Hi, i'm in need of a free (and I cannot stress this enough) plugin for ableton live wich can grant me control via MIDI of a single DMX universe thru an ENTTEC Open USB DMX node.
I have to manage a show where lighting and audio is in sync, starting cues while playing, so I don't have time to change light settings.
Please come in my help because i'm drowning in a sea of paid plugins wich I wouldn't like to crack
Thanks in advance
You need something that can trigger cues in your lighting software, Ableton cannot send DMX on its own, you need to either use MIDI triggers or OSC or something like this. If your intention is to busk using Ableton, it wouldn’t be really possible without some in depth planning and pre production, it would be something you would need to develop.
It might be easier for you to use something like QLab to trigger audio and lighting together like that.
well, the intention was to have a bit of pre-production of the show, since I have to create all the click tracks for the show and all the instrumental bases.
There's actually another couple of problems. QLab is only supported on MacOS and I run windows 11, and I need to output the single audio tracks to different outputs, so I need complete access to an audio matrix, which a lot of lighting-centered do not support.
I know there are max for live devices that can communicate with ma or resolume, you’d have to dig to find them though. Your best bet would be to have midi triggers for cues in your lighting console.
You can send midi to your lighting show. Open a midi tab in ableton and use it as a step sequencer. Send that to your lighting software. This is how you can automate the show aswell
I use now dead software freestylerDMX. I set it up w a couple midi controllers and built a few shows using it. I could use a midi sequence in ableton and put it in the same file as the backing tracks. Then drop all my ableton files into a single full set file and make sure the bpms are set. You can then use a midi foot contoller to jump thru that ableton file.
What fixtures will you be using?
I will be using 6 RGB PARs, a pair of custom RGB light fixtures, and two RGBW moving heads
If you go down the QLC+ route try version 4.12.7 as it is possibly the most stable for win11. I'm not up to date on Ableton but guess you'll need OSC or similar. So this way you program up a bunch of stuff in QLC+ then assign MIDI controls to however you've got it set up which would result in note or controller data triggering DMX from Ableton to QLC+.
Also the open USB interface can be buggy, it usually needs native FTDI drivers installed and even then can't cope with heavy amounts of data but try first as it might be fine for what you need.
Check Max package "Beam for Max" by Showsync, but its 99 euro.
You can also go with Touchdesigner. Its pretty easy to send midi from ableton to touchdesigner and TD has some dmx/artnet handling.
You can natively send DMX out of Max/MSP without any paid plugins. There are examples patches for the ENTTEC USB Pro, but there are known issues using the specific DMX node that you have unfortunately.
You can use dummy clips to trigger things in QLC+ via midi loopback. There’s probably a more comprehensive way to do everything in max but that will probably have a bit more of a learning curve up front.