Help? Unexpected show with big lighting rig

gpeddino

Hey all, maybe someone can give me an idea of how to proceed.

Some info: I created a movie + live music show and we have performed it only once in a small cinema. We use two MacBooks, one on stage (with Ableton for all the audio, click, cues, etc) and one in the projection room (with Isadora and the movie itself, subtitles, etc). The whole thing is connected via timecode over audio.

But apart from all that, I also used an instance of Isadora on the stage MacBook to control the stage lights. It was very simple, just MIDI info from Ableton to Isadora dealing with a main dimmer and some color changes. Then this was sent to my DMX Enttec PRO and straight into the eight PAR Leds by the stage sides. It all worked smoothly.

But here's the thing: we got an unexpected call to do the show in a big theater, about a month from now. They have loads of lights (7 DMX universes) and an ETC EOS Gio. And now I'm not really sure how to rework my system into this new setting. The light controls now have to be on the OTHER MacBook because of the distance, but that one will not be running Ableton to send the MIDI (and even if it was, it would not sync up with the timecode)

Any ideas? I'm looking into other stuff I don't really know about like MIDI Show Control.

eamon

@gpeddino

It seems that you might need to change the methodology of how you interact with the lighting rig and Isadora would control this new set up.

I would split this into two tasks.

Task 1

- I would use the house system and desk to program up the various needs and looks for your show. It will be infinitely simpler using the EOS and a decent inhouse operator. Isadora as the main controller of lighting might not be the strongest method.

This way, you do not have to spend most of your day forcing isadora into a semi complicated lighting set up.

Task 2

Once you have programmed your various looks and cues, you now need a way to control this information.

OSC, Open Show Control, is your new best friend. I do not wish to patronise if you already know this protocol

OSC is a network based inter machine protocol that is perfect for controlling other items. Isadora and EOS will speak this language natively.

On your mac on stage, you would need to program some OSC transmit actors which would then in turn trwould be used to trigger the various lighting states on the eos console. As said, this is a normal enough practice in the eos/isadora world.

I do not know your knowledge base with networking.

A simple plan would be to put a network switch at the mac on stage and then run a network cable to the eos console. Depending on their set up, they are probably already running a network based setup. With 7 universes, they should be doing so.

I can explain more of the networking thing if you wish to proceed down that road.

There is an eos/isadora actor on the addons page rhat is worth a look.

You should watch the guru session on OSC on the troikatronix youtube channel. Use the Brave browser to bypass ad fun.

This is how I would look to trigger computers a distance away. I have never used midi and know very little about it. I am a lampie at heart.

OSC is a network protocol and once set up is very robust.

Have a chat to the lighting guys in the venue you are touring into as this is probably second hand language to them. Whilst they may/may not know Isadora, they most definitely have done this process with Qlab etc.

The "reprogamming" should not be that complicated in the above methodology. Let eos do all the lighting cues and then use Isadora to control said cues. You would then have the strengths of both worlds.

Hope this helps

Eamon

Woland

@gpeddino

These might help:

eamon

@woland

Edit, beaten to it!

dbini

@gpeddino

in the past, I've got the house tech to programme some lighting states into the desk (GrandMA) and load each of these states onto submasters.
then it is easy to send DMX from Izzy through an Enttec to control these subs.

mark_m

@eamon said:

There is an eos/isadora actor on the addons page rhat is worth a look.

Hi Eamon,

I just tried to find this, but couldn't. Please can you share the link? Or give me more clues for my search?

Many thanks!

Mark (not him)