When working as a DJ or an EDM artist eventually you’re going to want to incorporate graphics or visuals into your setup. Not only do they look cool but it will definitely help your business stand out and extend the value you are able to bring to your clients.
So, how can you sync visuals to your lighting console without adding additional steps and work to your schedule? That’s what we’re going to discuss today and keep the process effective as well as simple.
As a DJ or an EDM Artist it’s very important to first make your workload as efficient and creative as possible. Secondly, always working to improve your services for your clients. With adding visuals to your setup this helps your business stand out even more.
For example, if a venue has a blank wall or a screen for your to utilize, you want to be able to do that. Even if they don’t have a screen, now more than ever before you can invest in your own screen for a really good price.
Trigger Visuals From Your Lighting Console.
Being able to run visuals with your lighting console can be set up so that you can trigger your visuals to be done automatically or at least be triggered through your console.
To get this set up, you first want to use a program that plays video content or a program that creates animations.
How Does That Work?
To get started, most lighting programs are sending out a networked DMX signal, either Art-Net or sACN. We walk through exactly what these are and how you can use them in this post: What Are Art-Net and sACN?
With that DMX signal you are then sending the information through the computer using a loop back or by having a network cable being used between two computers.
That signal will come through your video program and that’s what will give you control over video, graphics, etc.
The core of this is that we’re giving you the ability ton control the clicks and presses from your lighting console.
What Tools Do You Need?
With most of the lighting consoles covered here on Learn Stage Lighting, they should be able to output Art-Net and sACN. If you’re not able to output wither of those then you will need to get a DMX node.
With a DMX node you will use that to bring the network DMX back into the computer. Unfortunately, overall this process is not very efficient.
Regardless, of which option you use you’ll then patch into your lighting console the fixtures which is just going to be your control channel given too you by your media program.
Visuals On Screen
There’s a couple of different options for your to go with but one of the tools I recommend is ENTTEC’s ELM. Elm allows you to generate images and play back video content.
In the software, you’re able to go into the setup and customize your settings accordingly.
Another tool to consider would be ONYX’s DyLOS composer. At this time it’s not able to play videos on screen but it does play visuals on lights, pixels, or anything that is controlled by DMX, Art-Net, or sACN.
Once you decide which tool you will use you’ll then want to start building some basic building blocks inside of your lighting console. This would be a very similar process of when you built out basic lighting cues for your console.
Once you’ve build out the basic cues, you then will be able to create your visual cues like you did for your lighting.
