could be hardware or
software) and then also put in the midi file commands that would go to
the light board IF your light borad can be controlled by "musical"
midi instructions rather then MSC (Midi Show Control, which was
created for this specific use.)

Like I said, I'd stick with the first approach, but just for your
information....

Andy

On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 7:53 PM, Ted Pallas <ted.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Doesn't work like that (to my knowledge.)  One thing you could do would be
> to have a series of MSC cues with a series of pre-waits on them timed to
> different beats you want to accent with lighting all "Go" at the same time
> in a "fire all children" group, with the music included, and not fire until
> their pre-wait is complete.  It's not elegant, but it's something.

[Paul Gotch]

On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 07:53:11PM -0500, Ted Pallas wrote:
> Doesn't work like that (to my knowledge.) One thing you could do would be
> to have a series of MSC cues with a series of pre-waits on them timed to
> different beats you want to accent with lighting all "Go" at the same time
> in a "fire all children" group, with the music included, and not fire until
> their pre-wait is complete. It's not elegant, but it's something.

The ETC Ion can listen to MIDI Time Code and the MTC cue outputs
timecode continuously until stopped. Obviously you'll need to wire a
MIDI interface from the computer to the Ion.

So I think what the OP actually wants to do is use a normal audio cue
to play the music started simultaneously with an MTC cue. Then program
the cue stack stack on the Ion itself to do things based on the time
code.

You should be able to test this works without a MIDI license but of
course a Pro MIDI license is required to reactivate MTC cues that have
been saved to disk.

-p
--
Paul Gotch
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[Ted Pallas]

Although - qLab knows what to do with a .mid file.  It's never occured to me to drop one in before, to be honest, but it's pretty slick.

What you could do, then, is download your .mid file and open it in an editor.  Figure out which hits you want to match with cues and delete everything else.  Once that's done, change the pitch of the notes you have left - in order - so you have a .mid file that, when played back, plays your first pitch at C-2, your next hit at C#-2, next hit at D-2 (or MIDI notes 0,1 and 2) and so on.  Set the track's output to the interface you're using, enter the needed triggers into the lightboard (I think I've sent an ION a "Note On" before) and you should, in theory, be good to go.  I just watched qLab output a .mid's data stream into Ableton Live - I see no reason this shouldn't work.  What you'll need to do - this'll be easier with ProTools or another program that can let you view and edit both audio and MIDI at the same time - is make sure the song you'll be hearing matches the .mid file you're using to cue.  Often these are made by fans, and aren't identical.

 
Ted Pallas
Live Media Designer
Sandwich Construction Consultant
ted dot pallas -at- gmail dot com
516.286.9661

[Marian Drabosenik]

http://www.enttec.com/tutorials/dmxis/logic_studio.html

check out this Video, it was made for DMXIS and i used it that way for my 

Lighting and it was absolutely flawless synced with the Music.

Basically you have the Music and the MIDI at the same time, do your Cues

and then take the Music File out - save it correctly and it will send MIDI CUES

to whatever device you want to.

Hope this helps

[Andy Leviss]

On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Matt Lathrop <mlat...@mac.com> wrote:

> I am high school student and we are trying to put together a opening to a show we are doing where we will basically have a light show. We would really like to be able to sync the audio with the light cues and I understand the best way to do this is through MIDI. Is that correct?

<a bunch of suggestions involving MIDI, or timed out MSC cues, ensued>

Those seem overly complicated ways to do this. This is what timecode
was invented for, among other things. Make a fire-all-children group
that contains the audio file and an MTC cue. Send the MTC out an MIDI
output on your interface to the lighting console. Just about any
console should be able to chase timecode.

Bingo, done. If you start in the middle of the song, lighting will be
right there with you.

Shows run like this all the time. The "Sesame Street Live" tours all
do this for lighting, since the backing tracks are all digitally
multitracked. When I was out on one of those tours forever ago, the
show was so heavily cued and synced that, the one time they lost
timecode in LX, the electrician couldn't keep up manually!

--Andy

[Andy Leviss]

For how to set up time code control on the Ion, go here:

http://www.etcconnect.com/Community/wikis/products/ion-lighting-console.aspx

Start on pg 254 of 1.4 rev B of the User Manual, it's the last link.

--Andy

[Andy Dolph]

On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Andy Leviss <an...@ducksecho.com> wrote:
>. Just about any
> console should be able to chase timecode.
>
> Bingo, done. If you start in the middle of the song, lighting will be
> right there with you.

I've tended to avoid timecode out of habit - firstly because I stared
doing show control using software that didn't output MTC, and later
because of a console that made dealing with timecode a pain if the
entire show wasn't in timecode. I like being able to see the stack of
cues counting down and firing on the computer, I find that makes it
easier to tweek timings, but that's probably because I do my
projection work that way (since it's entirely in Qlab)

which is to say - there are lots of different ways of doing most of
these things, and depending on what gear you have, and the way you
like to work.....

On heavily tracked shows (such as the aforementioned "Sesame Street
Live") timecode is clearly the way to go, and is almost always how
it's done.