Unique MIDI Question

Sounds like you have hardware that would work... but just not enough of it.  You can't do MIDI Thru on SmartFade; the ports are strictly an in and an out.  So you would need an additional MIDI interface, or you need to chain together other devices that have a Thru port.

I've used MIDI control from a laptop with SmartFade myself, and it's pretty straightforward once we actually figured it all out.  We use a TASCAM USB-MIDI interface and Cubase software to send the MIDI track to our SmartFade.  We use the Program Change commands to run the stack.

Keep in mind with your "unique lighting stacks for each song" comment that you really only ever have one stack on the SmartFade, up to 199 steps IIRC.  The MIDI playback commands allow you to select a step to jump to (however only whole-numbered steps, not point-Q's), so you could have each song be in a different "range" of the stack, as long as they all fit.

Hope that helps!

I'm not sure that I can offer a lot of help, I have an Ion not a Smartfade, but I wanted to encourage you to keep working at it.

I have a desktop in the control booth running SFX which sends midi controls much like DP does and after a couple of hours of hacking away at it (the SFX manual is pretty underwhelming) I finally got it connected to my Ion console. With the Ion I set up the light cues for a play and in SFX I could add instructions to run those cues as well as the audio cues. So the entire show could be run with one button. I even programmed my fancy USB remote so that it could initiate the next cue in the software and I could run the show backwards and forwards from anywhere in the facility.

I started out working on this because I had an explosion and I wanted the lights and sound to fire at the exact same time but I ended up with single button total show control.

Just took out the rig over the weekend, and I discovered that the console is not the Smartfade ML . . . it is the Smartfade 1248 . . . does the same Midi configuration work with this console?

Also, can this board control DMX Scanners? 

Thanks!

Yes, the MIDI configuration should be the same, but some commands may be different.  I've only used MIDI on a 1248, actually.

Sure, you can control DMX Scanners -- it's just not as easy as with the SFML.  You'll just use one channel for pan, one for tilt, etc.  Programming can be a bit confusing due to the HTP nature of the console, but as long as you understand that, it's not too hard to get by.

Are there any tutorials or videos on how to configure & program shows for Midi control on the Smartfade?

Also since I am a Nube, when controling a pair of scanners and say . . . 6 LED Par Washes, would each fader on the board control a specific parameter of each light . . . effectively leaving me with only 48 channels of DMX to use?  For instance Scanner (1) would take up fader channels 1-5, #2 would take up fader channels 6-10, then the rest of the LED fixtures would take up fader channels 11 & 12 (Intensity & color), 13 & 14, 15 & 16, 16 & 17, 18 & 19, 20 & 21?  This would technically leave 27 open DMX channels available for other fixtures since there are (technically) 48 channels to use on the board?

If I am walking down the wrong path, please let me know!

larzdj323 said:

Are there any tutorials or videos on how to configure & program shows for Midi control on the Smartfade?

I'm afraid not, as MIDI control is highly dependant on exactly which device you're going to use to send the MIDI commands - they're all different, and most people have one or two MIDI devices they really love.

However, SmartFade outputs the same MIDI it listens to, so the easiest way to do it is to run it 'backwards' to start with:

• Set the SmartFade to output the kind of MIDI you want (MSC, General MIDI or both)
• Connect the SmartFade MIIDI Out to the controller's MIDI In.
• Set the controller to 'record' the MIDI input to a track/snippet or whatever.
• Manually run the section of the show on the SmartFade
• Stop recording.

Repeat for each 'section' of the show you want a MIDI track for.

Then turn swap the cables and settings so that the controller is outputting MIDI and the SmartFade is receiving, and play back the snippets you recorded.

You may want to tweak each snippet to get the timings exactly right, but the commands you need to adjust should be pretty clear by that stage.

larzdj323 said:

Also since I am a Nube, when controling a pair of scanners and say . . . 6 LED Par Washes, would each fader on the board control a specific parameter of each light . . . effectively leaving me with only 48 channels of DMX to use?

Yes, that's exactly right.

larzdj323 said:

For instance Scanner (1) would take up fader channels 1-5, #2 would take up fader channels 6-10, then the rest of the LED fixtures would take up fader channels 11 & 12 (Intensity & color), 13 & 14, 15 & 16, 16 & 17, 18 & 19, 20 & 21?

Assuming your scanners take 5 DMX channels, the first half of your statement is accurate.  I'm not so sure about the part about the LED fixtures... I'm assuming these are RGB fixtures?  Most of these take either 3 or 4 channels (one each for red, green, & blue, and sometimes a fourth for overall intensity).  So this would make your math a bit off :-).

scottsmith said:

I have a desktop in the control booth running SFX which sends midi controls much like DP does and after a couple of hours of hacking away at it (the SFX manual is pretty underwhelming) I finally got it connected to my Ion console. With the Ion I set up the light cues for a play and in SFX I could add instructions to run those cues as well as the audio cues. So the entire show could be run with one button. I even programmed my fancy USB remote so that it could initiate the next cue in the software and I could run the show backwards and forwards from anywhere in the facility.

I started out working on this because I had an explosion and I wanted the lights and sound to fire at the exact same time but I ended up with single button total show control.

We recently set up a desktop with SFX 6 and have connected the MIDI Out on it (from an M-Audio Delta 1010LT card) to the MIDI In on our Ion. So far, we haven't had any luck getting them to talk so that an MSC command from SFX will run a cue on the Ion. Would you expand on how you got it to work? Thanks in advance.

Well, It's been a few months so I don't remember all of the details but it sounds like you are on the right track.

On the Ion, I set up the MIDI using the manual. I don't remember the steps but I didn't do anything special so you should be able to figure that one.

As far as SFX goes, you have to set up a MIDI Patch first (File>Production Properties>MIDI Patch) and you need to use the Midi Show Control Effect not one of the other MIDI effects but it seems like you may have that. Here is a screen shot of the settings from one of my MSC Effects, maybe it will illuminate the process a bit. If you still have trouble let me know where you are and I'll try to help.