My job just became so easy I'm going to have to find a new game for my phone to pass the time. And I should have said "their click tracks" instead of "they're click tracks". Been out of school for too long. Thanks again for sharing this and not being a snob who thinks they have to hide they're secrets to stay in business. Cheers
Nick, Thanks for your video. I am running the latest version of showxpress and Ableton Live 8. I think I did everything you told me to do and I still can't get Ableton to control the scenes. Is there a setting in showxpress or something?
Ryan Record I finally figured it out. There is a setting menu on the control board app at the top right. You have to go in there and make sure your midi settings are on and routed to the right signal. Thanks
I just figured it out. I went to the control board and right-click on the page to get to the settings. In the settings there is a DM X midi patch setting. You have to click on the midi input button. Then check the box that says enable midi input. Then select your midi device which would be the device you just created in the IAC midi settings on your Mac. Finally press the add button in that same window and everything will work.
Thank you so much! I've been considering upgrading my light desk to a software solution, but I've been stuck on whether to go w mydmx2.0 or showxpress and u made the decision easy! I've been using ableton since version 5 and the fact that showxpress works so fluently with ableton makes it an easy decision. Couple that with the fact that my most recent client uses ableton for they're click tracks and samples and its almost too good to be true.
This was a great tutorial. I have everything working for the most part, but after triggering a light scene in Ableton, if I don't toggle over to the Live window every few seconds, ShowXpress 'forgets' to pick up the commands, and it's like it times out. Any suggestions? I have the USB-DMX converter plugged directly in to my Macbook. Thanks!
Matt! Thanks for the comment. Yeah, since updating to Mavericks, I had the same issue, but I found a solution. You need to turn OFF nap mode for ShowXpress (and probably Ableton, as well while you're at it). Do this by right clicking on the application in the Apps folder, click Get Info, then check the box "Prevent App Nap". I hope this helps!
Hey man great video idk if I made this question here of somewhere else but I still looking for a solution, so we are sending midi notes from ableton to showxpress the thing is after music is done we want to control the lights with our iPad as before but since we activate midi the iPad isn’t working anymore.... do you know if can be both? Thanks
Great video however i use ableton live and windows seven. Ive been searching but havent found a good way to get ableton midi to show express. I can use controllers to control but i have no way of saving these custom control shows.
Yeah, Windows has a different method for creating a virtual midi port. Check out www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html. LoopBe1 is a free windows-based solution that should get you up and running!
Any chance theres a way to do this with a Windows PC? I'm currently trying to use LoopMIDI to have Ableton and XS talk each other since WIndows doesn't have a MIDI/AUDIO driver installed by default and I can't seem to get it to work.
Andrew Portelli Thanks for the comment! This is a great question. As of NOW, we DON'T warp our back-tracks. Instead, we set each scene's name to the BPM, and that automatically changes the tempo while playing live. We've considered warping, but in all honesty, I'm MORE worried about having a super ROUGH tempo transition since anything that could go wrong WILL when you put me in charge of it. haha. It WOULD be super fun to flow our set like a DJ set and adjust a couple tracks to be the same BPM... but i'm scared. haha.
Doesn’t Showxpress only work with its designated interfaces, also could you not just assign and automate intensity and use the draw tool in envelope mode over the top of the waveform, that way you can see the waveform and then could just have a constant red or blue light running through the whole track and only have to midi map the intensity to control on off blend ect rather than placing each individual note? I believe all this can be done without Showxpress and just Ableton and a M4L device meaning you could get away with spending around £100 say for an multi universe ENTTEC Midi- DMX Interface.
Thanks for the video dude. I currently run our show to show xpress live mode to an apc midi board to trigger the start of the lights for each song. The band is switching to ableton. Can I do this in ableton 10 lite? Or would I need suite etc? We are a cover band do about 45 songs a night. Ton of programming to do! Thanks man
How would you do this with windows, since it has no built in midi port? Would you use a program like loopMidi? Thats what im trying and it doesnt seem to work properly....
Great video. I've been struggling with this for days and feel like I am very close to making it all work. I am using cubase 5 with shoexpress and followed all your directions but still am having no luck. Any ideas?
+Billy Zwiener haha, sorry, thats actually one of our mixer cases just propped up between the stands. Also, the stands we use are super simple Pyle speaker stands, which we use with small mains when we play house parties and smaller gigs with a sick sub. I hope that helps!
Thanks for the reply. yes that helps. I googled and googled methods to mount lights vertically like that as I was looking for something on the small side. I guessed they were speaker stands after many hours searching but appreciate your time and knowledge here. Great setup!
With these super affordable Pyle speaker stands, we CAN get a cross-bar that you can mount more lights on, and we've been considering it. BUT... we've definitely out-grown our old setup (seen in the vid) and we're working on some epic projection mapping and different lights. We'll definitely post another video on how we set THAT up in the future.
But What if I have more then 10 scenes in each song and lets say 70 songs and the song order is changing each live set? From your setup I need 700 different midi notes that triggers each scene.Is there a solution to trigger the start of a scene sequence with one midi note and to trigger next scene in the sequence with second midi note? This way it will be possible to use only 140 midi notes instead of 700.
The key is using midi notes to trigger 'scenes' is to create separate short light actions that can be re-used over and over in different ways. I totally understand your issue, and the solution we've established solves the problem of building dynamic, song-synced light shows. If you're looking to add additional midi-triggered scenes, you can create a NEW midi channel with a different channel number, then start the process over again triggering with a completely new set of triggers. You'll have to link the new triggers in Chauvet to the new midi channel, but this will expand your trigger availability well beyond the first channel's restrictions. I hope that helps!
Tye, we've been working on our new website and totally spaced making the files available! Thanks for the note. We've updated the link in the description to a google drive zip file. You can grab it here: goo.gl/7Jmd5o
Hey Ben! We dont use PCs, so I'm not totally sure... BUT! A little searching found this little gem: LoopBe1 (www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html) Its an internal midi router that can help you control the midi data going from Ableton to ShowXpress! I hope that helps! Its been a MINUTE since we uploaded this... so we may post an updated method pretty soon!
+Chris Ianitello The method I used in the video doesn't require any BPM linking. The midi notes do all of the scene control, which will follow whatever your ableton bpm is set to.
Been using this setup and it works great! Very grateful for your tutorial. I have encountered a small problem, where ableton is only able to relay one Midi note at a time to Showxpress. If I try to send multiple notes triggering multiple lights, only 1 light will receive the signal. Have you had this issue as well?
Hmm... tricky. I would make SURE that when you're setting up your light triggers in ShowXpress that you leave the non-used lights not OFF, but completely disabled. If you have one scene that has, lets say, a single red light, set that one light to red and on, but leave the others disabled with no slider effect on. you can right-click on the unused channels and select 'disable channel'. If you don't do that, and have each of those channels at zero value, it will actually conflict with your other midi call to have that channel ON, which will be a total cluster of different mixed signals for ShowXpress. Let me know if that helps! If not, I can do a little more testing and see what might be the issue!
Hey Nicholas.. Having a problem.. I'm using parcans and I set it up so I have a light scene for each of my 8 parcans.. left 1 on.. left 2 on.. left 3 on etc.. But when I do the midi in Ableton it won't let more than 1 scene or not play at the same time.. however it does on yours? is it to do with the type of lights being used or..?
Matthew Breaux You know... we tried and TRIED to get it to work with Logic, but eventually we gave up. There was nothing but issues for us trying to internally route the MIDI signal in Logic. Once we switched to Ableton, it was seriously a cake-walk compared to the Logic frustrations we had. Matthew, if you DO find a solution, PLEASE let us (and everyone) know! Good luck!
