SCS lighting control by DMX

[jmgordon]

From time to time we do a revue in a small school hall with very limited lighting controlled by a Pulsar 2 preset desk. The room lighting is by fluorescent tubes and in the past we have used a couple of PAR floorcans as uplighters to wash the ceiling as houselights, controlled by a simple dimmer. I would like to replace these by LED parcans with DMX control, and run it from SCS. The ones I have in mind use 5 channels of DMX each and we might want to control two independently, so 10 channels in all. I know that SCS will not output DMX so presumably I would have to go via Midi. There is no other lighting desk available. My laptop does not have a RS232 port, but I do have a USB/Serial converter if needed.
Can someone please suggest the simplest/cheapest converters to achieve USB --> Midi ---> DMX ---> lights ?

Many thanks.

Malcolm

[ChuckTX]

Look around for cheap usb dmx converter, enttec, etc. Then look @ freestyler dmx or MagicQ

[alchemisttheatre]

Similarly, I have a "how to" midi control question.
I use a program called DasLight Virtual Controller to run lights in my theatre. This program uses a usb to dmx box to control dimmers and smart lights.

On a seperate computer I run SCS for audio and video cues.

Ideally, I'd like to control the lighting program from SCS since the "next" interface would make it simple for a single person to run everything.

I think my question is a bit of a "newbie to midi" query. I think I've figured how to have SCS send midi notes and I believe I've discovered how to set up the lighting program to trigger off of midi notes. BUT... how do I hook up the two computers?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Theatre III Sound]

I think my question is a bit of a "newbie to midi" query. I think I've figured how to have SCS send midi notes and I believe I've discovered how to set up the lighting program to trigger off of midi notes. BUT... how do I hook up the two computers?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

You would need a MIDI interface device on each computer, such as the Cakewalk UM-1G and the requisite cables and couplers to connect them together. If your communication is one-way (SCS to DasLight, for instance), then you'd need only one MIDI cable and two female-female MIDI couplers.

Another alternative is to run both applications on one machine and use a virtual MIDI interface such as LoopBe to link the two.