Piano

[Guy Dreger]

Hi All.


Is there a way to hook up the tapper screen to a usb-piano keyboard and hook a channel to each key on the keyboard?


That way I could play along with the song in a much more natural way.




Thanks.

[Richard R]

Sorry I can't help you but I just wanted to say What a great idea that is :cool:

[Ken Benedict]

I submitted a wishlist suggestion a couple of years ago to rework the MIDI interface for that type of connection; plug a keyboard into LOR and have it record the keys as seperate lighting channels.

I guess it wasn't as impoprtant as the other items. Shucks.

[shakeonit]

I had a friend come over, and before he came in he watched the lights for a song or two: http://vimeo.com/35255438

When he came in, he said, "Wow, your lights look like a piano out there actually playing the music, did you know that?" I said, "Well of course." He said, "how did you know to do that?" (as he stood next to my baby grand). I replied, "Because I play the piano..."

It was an a-hah moment, funny stuff.

[jerrymac]

Not yet with LOR but you can with Light Show Pro.

[Ken Benedict]

My 32 key piano:

[redsea300]

My 2010 display I turned the Lawn lights into a Piano Keyboard, I have a new surprise for 2012.
http://dfsea66.smugmug.com/Other/Lights-On-Minorca/18981815_Tn4T9d#!i=1474201357&k=q4JXQcv&lb=1&s=A

[jerrymac]

looks great. What is the song you did like "good vibrations", , I would like to find the audio.

[George Simmons]

jerrymac wrote:

looks great. What is the song you did like "good vibrations", , I would like to find the audio.

It's called "Decorations" by Bob Rivers.

http://www.bobrivers.com/#v8397c6i31

[gizmomkr]

Funny,
My first home made solution used midi triggered relays. The hardware mas mostly home made, with some http://highlyliquid.com/midi-decoders/msa-r/ but the reed relays couldnt handel the load, so I had to make another bak of relays triggered by the smaller relay. 8 channels cost me as much as a 16 channel PC kit, and took 2 or 3 times as long to build.
Bragraming was a snap. just plug in a midi keyboard, load some multi track recording software, and hit go. play along on the keyboard and wala.
for playback the midi channels would trigger the relays and the way channel would go to the fm transmitter / speakers.
It worked great, but the system was a huge pain to scale .
So I moved to LOR.

But for 2 years I have chatted up anyone I THINK might listen that mapping keys from a keyboard (midi or regular) would REALLY HELP the tapper wizzard. A real time sort of record from pressing the keys. I sent a feature request, even tried to pitch it to Dan when I met him at the expo - but ethier LOR doesnt underatand or doesnt care.

I just think one day soon, as pixels continue to replace strings, channel counts will skyrocket and people will demand a batter way to sequence.

Coming from a lighting background, I have always said a series of timings, like a mega tree spinning for example; This should be laid out 1 time as an object, the user should then have modifiers like color, and speed of the spin - but it should be treated as an object, not a block of thousands of squares across a timeline.

A maving head fixture on any dmx console gets programmed in a similar way. you would go crazy trying to send x,y movements over a timeline. Instead the console has you mark a start point, and an end point, and set other variables like color, gobo, intensity. It all gets recorded into an Effect, and the effect can be copied and modified as needed.

I had 4 controllers, and added 1 string of pixel LED's this year. I barely did anything with the pixels because programming takes to long.

I still like LOR, I just hope S3 catches up with better ways to sequence higher channel counts. I know the BIG PUSH is superstar, but to me, thats really a band-aid.

Just my .02

[NINtender]

It shouldn't be too hard to build a simple application that would take a midi file and map it to channels in an lms file. Is there a big demand for this?

[Box on Rails]

NINtender wrote:

It shouldn't be too hard to build a simple application that would take a midi file and map it to channels in an lms file. Is there a big demand for this?

The Midi wizard already does this one midi channel at a time. The problem I have with the Midi wizard is it takes every note in a Midi file channel and assigns it to one LOR channel. My wish list for the Midi wizard is to be able to have one channel from Midi trigger only one channel in S3 sequencer program. That way I can assign each instrument (up to 16 in General midi) to one light channel. Since General Midi only has 16 channels this would help from assigning the first controller for basic sequence and then I can expand to additional controllers easily over time with more detailed sequences without hours and hours of re-sequencing.

Midi is awesome when you get to know how it works and it is dead on when it comes to the timing of the sequence. to those at LOR please consider adding more features for the midi wizard. I would be available to test any changes to the Midi Wizard and give feedback.

regards
Kenny

[gizmomkr]

Box,

I dont follow - why do you want a midi channel to corespond to a LOR chanel.
a single MIDI note would be the closest equivelant to a channel of lights.
An entire midi channel would be more like "a network" or "a dmx universe"

networks / universes contain channels witch are the smallest element, so it makes sense to me that one midi note represents one midi channel.... further exhibited by tapping a key on a keyboard to tunrn on / off a light.

Maybe I just dont follow how you want the programming to go...

Whatever the case, The midi wizzard (unless something changed) when I looked only used midi files. The tapper wizzard is the only thing I know in lor that takes any sort of signal REAL TIME to potnetially mark a channel.

If tapper wizzard would take input from a MIDI keyboard, that would be ideal IMHO. Its the "play along in real time" part I tihnk is most valuable.

MIDI keyboard is better than a USB keyboard because usb keyboard is only on/off. A midi keyboard can send intensity depending on how hard the key is pressed ( I think)

[Box on Rails]

gizmomkr wrote:

Box,

I dont follow - why do you want a midi channel to corespond to a LOR chanel.
a single MIDI note would be the closest equivelant to a channel of lights.
An entire midi channel would be more like "a network" or "a dmx universe"

networks / universes contain channels witch are the smallest element, so it makes sense to me that one midi note represents one midi channel.... further exhibited by tapping a key on a keyboard to tunrn on / off a light.

Maybe I just dont follow how you want the programming to go...

Whatever the case, The midi wizzard (unless something changed) when I looked only used midi files. The tapper wizzard is the only thing I know in lor that takes any sort of signal REAL TIME to potnetially mark a channel.

If tapper wizzard would take input from a MIDI keyboard, that would be ideal IMHO. Its the "play along in real time" part I tihnk is most valuable.

MIDI keyboard is better than a USB keyboard because usb keyboard is only on/off. A midi keyboard can send intensity depending on how hard the key is pressed ( I think)

I'll try to explain as I was Responding to NINtender quote about Midi file mapping. But as I sit here writing this I just figured out that what I asked for is already there. I only have 36 channels in my LOR display as of now when I use the Midi wizard, one midi channel was using up to 23 channels in S3. that filled up all my display channels quick. what I wanted to do was have each light channel correspond to each instrument in the song. example channel 1 on the midi was the guitar. I want channel 1 on the S3 program to turn on and off only when the guitar is played. channel 2 midi is the bass and I want channel 2 in S3 to turn on and off when the bass plays and so on with all 16 midi channels. once I have the basic midi in to the S3 then I can subdivide the channels for a more defined show. fast forward to now and I just got done playing with the program and I was able to do this by mapping every note in a single midi channel to one controller channel number.

As for the keyboard interface, oh yes I want that feature very much. but for now until this feature is added I use another method that takes a little time but works. in my recording studio I use a PC program call Cakewalk Sonar to sink audio with Midi. I open the Sonar program and make Channel 1 an audio file and import the MP3 that I want to use in my display. then I assign channel 2 as a midi channel and arm it to record. Then I hit record and use my keyboard to make a midi channel in real time to use in S3. Then I use the midi portion of the Sonar file and create a general midi file and load that into S3 and use the Midi wizard to create the light show. Once I have all S3 channels set up then I reload the audio file and thats it. perfect sink. It sounds like a lot of confusing work and not worth the effort but for me it takes less time then using the tap wizzard and with more flexibility. Until LOR adds a better real time interface we are left to our own devices. this one works for me.

[gizmomkr]

I follow exactly, and totally agree - I have done the exact same thing with midi multi track recording.

I really hope one day soon LOR does SOMETHING better for real time sequencing.

My wife says "dear god thats a mess, how the !$%% does that amkes lights dance?" when she looks at a sequence in S3. Our 2 1/2 yr old can sequence with a MIDI Keyboard.

[Guy Dreger]

And yet still no sign of life from LOR on this topic.

[TonyD]

gizmomkr wrote:

I'll try to explain as I was Responding to NINtender quote about Midi file mapping. But as I sit here writing this I just figured out that what I asked for is already there. I only have 36 channels in my LOR display as of now when I use the Midi wizard, one midi channel was using up to 23 channels in S3. that filled up all my display channels quick. what I wanted to do was have each light channel correspond to each instrument in the song. example channel 1 on the midi was the guitar. I want channel 1 on the S3 program to turn on and off only when the guitar is played. channel 2 midi is the bass and I want channel 2 in S3 to turn on and off when the bass plays and so on with all 16 midi channels. once I have the basic midi in to the S3 then I can subdivide the channels for a more defined show. fast forward to now and I just got done playing with the program and I was able to do this by mapping every note in a single midi channel to one controller channel number.

As for the keyboard interface, oh yes I want that feature very much. but for now until this feature is added I use another method that takes a little time but works. in my recording studio I use a PC program call Cakewalk Sonar to sink audio with Midi. I open the Sonar program and make Channel 1 an audio file and import the MP3 that I want to use in my display. then I assign channel 2 as a midi channel and arm it to record. Then I hit record and use my keyboard to make a midi channel in real time to use in S3. Then I use the midi portion of the Sonar file and create a general midi file and load that into S3 and use the Midi wizard to create the light show. Once I have all S3 channels set up then I reload the audio file and thats it. perfect sink. It sounds like a lot of confusing work and not worth the effort but for me it takes less time then using the tap wizzard and with more flexibility. Until LOR adds a better real time interface we are left to our own devices. this one works for me.

 

I was trying to find a program that would convert an mp3/wav file to midi format but pretty much came up empty. Is that what Cakewalk Sonar does? That would be pretty cool. To be honest i'm not that familiar with midi or audio processing in general but i would think the music file could be scanned and the distinct voices/instruments could be picked out and assigned.

[indi]

TonyD

I use a progress called Power Tracks to do recordings. It's light a mixing board setup with different tracks. My wife plays a keyboard on one track and the rest of us record on the other tracks. This creates a sequence. After you get done with the fine tuning, the whole sequence can be turned into a wave file, or an mp3 file. To create a CD, the sequence has to be converted. It's a round about way of doing it, but it works. 

 

Don't know if this helps or not.

[indi]

Sorry for the type-O's. It program and like and mixing board. 

[TonyD]

TonyD

I use a progress called Power Tracks to do recordings. It's light a mixing board setup with different tracks. My wife plays a keyboard on one track and the rest of us record on the other tracks. This creates a sequence. After you get done with the fine tuning, the whole sequence can be turned into a wave file, or an mp3 file. To create a CD, the sequence has to be converted. It's a round about way of doing it, but it works. 

 

Don't know if this helps or not.

 

I think i am looking for something the other way around. Take a "commercial" song and create a midi file out of it. Then use the LOR wizard for midi files to sequence channels. The midi wizard has a lot of features to "assign" an instrument to a particular channel.