How to create equalizer effect on RGB nodes

[GriswoldStyle]

I've seen several videos where people create an equalizer type of affect like an old stereo EQ with green yellow red going to the beats. Is there a simple way to create this effect? I'm still learning RGB nodes and have not ventured into any other software other than lor SE. Just wondering if there is a way to create something like this using the standard lightorama software or Superstar. I do have Superstar but I have never used it.

Is this an easy effect to create? Would love to create this across my 8 mini trees that are dumb rgb. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[caniac]

8 minutes ago, GriswoldStyle said:

I've seen several videos where people create an equalizer type of affect like an old stereo EQ with green yellow red going to the beats. Is there a simple way to create this effect? I'm still learning RGB nodes and have not ventured into any other software other than lor SE. Just wondering if there is a way to create something like this using the standard lightorama software or Superstar. I do have Superstar but I have never used it.

Is this an easy effect to create? Would love to create this across my 8 mini trees that are dumb rgb. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

could be time consuming depending on your musical ear.  xLights has an effect you could put on smart RGB's and then just set how you want to handle the peak.

[ItsMeBobO]

 

 

[GriswoldStyle]

40 minutes ago, ItsMeBobO said:

 

 

Is this only for smart pixels? I'm trying to figure out how to put it together and only use RGB channels for dumb nodes. Where can i find this program? seems a little complicated but maybe I might be able to play around with it. I'm still kind of Anubis to this as this is my first year with RGB.

[GriswoldStyle]

57 minutes ago, caniac said:

could be time consuming depending on your musical ear.  xLights has an effect you could put on smart RGB's and then just set how you want to handle the peak.

see that's my only downfall is I am just now venturing into dumb RGB and I'm not planning the smart pixels until next year. was just wondering if maybe there's a way to do a beat graph then I can divide it up by how intensified it was between yellow green and red on the dumb node trees. maybe just on a couple songs that have really distinct hard Beats. I know what I'm visioning in my head but just have no idea how to do it LOL.

[caniac]

3 hours ago, GriswoldStyle said:

see that's my only downfall is I am just now venturing into dumb RGB and I'm not planning the smart pixels until next year. was just wondering if maybe there's a way to do a beat graph then I can divide it up by how intensified it was between yellow green and red on the dumb node trees. maybe just on a couple songs that have really distinct hard Beats. I know what I'm visioning in my head but just have no idea how to do it LOL.

the one time I did it I went old school, 8 fire sticks next to each other with 7 sections of LED "sleeve's".  Looked pretty cool but a lot of work to do.

[Orville]

What you're describing to me couldn't be done with "dumb" pixels, you'd need smart pixels if I'm understanding you correctly, you want these dumb pixels to be green at the bottom beat, yellow for the middle/center beat and red for the top beat of the song. 

If you're wanting them to go from green only at the bottom, yellow only from the center, and then red for the top, you can't do it with dumb pixels as the entire strand is only three channels, 1 for red, 1 for green and 1 for blue to make up all the colors, but over the entire strand.

As far as my understanding: smart pixels are 3 independent channels, 1 for red, 1 for green and 1 for blue to make all the colors, where each bulb is independent in a smart pixel strand, but dumb pixels all bulbs are the same color at the same time., they still have 3 channels {or is that 1 channel with 3 colors, Red, Green and Blue?  This area always seems to confuse me a little bit.}, same as smart pixels, but each bulb can't be independently controlled, strand is all one color at the same time or none.  So dumb pixels are only 3 channels{1 channel?}, where a strand of 50 smart pixels is 150 channels, 50 channels each of red, green and blue. 

I'm almost certain you can not have different colors on any part of a dumb pixel strand, just a single color for each strand of dumb pixels, so your trees would be all green on the first beat, all yellow on the center beat and all red on the top beat.  If this is what you're going for, then yes, dumb pixels would work in that respect.  But you couldn't do a moving multi-color spectrum bar in segments with dumb pixels, just don't think they're capable of that.

Hope I'm explaining this properly to where it's understandable and hopefully correct.   If not, maybe one of the folks with experience with dumb pixels can clarify this much better, but from everything I've read this is how dumb pixels work. 

This is why I am going with the LOR CCD devices and smart pixels, more control of colors along the strand, so I can make sections of the strand  dark green, mint/light green, yellow and red, for example the first 5 pixels for dark green, then  the next 15 pixels would be a mint/lighter green, then the next 15 pixels would be yellow, then the last 15  pixels would be red.  And that would equal one strand of 50 smart pixels using the LOR CCB-100 controller and 2 strands of 50 smart pixels.  I could do two bars with this system at 50 pixels per bar, having 3-4 colors from the bottom to the top of the spectrum top bar.  

I really don't think you can accomplish this with dumb pixels.  If I'm in error, I'll stand corrected, but from my understanding of each type, this is what I believe to be how the dumb and smart pixels{have a little experience with smart pixels} work.

Edited July 15, 2018 by Orville

[ItsMeBobO]

Notice the colors of the SpEx icon are green/yellow/red like the old days but updated to do quad.   The EQ effect is not exclusive to smart strings.   You can do it with a single regular channel if you want.    Groups are good and colors better.   When you are working with regular channels or dumb RGB strips you(SpEx) will use INTENSITY to denote volume of the audio file.  All the types of lights we use support intensity so all can do an EQish effect of some type.    In SpEx you can set the color for RBG or if a regular channel set to Red and use the red channel in your sequence.    This video is old but the software is working and recently updated.    You don't have to speculate Orv... try it and see.

I have many sequences with EQ effect seen on regular AC channels and on dumb strips.  Sorry so many videos in this thread.   The second one shows the EQ effect on regular AC channels on little fountain props with only 4 channels each of plain light strings. 

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2018 by ItsMeBobO

[GriswoldStyle]

Awesome! Thanks so much. I have 8 mini trees each have 100 dumb nodes and running an entire cmb24 on those so each one is controlled individually.

The effect I'm going for would be the Green in the middle the yellow off to the sides and red for the maximum output of a Beat. I know it can be done this I've seen it done before and have mimicked it already but was looking for an easier way to do it I think this may help. I'll take a look at the software shortly. Thanks again

[bdwillie]

I used the VU wizard ( ithink that's what it's called) and ran it 8 times with 8 different percentages and got 8 tracks.  then it was just a matter of post 1 on for track 1 post 2 for 2  etc....  I have 8 poles with dumb rgb this year.  that's how I did it.  can't get more detailed as I am at work and sequencing computer is hope.  I do know that once I figured it out it was quite easy.

 

[k6ccc]

Yes, it is the VU Wizard.  I used it for my opening night opener a few years back.

 

[Orville]

On 7/15/2018 at 5:36 PM, ItsMeBobO said:

Notice the colors of the SpEx icon are green/yellow/red like the old days but updated to do quad.   The EQ effect is not exclusive to smart strings.   You can do it with a single regular channel if you want.    Groups are good and colors better.   When you are working with regular channels or dumb RGB strips you(SpEx) will use INTENSITY to denote volume of the audio file.  All the types of lights we use support intensity so all can do an EQish effect of some type.    In SpEx you can set the color for RBG or if a regular channel set to Red and use the red channel in your sequence.    This video is old but the software is working and recently updated.    You don't have to speculate Orv... try it and see.

I have many sequences with EQ effect seen on regular AC channels and on dumb strips.  Sorry so many videos in this thread.   The second one shows the EQ effect on regular AC channels on little fountain props with only 4 channels each of plain light strings. 

 

Don't have dumb strips to try, really not interested in dumb ones. 

I only have smart ones, so I can't try it on a dumb set, and that's why my opinion is what it is from reading things about, and on dumb pixel nodes.  And why I stated that is what I formulated my belief on, apparently it can be done, I really didn't think it would be possible. 

I stand corrected and learned something I didn't quite know for certain if this were even possible with dumb strips.

But sometimes reading this info on dumb pixels just doesn't give an accurate depiction of what can, or can't, be done with something unless you have some to play around with.  

I just prefer smart pixels, I'll leave the dumb pixels to the DIY folks.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Orville
change started to stated.