Sequencing effects to tracks ahead of time would allow for better effects, but since you never know what the playlist will be, live beat detection is really required. Also, the karaoke sound system will not easily be directly connected to a computer, so cheap microphone beat detection will be easiest if possible. I understand the compromises for live mic beat detection, but if QLC+ can somehow get beat data that is as good as what's built in to a sound-reactive fixture, it will be good enough for my purposes.
I'm super new to all this stuff so I would appreciate it if someone would check my head here. As far as I can tell, these are the options for getting beats into QLC+. (Oh by the way, I'll be using Windows but I guess some of these options are platform-agnostic, so I posted in the General forum.)
- Use QLC+ version 4 "audio triggers" -- looks like a simple volume threshold, right? (https://www.qlcplus.org/docs/html_en_EN ... ggers.html)
- Use QLC+ version 5 which has beat detection (but I don't yet know if beat detection is in the current version.)
- Generate a beat signal with some other software, and send it to QLC+ via OSC (for example https://github.com/scheb/sound-to-light-osc)
- Buy Lightjams and forget QLC+ for this purpose (last choice, of course)