Show designer one MIDI questions

You ask whether SD1's chases (many Elation controllers, including the SD1, call them "Shows") should "run along with the audio." That depends on what you mean.

You can trigger Shows with midi notes sent to the SD1's midi channel. Shows are a sequence of lighting "Scenes." When you program Shows you can specify how long Scenes will hold until the next scene starts. Trying to match the length of a Scene to the length of measure count would be near impossible unless the band is playing to a click track or backing sequence.

If by "run along with the audio" you are wanting to trigger it once and then have the SD1 hold one Show durning the intro; go to another Show during the verse; and change to another Show for the Chorus, etc. That would be very hard, if not impossible to do.

You can override the hold time of the Show by using the "Beat" button or putting the SD1 into into audio mode.

The only way to use the Beat button itself is to tap it to the beat. Unless the band is playing to a click track, the band isn't likely to stay on the tapped tempo very long - so it will be running close to along with the beat, but it will be off.

You can plug an audio source into the SD1 and it will change Scenes within a Show when it detects a beat from the music. That will cause the lights to change with the beat a high percentage of the time, but it will skip beats from time to time - so don't expect it to be able to change with Intro, Verse, etc.

If you are using a backing midi track, you could have the sequencer send midi notes to the SD1 and have any Show triggered anywhere you wanted during the song. I don't know whether you can use the foot controller to trigger the start of the sequencer.

If you only have a midi click track, I don't know whether the tempo signal will work when you are in "Beat" Button mode or not.

BTW: Most foot controllers can send out only 128 different notes on one channel. An SD1 is capable of over 1000 shows. I'm not aware of a foot controller that can fully use the capabilities of the SD1.

EJ, You might get quicker responses and from the Engineer of the SD series himself if you post in the correct forum section. You need to post in the Show Designer Series Consoles Section.

Thanks Hobson for helping out.
Sincerely,

Happy to do so James.

You and others in the forum have helped me out many a time.

I have posted my question to the SD forum. Thanks for you help guys