Q Light Controller+

Hi,

I'm an IT person stuck working on a lighting system for a moderately large building, and I'm hoping I can use QLC+ to make things work a little better. We use an old theatrical style lighting controller than can't be replaced since it is so old, and requires a lot of work to do any programming. My main question is about what kinds of triggering QLC+ can offer, as right now our system is a bit convoluted.

We have a show controller that manages when everything comes on and off, and handles how the lights behave between the 4-5 different settings that are used. I saw that QLC+ allows for audio triggering, would I be able to use this to start and stop different scenes from running at relatively random times? I have access to an audio player that could play tones for a few seconds to trigger each scene if this is possible. Alternatively the show controller can send simple strings over tcp, does QLC+ support simple network control?

I'm sorry if this is not the best way to go about this problem, as I am new to lighting I think I understand most of the basic concepts but could very easily be missing something. Is it even a good idea to use QLC+ as a lighting controller for a more architectural purpose (ie running for a long time without interruption)? Most of the posts I've seen here are people using it for theatrical or musical/dj applications.

Thanks to anyone who can help provide some direction!

I am by no means a QLC+ guru but let me try and start off with some general answers - there are a lot more knowledgeable and experienced users on this forum who will hopefully chip in to correct any errors I have made.

The main aim of QLC+ is as a production lighting desk for shows of various types (theatre, live music/DJ and pre-programmed shows). This does not mean it cannot be used in other ways, but it is good to keep this paradigm in mind.

QLC+ is a generator of DMX signals. So if you want to use it, the assumption is that your hardware (dimmers/switches/lights/fixtures) can consume and react to these signals and that you have a basic understanding of what DMX is and how it works. These signals can be sent over a variety of protocols. For example I have had success sending the signals over artnet to a Raspberry Pi with a DMX interface attached to control the fixtures.

Currently, as I understand it, the audio triggers are only available via the microphone on the PC where QLC+ runs. This puts it squarely in the performance arena - it listens to the sound in the room. I assume it can be altered (and it may be a configuration setting I have missed) to use the player output or line in, instead. The developers will be better positioned to answer that.

The audio triggers can then be set up to listen for a specific signal volume within a specific frequency range and turn certain functionality on and off. This is quite flexible, but there may be a limitation the number of things that can be turned on/off. Check out the audio trigger factory documentation to see what you can do.

The other issue is whether QLC+ operates well in a 24/7 environment. I assume, if you have a good linux box, with nothing else but QLC+ running in kiosk mode, it should work. There may however be reasons why QLC+ would do well with a periodic restart or even machine reboot.

Currently, QLC+ can take input from:

- keyboard & mouse
- audio input
- MIDI
- OSC which is UDP-based protocol
- DMX (i.e. various USB DMX devices)
- artnet (again, UDP-based protocol, DMX over ethernet)
- [OLA library](http://www.opendmx.net/index.php/Open_L ... chitecture) that supports additional protocols

Using any of these you can do most of things in QLC+ (start/stop functions, trigger next step of a chaser, adjust speed,...).

It seems to me that the easiest path would be if you could somehow output DMX from your controller to QLC+. You would define some few fake dimmer channels, and use them as controllers for much more complicated scenes in QLC+. (i.e. first channel on = run scene 1, first channel off = stop scene 1).

The second one I'd recommend if possible is MIDI.

As for stability, QLC+ has not been tested for 24/7 stability. The stability depends on the QLC+ code stability, then on the system, DMX device drivers, MIDI drivers, etc.
That means it depends on what components do you use. It may be more stable outputting artnet to a standalone artnet-to-dmx converter than using cheap enttec open dmx clone) (since it does not have to cope with serial line communication and exact timing).

I would not tell QLC+ is 100% stable, from time to time something happens (a bug or a crash), but most of time it runs fine. That means there's good chance it will work for you. Nnote that my experiences are based on a cheap unbuffered (i.e.PC does the timing) enntec open dmx clone, and I usually run my own version of QLC+ with my own untested changes

Little correction to Jano's notes: OLA is an output only plugin

As for my experience, there are quite a few ways to turn QLC+ into an automatic machine.
First of all, to confirm what has been said before, right now audio input is taken from the microphone input line. Obviously you can wire a short cable between the headphones jack and the microphone jack and use your audio player to send signals to QLC+.

Other (more reliable) methods to achieve this is to use MIDI signals. You can either use a MIDI sequencer (Cubase, Logic, Rosegarden, Ardour, Qtractor, etc) or even a command line script using very basic MIDI tools to send timed triggers when you desire.

As for the operating system, I too suggest Linux. You don't probably want your light machine to reboot cause it just installed a new (useless) Windows update...do you ?

Thanks everyone for the information, I think I will give it a shot and have ordered a eDMX4 TX which should be here in about a week. I'll probably try programming one universe (we currently use 4 and have about 2000 DMX channels in use) to start and let it run without connecting the DMX output to check for stability. I'll let you know how things go!