LOR 2 and MIDI

[gizmomkr]

Im very new to LOR, and still learning the software, but wanted to throw this out there.

It appears as if the MIDI wizzard will take "midi notes" and let me transpose those to chanels of onn and off according to the midi - and thats about it.

At the moment my light display (hardware and software) is based around midi rather than LOR / DMX /RS 48x

Ironically, I come from a theatre background with a lot of experience with DMX. I chose to build my rig out of MIDI based controlers because the programing is much more natural.

It seems to me one area the LOR software lacks is the ability to do a "live" type recording. the idea would be something like this - insert your audio track, map your chanels to keys on a keyboard, and hit "go" as the music plays, you press the keys to activate chanels - it is rela time in a sense, that as long as you have the key pressed, thats how long the channel stays on. This would all be recorded in real time, and then adjustments could be made later to shift and adjust timings or mistakes.

This is basically how I run my rig - I have multi track audio software. I start by inserting the music, then connecting a piano keyboard to the pc for "show recording" each key on the piano makes a midi note. These notes are decoded by a midi controler (http://highlyliquid.com/kits/msa-r/) and the relays activate the various chanels of lights. Everything is recorded in real time, and when done, I can easily go back to a track and add / remove / shift "midi notes" to fix mistakes or clean it up. I tend to work on a small group of lights at a time, and then record several layers of midi to get the final effect.

I know its probably not ideal for larger chanel setups, but it works really well for what I have, and probably the best part is - My wife (and child when he is old enough) can sit and literally just "bang on keys" on the piano, and help to record the show. Its a really fun , easy way to get an immediate look and feel when recording a show. It makes programing a show as easy as playing on the piano keyboard.

Of course another down side is very fast sequences are harder to do, and my midi controllers are relay based, so no fades, no effects - just on or off.

Im not trying to talk anyone out of LOR - I think its a great product, but I would love to see further integration of MIDI into the product, & / or some type of real time record in the software.

Again im sorry if those features are already in the product, I may not have doscovered them yet.

[Jim Holley]

You can "play live" inside of your DAW (midi sequencer) . Load or build a midi sequence that you want to use in LOR into your DAW (the musical part). Add another midi track which will represent the lighting channels and record the midi notes while the "music" tracks are playing. Do your clean up editing inside your midi editor and then export your midi track as a standard midi file. This file can then be loaded into LOR/Midi Wizard. Select the instruments and notes that represent your lighting channels to "record" the lighting channels in LOR. Most computer sound cards do a pretty fair job of playback of midi. This will mean that you have to have a computer with a sound card running the show. I use several midi musical sequences in my shows and I think (my opinion) that they are some of the best sounding and best looking that I've produced.

There several excellent general midi files available on the Web of Manheim Steamroller arrangements. I prefer some of these midi versions over the audio versions.