Support Forum

OK I've been using Freestyler for a while to run my band's show. We run lights from the stage using a midi foot controller interfaced with the laptop and use Bome's Midi Translator to convert from MIDI to a keypress event.

Currently, I have three cues set up for basic background wash; these are on all the time unless overridden by an override button. I have "scenes" set up using the override buttons so we can go from the 'wash' cues to some kind of active lighting: colorstrips rebounding, moonflowers lighting and spinning, etc. So I'm performing one keypress and changing several lights.

I have 23 footpedal commands right now. I am adding more lights, and probably more scenes, and think the cue list may be the way to go instead of the way I've been doing it.

Am I limited in the number of keypress events that are available to trigger cues? Or is there another way to do what I want to do? We don't want to sequence shows for entire songs... we want to be able to continue to change to a scene by pressing a single button on the foot controller.

Thanks!

I guess there's no way to do what I need to do?

Have you looked at GO Monkey Theater Cue Stack? One big button to cycle to the next cue. I haven't given it much of a try, but it looks useful.

Look here: http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforu ... =38&t=2787

Hmmm... I just read over that thread, and I don't think that will work. That seems to stack up different cues so that you can automate what cues to run next, with wait times, etc. I just need a ton of cues ready to go with one keypress each, so I can switch from one to the other instantly.

That might work for someone who has setlists and wants to program different setlists before the show each night, but we don't work like that. We have different setlists every night, and often abandon it depending on crowd response. I have scenes like "Solid Blue", "red", etc. which washes the stage in static, solid colors for slow songs, strobes for fast parts, etc., and we just want to be able to hit one keypress to change from one to the other. This is all done completely handsfree, using a MIDI footboard so anything that requires someone to touch a computer is out of the question. We're all playing instruments during the show. We just want to be able to add more cues, rather than using override buttons to throw lighting "candy" over the background wash we have as a cue, and doing massive scene changes in this way on the fly is crucial.

Have a look at the submasters. There you can set up 20 cue lists every with 20 scenes. BUT only one scene per list ist playing at the same time. This ristriction is not that bad because you can set up one list for wash-color, one for scanner movement, one for lamp intensity, ... Normaly you will have some scenes for the same fixture(-group) but only on is running.

There are keyboard (and I think also midi) commands for "list 1 up", "list 1 down" and "list toggle". You can configure your controller to use two buttons browse trough the lists and a third button to start the selected scene (or stop it, if it is allready running). The 20 lists are aranged on 4 pages. You can go trough these pages (next, prev) or access them directly what means, you would need 2 or 4 buttons on your controller to accass the pages and 3 x 5 buttons to select and play the scenes (3 buttens per list, 5 lists on the page). Makes a total of less then 20 buttons to create your show out of 400 scenes (20 lists, each 20 scenes)!

Mavi,

That won't work. We do not have the laptop in front of us; it's back behind the backdrop. We don't see the screen. We don't want to assign two buttons to scroll through different choices; if I come up with 65 different "scenes", if I'm on preset 7 I should be able to go to preset 20, or 55, or 3, instantly with one button pushed on the footpedal.

Also we are definitely not wanting to build our scenes on the fly. If I step on button 7, the Chauvet Rain 56's should go into RGB slow fade mode, the colorstrips should to a medium speed color change program, the Pearl WH LED's should go to a slowly rotating moonflower, the ADJ X-Scan Plus's should be doing a slow, sweeping figure 8, and the front lights should be illuminating the performers with an amber light.

Then if we go to a slow song, I should be able to step on button 23, and the Rain's go to blue, the Colorstrips go blue, the front lights turn blue, the Pearl WH's turn off, and the X-Scans put a stationary slow rotating blue gobo on the dance floor.

No scrolling through settings, no need (or ability) to see the laptop screen... just using my midi foot pedal board with numbered presets so that I can go to any cue at any time with a single press of a button.

Ok, now I get an Idea of what you want to do. You want to programm multiple scenes running together when you hit one button. There are different methods to achieve this.

First is to set up a maximum of 20 sequences, assign them to the different slots in the cue list and start/stop them with your foot pedal. You can programm different fixtures in the same sequence. But this way you only have 20 differen scenes and you may have a hard coded combination of different fixtures in one scene.

Better would be to set up the different sequences for the differen fixtures (like you would do for the submasters) and create a cuelist by adding the different sequences to the list. This combination can be saved as cue and added to the cue buttons. Then by hitting the cue button all sequences will start running. But there are "only" 16 cue buttons on 6 pages. Wich means, you have to acces the pages first (you can acces them directly using midi) and then hit the cue you want to run (also by midi). You would have up to 6 different cues per foot pedal depending on which page you are currentyl. And an other Problem is you do not know on wich page you are if you can not see the laptop.

You also can use the override buttons. If you have static sequences (meaning only one step, like you have when setting a color to a fixture) you can assign them to those override buttons. Those buttons are limitaded to one-step-sequences (if you assign a sequence with more then one step, only the first step will be played). You have 30 override buttons and 6 pages. You can set up those buttons to "flash" buttons as well, meaning they will only playd as long as you hit the button and stop if you release it.

Those are the differen methods I would recommend. But if you want to go over the limitation of only using the first page you will need to see at last the screan to know which page you are on currently. I would recommend to bring the laptop to the stage, maybe in a flightcase only open to you so the audiance can not see it.
To get a better view (which page tab is selected may be a litte small to read if you are far away from the laptop) set up the touchscreen interface 2. There you can arrange the page select buttons and culist/override buttons as you like. You can still controll everything with your midi foot pedal and only use the touchscreen interface to see better what you are dooing and what you have selected. You do not even have to have a touchscreen or a second monitor.

Thanks, that's what I needed to know. I guess I'm stuck with using override buttons until I can find a better solution for my situation than freestyler, if one that does what I need even exists. I guess it would probably fix my problem if the user could assign keypress events to cues on different pages directly, rather than having to use pages... but since guys who run lights from stage while performing are in the minority, I doubt it would make sense to ask for that to be included in a future version.

Diggler wrote:but since guys who run lights from stage while performing are in the minority, I doubt it would make sense to ask for that to be included in a future version.

there is no harm in trying. use the bug tracker for your request..

remember to refer to this topic

Do you want only 1 set of sequences to run at a time?
I could adapt the go monkey to assign set lists to MIDI.
You could setup your groups of sequences, and trigger with ur foot pedals

No, we don't use setlists. We do lots of improvised sets, and need to change from scene to scene quickly with a button push without necessarily knowing what the next chosen cue/sequence will be... we pick it when it comes time to choose one.

I'll be watching this one closely - I'm just in the infancy of setting this up with similar requirements to Diggler..

I've just sorted a few scenes and will be looking to purchase a midi foot pedal to control this... any recommendations to multi bank/patch midi pedals (i.e. Bank A pedals 1, 2, 3, 4... Bank B pedals 1, 2, 3, 4 etc etc).

Rich

if theres enough call and is not on FS dev list. Has any one submitted a request?
il perhaps create a simple midi to sequence switcher.

I submitted a request & a link to this thread.

A good approach might be to be able to select sequences and/or cues by midi program change messages.

I think all you need to do is use some midi software like Midi OX that will convert the single midi message that is sent by your foot controller into two midi messages that are received by Freestyler (i.e. one message to select the cue page, one message to select the sequence).

For example, let's assume:
1) You'd like the lighting sequence on cue page 5, button 1 to be activated whenever your foot pedal sends out a midi program change message 10.
2) You've configured freestyler so that midi note 55 selects cue page 5
3) You've configured freestyler so that midi note 100 selects cue button 1

In the above example,
setup Midi OX so that it whenever a MIDI program 10 message is received, it sends a out midi note 55, followed by a midi note 100.
I think that should do it for you.

Some examples of using Midi OX can be found on freestyler's support forum:
http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforu ... =19&t=2958
http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforu ... =19&t=2232

Mavi wrote:Have a look at the submasters. There you can set up 20 cue lists every with 20 scenes. BUT only one scene per list ist playing at the same time. This ristriction is not that bad because you can set up one list for wash-color, one for scanner movement, one for lamp intensity, ... Normaly you will have some scenes for the same fixture(-group) but only on is running.

There are keyboard (and I think also midi) commands for "list 1 up", "list 1 down" and "list toggle". You can configure your controller to use two buttons browse trough the lists and a third button to start the selected scene (or stop it, if it is allready running). The 20 lists are aranged on 4 pages. You can go trough these pages (next, prev) or access them directly what means, you would need 2 or 4 buttons on your controller to accass the pages and 3 x 5 buttons to select and play the scenes (3 buttens per list, 5 lists on the page). Makes a total of less then 20 buttons to create your show out of 400 scenes (20 lists, each 20 scenes)!

sounds great but.... can you trigger that via midi?? i mean can you trigger the cue in the submasters via MIDI?