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Deluge and Lightshows

3
SamuelSamuel Rotterdam, NetherlandsPosts: 35

So the Deluge is a pretty little light show in a box, but I was wondering what kind of options you could have for controlling lights and/or video using the Deluge.

Personally I think the easiest way to sync a lightshow to the Deluge is by sending MIDI out of the Deluge and using that to control a DMX signal or VJ software. There are plenty of small products which could convert these two and plenty of "hack"options here too. I don't know whether it is possible to plug the Deluge into a PC running Resolume and have it sync over USB. Reading MIDI data with an Arduino would make it possible to control LED strips directly.

I was also wondering whether it is possible to have tracks playing on the Deluge also send MIDI out at the same time, so you can simply play a set, focus on the sound and mix, but at the same time have your stage lights react to the notes being played.

So I'm just thinking out loud here, but I would love to use the Deluge to control some stage lights once I have a nice little set ready. I would also love to hear thoughts from the community on this. Would linking the Deluge to stage lights or VJ software be something you are interested in?

Comments

  • 0
    MatthewGeorgeMatthewGeorge Cologne, GermanyBeta Tester Posts: 247

    Haven’t tried it yet but I don’t see how it would be diffferent to using other outboard midi devices.

  • 1

    I'm doing the following right now:

    Hardware: 3x Cameo Hydrabeam 100 Moving Head, several RGBW LED spots

    The Deluge is my sequencer brain and I maintain a single track with lighting instructions. I route the Deluge MIDI out into a Raspberry PI via a cheap USB MIDI interface. There I run a Pure Data patch which reacts on notes on channel 15. In the patch I created different scenes which are triggered by the notes. The range of the scenes are from simple things like a simple short flashes (for 4/4 beat pumping effects) to more complex ones like movements of the moving heads in combination with strobe. The DMX control is done via an OLA (open lighting appliance) instance on the same device which is listening for OSC which the Pure Data patch is sending. The DMX is output via a USB RS-485 device. (Obviously this is not very safe for operation in larger environments but for learning things it's fine)

    Of course doing all these things in C on the Arduino would be super cool, slim and fast but I try to focus on the creative outcome so doing things in Pure Data is a good deal for me. However I want to make things less hacky in the future. I might try a DMX shield for the PI or a different interface. I also don't like the fact that there's the whole OLA thing needed.

    I'm also thinking about taking the actual played notes for other instruments into account to automatically react to things like the overall pitch (dark or bright) or the presence of a bass line. However I actually don't do drum sequencing on the Deluge (It's done on the Rytm which doesn't output notes) so there's no chance to get rid of the dedicated lighting track with my current setup.

    I also thought about adding more intelligence to the Pure Data patch to create some kind of "auto" mode. But my decision was that this level of complexity is not worth it. However the whole thing could leverage the power of the sequencer itself (trigger conditions, polyrhythmic) to get more life and variation.

    That's it so far.

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