MIDI to DMX

[Fenderbridge]

It appears that at this time, I can only use 24 "DMX to MIDI" Channels. Is this right, or am I missing something small?

I've been doing independent research over the last year trying to figure this out on my own, and I'm at my wit's end D:

I am using Reaper as my DAW, sending MIDI through LoopBe1, to be interpreted by freestyler using the 24 channels marked as MIDI to DMX. I went and got another light, and just cannot figure out how to control those other channels with my current setup.

Is it possible?

Thanks for the help!

[buttza]

MIDI only has 16 Channels.

If you are triggering then you should have 128 Triggers per each of the 16 Channels.
This should give you at least 128 options to trigger through midi with out allocating a Midi Channel.

The MIDI doesn't control light channel unless you map it. Have you mapped the midi triggers to the DMX channel you want to trigger?

[Fenderbridge]

I mean there are only 24 "DMX to MIDI" Slots that I can use. I can set one DMX channel to be triggered by C#0.

Referencing this: http://www.freestylersupport.com/wiki/e ... idi_to_dmx

As such:

I set MIDI to DMX 1 as Note 1 Page 1 Channel 1
Midi to DMX 2 as Note 2 Page 1 Channel 2
(So I could hit C#0 on the virtual keyboard in reaper, and the light on Channel 1 would react, same with D 0, and onwards)

And so on until I get to MIDI to DMX24, and I can't control any more than 24 channels at a time.

What I do is I control FS with Reaper through LoopBe1 with my Enttec Pro Mk. 2, and I can assign up to 24 "MIDI keys" on the virtual keyboard. This is how I control the light show. I just hit the "go" button in reaper, and it sends MIDI commands to FreeStyler, then Sends DMX signal to the lights.

My question is, can I control more than 24 MIDI to DMX channels?
I have about 10 DMX lights, and the minimum amount of channels I would need is at least 40 or 50 channels. Maybe my verbiage is wrong, please correct me if so!

[Partyman]

are you trying to have every single channel of all of your lights with a midi-DMX? It seems like you are trying to reinvent. The only way to accomplish what you are asking (that I know of) is to select fixtures or fixture groups then use the commands such as : dimmer, color, gobo, red, green, ...

[Fenderbridge]

Bummer, but it's not really reinventing, QLC+ let's you control 512 DMX channels with MIDI from whatever DAW you want.
I know there aren't many out there like me, but I know there are a few of us out there.

[Partyman]

So, why not use QLC+
I guess I really dont understand what you are trying to do. It seems that you just want to just use freesyler midi as a pass through and have another software do all the programming. If thats the case I don't think that is the way that Freestyler was designed to work, not to say that it cannot be done with some work around.

[Fenderbridge]

I'd love to, but QLC+ isn't as efficient as FS, not to mention QLC+ crashes on my computer every now and then, whereas FS does not.

[xJDAx]

Was a solution ever found for FreeStyler? I want to control a number of lights directly through Ableton and I am running into the same limitation. I would like to stick with FreeStyler but if QLC+ is the only fix I guess I will have to switch over.

[Codeweasel]

Interesting, I recently raised a feature request on the FS bugtracker for exactly this, but it does not seem to have been accepted (yet?).

In the meantime, I have resorted to using scenes and cues to achieve what I want. This does seem to work (with a few stumbles along the way) so I would suggest you might look at that instead.

Good luck!

Graham.

[FortuneBoy251]

Mate this software would be perfect if it had more assignable MIDI slots!

I've been looking into the programming capabilities of FreeStyler and I'm sure it would be great but I'd prefer the option to have total midi control over all my lights: so I can program them along side my music exactly how I want.

I'll check some more Freestyler tutorials but I might have to go to QLC if that's where it's at

[Codeweasel]

FortuneBoy251 - If you head over to the "3rd Party/Addons" section of the forum, I have uploaded a utility that allows direct assignment and control of all 127 MIDI notes to one/several/many/all 512 DMX channels without needing FS loaded. Sadly it only works with the uDMX interface (Lixada) at the moment, but if it's helpful, and someone can assist with drivers/code etc, I can add more interface support.
Cheers
Graham

[Laudrin]

Fenderbridge, you don't have to use the MIDI2DMX-Option to accomplish what you want. I would even say you would have more and more complicated work to do and wouldn't be as flexible.

E. g. if you use FreeStyler's functions instead of direct DMX channel control, you could later add more fixtures to your groups and they would be controlled by your MIDI messages without you having to change them.

Take this example: You have 16 fixtures on different DMX addresses, so to change color intensity, you'll have to use 16 MIDI events, controlling 16 DMX channels. Why not use FreeStyler's Group Select and then Color Channel (e. g. Red channel control)? There are only two MIDI events (you assign them exactly as MIDI2DMX in the MIDI controller section of FS Setup) and you can later add fixtures to your group.

Or if you control via cuelists and/or override buttons, you can trigger whole sequences / cues (sequence combinations) and exchange them for other function if you want to change the look in a particular scene.

You can always use MIDI2DMX as an addition.