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Easier way to create a 1 bar VU Meter?


brichi

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so I have my windows wrapped in RGB and want the left and right to be VU meters with sound, I tried to make it myself last night in SE like you can see in the video on the top 2 windows but I feel it could look better if there was an effect that does this for you, XLights has one but its more for matrix screens with like 10 bars to create a full meter vs a green, yellow, red pulse to the beat

 

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Did you do that with the the VU Wizard - it does not look like you did. The VU Wizard does require a bit of manual work to setup and tweek the levels, but it does what you are trying to do quite well.


Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android

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Yes, it's called the VU Wizard.


Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android

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ok i found it but this doesn't do what i want, i want to see the bouncing LED volume bar as in effect on my RGB lights on the window.

this seems to only allow time placement for other effects, not act as an effect itself to do bouncing volume meters

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It's been five years since I used the VU Wizard, so I can't tell you any specifics without playing with it, but it did exactly what you are trying to do. After I eat breakfast, I'll go play with it if you don't get it figured out.


Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android

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thank you, if you don't mind that would be great, all it seems to do set timings at peak areas of the track instead of using the beat wizard or tap wizard

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7 minutes ago, brichi said:

thank you, if you don't mind that would be great, all it seems to do set timings at peak areas of the track instead of using the beat wizard or tap wizard

Follow this link and I think you will find what you are looking for in the SPEXv2 software

http://itsmebob.com/SD.html

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14 minutes ago, brichi said:

thank you, if you don't mind that would be great, all it seems to do set timings at peak areas of the track instead of using the beat wizard or tap wizard

I knew I was not losing my mind.  In the bottom section of the VU Wizard is the section that tells the wizard what do do with the peaks.  In the bottom third of that section is a checkbox to "Turn a channel on when above the threshold, and off when below:".  That's the secret.  Let's say for example you want a VU level meter with 10 bars.  Those are all RGB channels, and for the example, they are named "VU 01" through "VU 10".  Since they are RGB there will actually be 30 channels since each bar will have a Red, Green, and Blue channel.  Let's say you want bars 01 to 07 to be green, 08 and 09 to be yellow, and 10 to be red.  Further, let's say you want this bar graph to be active for the entire song.  Take a look at the first screen capture below.

VU_Wizard-1.png

  The red arrow points to the time selection for when the wizard should be active.  The green arrow is the volume level threshold.  The blue arrow selects the function to be to turn on a channel, and the gold arrow selects what channel to be controlled.  In the case of this capture, DMX 11 1 (G) is the green channel of the bottom pixel of the left string of my pixel tree.  Click Apply (but not the Apply and Exit button).  Then move the Peak Threshold slider up a little, select the green channel for the second bar, and apply again.  Repeat until you get the eighth bar.  Since this one will be yellow, you will set it up for the green channel and apply, and then change the channel to the red channel and apply again.  Same thing for the ninth bar.  For the tenth bar, you will select the red channel only, as shown in the second screen capture.

VU_Wizard-2.png

Then play it and see if you like the levels (you likely won't the first time).  You may find that you want to adjust the threshold levels some to get the look you really want.

 

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so you're literally having to run and save 1 pixel at a time? I tried doing it to one pro like my "window" prop consisting of 50 pixels but obviously all it did was blink the window on and off all together to the threshold i set

 

I tried messing with Spex2 but i can't figure that out for anything and i don't see any good tutorials on it, the guys video skip steps that i have watched, pretty confusing

 

thanks for all your help, maybe theres something I'm missing here, can't seem to get the look like i posted in my video above

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26 minutes ago, brichi said:

so you're literally having to run and save 1 pixel at a time? I tried doing it to one pro like my "window" prop consisting of 50 pixels but obviously all it did was blink the window on and off all together to the threshold i set

 

I tried messing with Spex2 but i can't figure that out for anything and i don't see any good tutorials on it, the guys video skip steps that i have watched, pretty confusing

 

thanks for all your help, maybe theres something I'm missing here, can't seem to get the look like i posted in my video above

You could try sending Bob (itsmebob) a personal message. I watched all of the tutorials a few days ago and it does look very nice.

Best of luck

JR

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Yes, it's one pixel at a time.  The one time I used it, I was doing it on my 12 x 50 pixel tree.  I did it as 25 bars on the leftmost string of the tree.  I then copied the left string and pasted it to the next string over 100mSec later, and repeated that for the remaining strings.  It looked pretty good on the tree.  I just dug out that sequence and did a screen capture of it.  The screen capture did not come out right, but you should get the idea.  Note that the audio and video are a good second or more out of sync...

 

 

 

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looks great, thanks

 

the spex one is com coming along, learning it little by little. i think its quicker for me to just draw out the 1 string VU then use the VU wizard in LOR pixel by pixel

 

 

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What do you want to know about SpEx?   It will make a VU effect for you that is spot on the music with as many bars as you need.   

 

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thank you bob, been watching the tutorial as I type this, trying to make the single strand ccr with 20 pixels to bounce up and down to the beat of a track like in my video on the first post above

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22 minutes ago, brichi said:

thank you bob, been watching the tutorial as I type this, trying to make the single strand ccr with 20 pixels to bounce up and down to the beat of a track like in my video on the first post above

The tutorial from k6ccc is correct and exactly how I did it many times.    This method is on overall volume.  The video shows all arches making the same movement so yes you can use the VU meter method if that is what you want.   Using SpEx would give you each arch with a different set of notes and they would bounce to the volume in the assigned frequency range. 

Edited by ItsMeBobO
silly me
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I'm not looking to do the arches, I want to do a sing strand, vertical, green to yellow to red like an audio mixer indicator. I did one on my windows manually in SE but it was obviously a pain. I cannot figure out in your tutorials how to get that same finish that I want do have them bounce just to the beat

Edited by brichi
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7 minutes ago, ItsMeBobO said:

The tutorial from KC666 is correct and exactly how I did it many times.    This method is on overall volume.

Thank you Bob (other than getting my ID wrong :) ).  Note that although it sounds like a lot of steps, because you don't have to close the Wizard and start over for each level, it goes pretty fast.  I'm quite certain that I could have done the 10 bar graph that I described a few hours ago in less time than it took to type up the procedure (and I type pretty fast).

If you really can't figure it out, PM me a phone number and when to call and I'll help you with it.

 

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