Cakewalk by bandlab with DMX lighting control

[remyhardy]

Hi Guys, I’m using Cakewalk by Bandlab with soundcraft UI24R and I’m wondering if I could insert a lighting DMX control in every song in midi to drive lighting when live performing. Does anybody did it and know how to do it and what to use to do so? I know that it’s possible with LIVE Appleton and I’m pretty sure there’s a way to do so with cakewalk.

[Michael Vogel]

People have been using MIDI to control all sorts of device switching since it’s implementation in the 1980s. 
https://www.lightjams.com/midiDMX.html

This link will take you to a jump off place for you to undertake more research for your specific need.

You can create the necessary controls in a dedicated MIDI track or tracks but you will need the hardware to read the commands, interpret or translate them for whichever device/s you want to control.  

[remyhardy]

Thank you for the link Michael, I’ll check it. I think we have to create scenes in other soft ware but is there a kind of chart existing to send the command in midi from cakewalk (for example open,start a scene or something). Will I find it in the link or there is a standard chart of midi commands?

[Matthew Carr]

Be prepared to put in some significant effort, but it's all possible and works well.

For weekend warriors the standard seemed to be DMXIS, but to me that's a bit old in the tooth now and the hardware is discontinued.

I used a free program (Q Light Controller plus) v4, not the beta, which lets you define your fixtures, functions, and create a virtual console with buttons & sliders for controlling scenes & functions. Once built, the virtual console console can be triggered by Midi so you can use a midi track to push buttons on the virtual console to sequence the lighting to a click or backing tracks. I even went as far as creating a drum map with the mappings from midi to virtual console... yes, it took a long time! 😅

You'll need some piece of hardware to generate the DMX. In my case I already had ethernet in my rig, so chose an Artnet to DMX node similar to this, although QLC+ supports various USB devices as well.

Good luck!

[remyhardy]

Ok thank you Matthew, I’ll check this when I receive my new open dmx from enttec