Optimal control over LED Bar

[Yuma]

Hi,

Being a (sound) mix-engineer, producer and drummer, I've started to get into QLC+ three days ago, and while at times inconvenient or simply frustrating, I am slowly beginning to understand it and see the huge amount of possibilities!

Before I ask my question, I'll give some insight in as how I have my project set up. My apologies in advance for the long post. Scroll down for the questions.

Setup
I am using QLC+ in conjunction with Ableton live. The light show consists of 6 moving heads and 4 LED pixel bars.This setup will be used live with a band, syncing up backing- and click-tracks for the band with a programmed light show. Here comes the (my) catch: This band plays 'math-metal', complex music with endless rhythm syncopes and tempo-changes. Me being their fill-in drummer and producer as well, I know all the accents and stuff that's going on and want to incorporate that in the light show.
So for me it's clear that I do not want to program the show itself in QLC+ (imagine converting BPMs with different time signatures to msec for chasers etc...nope.) I need a DAW-like grid that syncs neatly with the tempo-track (Ableton) so I can draw exact ques, next steps in chasers etc. Within QLC+, I want to create a pallet of usable scenes, chases and collections that I control from within Ableton. I have been able to do that for the moving heads and it works great. An important side-note: I have been able to send one MIDI-track in Ableton to QLC+ and bind a note to a button. This gives me (from -C2 to C8) 120 notes to trigger stuff. I've also managed to bind controller channels in Ableton to sliders in QLC+, giving me control over 109 sliders max. This explains why I want a section of movements, a section of colors, etc. so I can combine (trigger) different aspects (of the moving heads), rather than creating full scenes and binding every scene to a MIDI note. And I will need to create a lot more scenes than 144, given the epic long songs and rhythmic patterns.

Now the problems come with the LED pixel bars:

http://www.highlite.nl/silver.download/ ... _GB_V1.pdf

Pixel Problems
These four bars each consist of 12 RGB-LEDs. I have them set in 36-channel mode, which gives me the needed control over all the lights individually. My problems start here: I need a convenient way to control the (12x4=) 48 lights, especially since each light has three channels (RGB) giving me a whopping 144 channels to control.
I've set up different combinations of those lights via channel groups: one for all red channels, one for all blues, one for each bar, etc.
Now in the functions tab, I've created different scenes (bar 1 all LEDs white, bar 2 all LEDS white, etc.) so I can create some fun stuff with chases. I even created separated scenes for every light (every scene consist of the RGB channels of that light, turned all the way up, creating white) in order to create random flicker or snake chases. Second problem: how do I change the color of such a chase? The moving heads have a dedicated channel for that. A solution would be if it was possible to change channels (and therefore colors) in scenes while in Operate mode... (could that be a possible option for future versions? Having an extra button for scenes that enable 'realtime' control and have them continuously updated for chases etc? I'd imagine a lot of programming issues...haha)
The issue here is that I would like to maintain control over the color (via RGB sliders) and apply that color to a given chase.
The third problem I came across: I have a couple of different chases set up: one blueish static all-LEDs-on with some random flickering, and one with bright white LEDs following a pattern. These play very well together and there lies the beauty of these quirky boys: They're perfect to layer different chases with different colors. But: I'd like to control the color of each chase, so I can combine different chases and try different color-matches. Also then I'd be able to change a color during a chase, which is awesome!
The tricky part of all is this that I ultimately have to be able to control this with as little sliders/buttons as possible, since I only have so much channels to send from Ableton... so mapping each individual channel of those lights to a controller in Ableton would set me up with 144 controller-lanes in Ableton... I don't like that idea.
So, my questions are as follow:

Questions
1. Is there a convenient way to control these 48 lights / 144 channels of RGB slidery?
2. How can I create chases and scenes but keep control of the colors while in Operative mode? Much like the color slider of a moving head...
3. (Virtual Console) Is it possible to have a slider bound to a cue-list to control the overall intensity of the cues, but doesn't affect other scenes outside that cue-list?


PS: Since there was no fixture preset of Showtec's Pixel bar 12, I made one. Currently I only did the 36-channel mode, but once I finished the other modes I'd like to share it and have it implemented in future versions, if desired.
PPS: I'm thinking about documenting this in a extensive blog here, since I have been searching for over a week on how to make this setup possible and didn't find anything... Any interest for that?
PPPS: Could another future feature be to create 'ghost'-RGB-matrixes that don't require dmx-channels? I've played with the RGB-matrix function a bit (hooking up my four LED-bars creating a 48-grid matrix) and it's fun! However, the RGB-matrix needs to be bound to dmx-channels, so I lose all control except for what matrixes can do. If there was an option so create a RGB-matrix that instead of dmx-channels asked for existing LED-fixtures in your setup, so you then can use all the matrix-fun on top of having full control over all your lights!


Kind regards,
Yuma

[Yuma]

small update: I have totally overlooked the tutorial on RGB-matrixes... So I figured out you can create RGB-matrixes with existing lights! The other questions still remain though...

[plugz]

Hello,

(I haven't read your whole post, but I may have some answers)

1. Is there a convenient way to control these 48 lights / 144 channels of RGB slidery?
2. How can I create chases and scenes but keep control of the colors while in Operative mode? Much like the color slider of a moving head...
3. (Virtual Console) Is it possible to have a slider bound to a cue-list to control the overall intensity of the cues, but doesn't affect other scenes outside that cue-list?

1. I suppose this:

small update: I have totally overlooked the tutorial on RGB-matrixes... So I figured out you can create RGB-matrixes with existing lights! The other questions still remain though...

is the answer to the first question.

2. If you decide to control the lights with RGB Matrices, then you can create an Animation widget in the virtual console. This widget allows to control the color of RGB Matrices while running.

3. You can have a frame containing only your cuelist and a slider in Submaster mode.

[Yuma]

Hi Plugz,

Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately that doesn't solve my initial problem

Yes, controlling those lights with RGB-matrix is fun and I will incorporate some stuff in my show, but I need total control over these lights (since I'm programming rhythm-heavy synced stuff for this complex band). I'm creating my own chases and collections, which gives me exactly what I want,except for control over the color of that scene/chase/collection...

In short, are there other ways to control (the RGB-) channels of RGB-lights independent of the chase/collection/etc. they're in?

[bestdani]

I always use RGB-matrices in plain color mode for custom chasers instead of a scene, since they behave like a scene with RGB information in a chaser which means they can also be faded and stuff but you can set the color of them while the chaser is running, you can also do this using MIDI input, you can either predefine some colors or use a RGB input to change the color (unfortunately not hue, saturation / brightness directly - some quite big fiddle with RGB EFX and loopbacks would be required).

So you could add the following plain RGB matrices:
BAR1 Color1
BAR1 Color2

BAR2 Color1
BAR2 Color2
...

And place an animation widget for each "matrix" on the VC to control it's color.

And a chaser that calls for instance:
BAR1 Color1
BAR2 Color2
BAR1 Color2
BAR2 Color1

you can then manipulate the colors of each chaser step, this would theoretically also be possible for each pixel / segment of the bar, but I don't know how you want to operate that with just two hands

I'm not quite sure how this would behave when you create collections like:
BAR12 Color12:
BAR1 Color1
BAR2 Color2

BAR12 Color21
BAR1 Color2
BAR2 Color1

and use a chaser with:
BAR12 Color12
BAR12 Color21

[Yuma]

Hi bestdani,

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure what you mean with:

I always use RGB-matrices in plain color mode for custom chasers instead of a scene, ...

I've tried the matrix-setup you suggested, but it allowed only control over those four bars (horizontal)... So if i wanted control over vertical bars, i'd have to do the same for 12 LEDs.. so having 16 animation widgets to keep control over

The way i've set it up now: I have a cue-list with 4 chases: bar 1 lit, bar 2 lit,...,bar 4 lit. I have a submaster fader next to it so I can control the intensity. And because it's a cue-list, I can control the steps from within Ableton and create tightly synced chases on the spot. If only I could attach a color slider to a cue-list instead of having to select fixtures...because that also affects other LED-stuff that's running simultaneously.

Please keep the suggestions coming as i'm still chewing on this issue and every tip at least leads to better understanding QLC+!

[Yuma]

* sorry for the bump *

Anyone have any other idea/suggestion? I'm still stuck and this prevents me from actually starting to program the show itself...

[plugz]

I've tried the matrix-setup you suggested, but it allowed only control over those four bars (horizontal)... So if i wanted control over vertical bars, i'd have to do the same for 12 LEDs.. so having 16 animation widgets to keep control over

If you want all the leds to have the same color, the 16 widgets can be copied-and-pasted and controlled by the same input.

[bestdani]

I have a cue-list with 4 chases: bar 1 lit, bar 2 lit,...,bar 4 lit

You could then just replace "bar 1 lit" by a RGB-Matrix that only sets the color of the desired bar (and the rgb matrix can do much more fancy stuff then just set the color to full on if you want it to do so). I've quickly created an example workspace

bartest.qxw

(11.36 KiB) Downloaded 158 times

Is this kind of what you're looking for?

[Yuma]

Hi bestdani and plugz,

Thanks for your answers! I still haven't got a 100% what I want, but your suggestions helped me do it for 50% and I've decided that will do! Thanks again!