ETC Eos Element and Midi

[dmoes]

I am beginning to setup our booth with some great new equipment. most of which I am new with I am running a nice new computer with SCS pro with a echo 24/96 8 ch sound card. On the other desk is a brand new Electronic Theatre Controls Eos Element lighting desk

I know nothing about midi (or very little) The Element has MIDI In/Out (Timecode, Show Control)
basically we will have the lighting desk programmed for the show and the operator will press GO for each light cue so nothing fancy. rather than having two volunteers pushing go buttons one for sound and one for lights it would be nice to have just one guy to do it.

Is this a fairly simple set up?

any hints tips or advice?

[Mike Daniell]

Should be fairly simple, but I don't have any personal experience with this lighting board. I've downloaded the Element v1.6 User Manual, and it seems you will need to use MSC (MIDI Show Control) to send MIDI to SCS. In SCS you need to open Permanent Options / General Options and click on the MIDI Devices & Control tab. Select your MIDI In device (which presumably will be the Echo), and select Enable MIDI control of cues. Then select MSC as the Control Method.

The remaining fields you will need to setup to be compatible with corresponding settings on the ETC.

Maybe someone else with experience of driving SCS from a lighting board could add to this.

[charlier]

Hopefully as a convenient reference the MSC standard is here: http://www.richmondsounddesign.com/docs ... cation.pdf And you are welcome to ask me any questions you want here in this forum.

[webman555]

While I have the Electronic Theatre Controls Eos Ion lighting desk, I too have been trying to get it to drive SCS via the midi out. Without much success I might add. My midi device is the Behringer BCF-2000 so maybe that is my problem? Not sure if this device passes MSC?

I have used the Behringer to control other software so I know it sends midi program change just fine. It could also be I do not understand the settings in SCS and/or the settings on the Ion console.

The ETC forums state that pressing GO (when midi transmit is enabled) will send the string '<cue number><cue list number>' .

Any help in understanding this would be helpful. I did look over the pdf link posted here, thanks.

[charlier]

Not knowing a lot about the Eos, it sounds to me as though it sends MSC lighting commands by default and you will either have to change it to send MSC sound commands to control SCS or else SCS will have to recognise the MSC lighting command format.

[Mike Daniell]

In SCS, go to General Options / Permanent Options and click on the MIDI Devices & Control tab. Make sure you have selected the correct MIDI In Device, selected Enable MIDI Control of cues, and selected what you think is the correct Control Method (eg MSC).

Now click the Test MIDI Input button. When the MIDI Test window is opened, press GO on the ETC. The SCS MIDI Test window will display the MIDI command received. Hopefully this will help identify what the ETC is actually sending and assist in setting the required MIDI options in SCS.

[webman555]

Ok, thanks for the input. There is happiness.

Here's how I did it.
First, I updated the midi drivers associated with the Behringer BFC2000. I think this was my main problem. Once updated I started to see the input messages from the BFC2000 in the "Test Midi" window where I had not seen any before.

Next, the ION console Show setup:
MSC - enabled
MSC transmit channel - 1
ACN transmit ID - 1

Then in SCS:
In permanent options/midi
Control method - MSC
MSC device ID - 1 01H
Command format - 01H Lighting (general)

When in the "Editor" set the field 'MIDI/DMX Cue" to the same cue number being sent from the ION console.
BTW - the EOS line only sends MSC commands.

Thanks again for the input and pdf. Hope this is helpful to any other EOS users.

[dmoes]

Thanks all for the input

I pretty much used the setup that webman555 describes for the EOS for my Element. and it works perfect. we are in the third week of our run of "Cosi" and not a burp or any problems. my only change I would have made is when a sound and light cue are to take place at the same time I would make the sound cue an automatic start from the start of the light cue. rather than having the lights as an auto start from a sound cue.
if I have the light cue happen first I can add a delay for the start of half a second or so to compensate for the time lag it takes for the lights to react. otherwise its perfect.