Using Cycles for Song Cues

i do not believe you can trigger a cycle within a cycle. Perhaps maybe two different cycles from two different fixture pages. but not from the master. I'll Look into this further and report back to you.
Good to see you again matchless!
Sincerely,

Ok, thanks Jingles. By the way, my Chase cycle controls two sets of fixtures. Is it possible to create 2 Master pages?

Glad to be back!

Brian

Ok, I have verified that even if I could create another cycle in another page, this will not work for what I need to do. The reason is because I am using an external trigger (snare drum via midi input) to control the PAGE DOWN command (advance to next step in cycle) for my chase cycles. Unless there is a way to only allow this external trigger for some cycles (my chases), but not others (my song cues), I cannot use cycles for chases as well as for song cues.

So, what choices am I left with? I simply want to build a “cue list” for each song, which will activate different Scenes, Switches, and Cycles (remember, cycles are MIDI triggered) that I have already created. I do NOT want these cues to activate based on the time signature (i.e. at 3 min. and 16 sec, “Blue” scene activates). I DO want to place these cues in the order they will happen, so that I can simply press “next” when I determine that the next cue should start. Why is this so hard to do?

Is Easy Show the answer? I was under the impression that Easy Show works based on a timeline. Is it possible to use Easy Show to layout Scenes, Switches, and Cycles in a prescribed order, but only advance to each one when I tell it to…by pressing a certain button (not based on time signature)?

Thanks,
Brian

Brian..i'm having a hard time following what you want to do.
It sounds like you have everything working already really nice.

Except you want to add a chase (cycle) into a cycle??
I'm not following what your doing for a chase and what your chase is doing because compu live does not have a chase option.

If you want to control the steps of the chase (cycle) with midi which would generaly be holding scenes.. why wouldn't you just add those scenes into your main cycle?

Let me know. and if its easier to call me, give me a cal. 866-245-6726 ext 523.

Best regards,

John,
When I say "Chase Cycle", what I mean is I have created a Cycle that contains a series of Scenes or steps (i.e. Red Scene, Blue Scene, Green Scene. etc.) in a certain order. Each step is defined as "GO" (instead of a prescribed time) within the cycle to activate it . As you know, the PAGE DOWN button acts as the "GO" command when working with Cycles. So knowing that, you helped me a while back to link the PAGE DOWN command to a MIDI note/signal through the use of the MIDI controller. This is working great, and now every time the program receives a signal from the snare drum (via an Aux Out on the Mixer ---> to an Alexis Trigger I/O ---> to my computer), it triggers the next step in this "Chase Cycle" to activate. I have no problems with this Cycle. Thanks again for helping me with that.

This "Chase" just refers to a series of Scenes or steps that repeats. There is usually a "rate" associated with Chases, which is driven by the snare trigger in my case. I just call it a "Chase" because that's the terminology I learned lighting control on (via old LMX protocol boards...Lightronics, NSI, etc.). I hope most of that made sense. If not, I'll have to give you a call to discuss.

Assuming it did though, since my "Chase Cycle" is working fine (triggered by the snare), I'd rather not change how it works. What I want to ADD is simply some sort of "Playlist", if you will, for each song. So, I would be able to pull up a separate "playlist" for each song, which contains steps (Scenes, Switches, and Cycles) in the order they need to be activated. I would decide, based on what part of the song the band is at, when these steps are activated (on the fly). Then, I would press a button (not PAGE DOWN though, because that would interfere with my Chase Cycle) to go to each step within this "playlist". So far, the only method I know of to create these "playlists" are through Cycles. This is problem because some of the steps in the "playlist" would be Cycles themselves...hence Cycle within a Cycle. But if there was another way to build these "playlists" (not through Cycles), then I may be able to work around the problem of having a Cycle within a Cycle.

I was thinking Easy Show may be the solution, but I wasn't sure if it was possible to layout these steps, but only have them activated when I tell them to (on the fly), and NOT based on a prescribed time signature. Is this possible, or is there any other method to achieve my goal here?

I honestly can't believe I am the only one with this issue.

Thanks,
Brian

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Matchless1:
John,
When I say "Chase Cycle", what I mean is I have created a Cycle that contains a series of Scenes or steps (i.e. Red Scene, Blue Scene, Green Scene. etc.) in a certain order. Each step is defined as "GO" (instead of a prescribed time) within the cycle to activate it . As you know, the PAGE DOWN button acts as the "GO" command when working with Cycles. So knowing that, you helped me a while back to link the PAGE DOWN command to a MIDI note/signal through the use of the MIDI controller. This is working great, and now every time the program receives a signal from the snare drum (via an Aux Out on the Mixer ---> to an Alexis Trigger I/O ---> to my computer), it triggers the next step in this "Chase Cycle" to activate. I have no problems with this Cycle. Thanks again for helping me with that.

This "Chase" just refers to a series of Scenes or steps that repeats. There is usually a "rate" associated with Chases, which is driven by the snare trigger in my case. I just call it a "Chase" because that's the terminology I learned lighting control on (via old LMX protocol boards...Lightronics, NSI, etc.). I hope most of that made sense. If not, I'll have to give you a call to discuss.

(Ok... I am good with all of the above- makes complete sense to me.. and that is exactly what I understood you were doing.)

(Down here is where your throwing me off.)

Assuming it did though, since my "Chase Cycle" is working fine (triggered by the snare), I'd rather not change how it works. What I want to ADD is simply some sort of "Playlist", if you will, for each song. So, I would be able to pull up a separate "playlist" for each song, which contains steps (Scenes, Switches, and Cycles) in the order they need to be activated. I would decide, based on what part of the song the band is at, when these steps are activated (on the fly). Then, I would press a button (not PAGE DOWN though, because that would interfere with my Chase Cycle) to go to each step within this "playlist". So far, the only method I know of to create these "playlists" are through Cycles. This is problem because some of the steps in the "playlist" would be Cycles themselves...hence Cycle within a Cycle. But if there was another way to build these "playlists" (not through Cycles), then I may be able to work around the problem of having a Cycle within a Cycle.

OK.. So you have 1 cycle. This cycle seems to have all of your scenes for all of your songs in the order you want them to play.
(For the sake of understanding.. lets not use the word "chase".)
This means that you have all 10 of your songs in one cycle? What i'm figuring your trying to do is have 1 cycle per song, where you can activate that cycle for that song, but you want them all to be in 1 big cycle? Am I on the right track?
I'm not sure why you would want to do it this way. The usual way of doing things is to have 1 cycle per song.
You would then assign a seperate midi note to each cycle, and use the same page up page down command by midi to cycle through your scenes for that song?
Why would you want them on one big cycle?


I was thinking Easy Show may be the solution, but I wasn't sure if it was possible to layout these steps, but only have them activated when I tell them to (on the fly), and NOT based on a prescribed time signature. Is this possible, or is there any other method to achieve my goal here?
All Easy show would help you create organize the scenes you want in the order you want and at the click of one button convert to a timed cycle. But you have generally done all that already, plus you don't want to have your cycles timed. you want to be able to select next. So Easy Show would not work for you.

Let me know.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Elation_Pro:
OK.. So you have 1 cycle. This cycle seems to have all of your scenes for all of your songs in the order you want them to play.
(For the sake of understanding.. lets not use the word "chase".) Smiler
This means that you have all 10 of your songs in one cycle? (No) What i'm figuring your trying to do is have 1 cycle per song, where you can activate that cycle for that song (Yes) , but you want them all to be in 1 big cycle? (No) Am I on the right track?
I'm not sure why you would want to do it this way. (I don't) The usual way of doing things is to have 1 cycle per song. (Yes, that's what I want)
You would then assign a seperate midi note to each cycle, (I don't need a midi note for each cycle. I can just click the cycle I want depending on which song they play next) and use the same page up page down command by midi to cycle through your scenes for that song?
Why would you want them on one big cycle? (I don't)

Let me try a different approach:

Song 1 = Cycle 1
Song 2 = Cycle 2
Song 3 = Cycle 3
etc..

Let's call these Cycles listed above "Song Cycles". My "Song Cycles" will contain Scenes, Switches, and Cycles. When I start to hear Song 1 being played by the band, I want to simply click the button, "Song 1" with my mouse. This should initiate the first step of the "Song 1" Cycle. Then, I want to be able to manually control the steps through the "Song 1" Cycle using the PAGE DOWN or possibly some other key, but it MUST be a manual step activated by me. Then, when Song 2 starts playing, I will simply click the button, "Song 2", and so on.

"RBG Repeat" Cycle = Cycle 50

Let's call this Cycle the "Trigger Cycle". This is simply a repeating cycle of Red, Blue, Green, Red, Blue, Green, etc. Each step of this cycle advances via an external MIDI note, triggered by the snare drum. I have this set up already, and it is currently working as described in the previous post. The thing is, I may want the "Trigger Cycle" to be nested in some "Song Cycles".

So, for example, one song's cycle may look something like this:

Cycle 1 (for Song 1):
1. Purple [Scene]
2. Green [Scene]
3. Red [Scene]
4. Orange [Scene]
5. Cycle 50 (Trigger Cycle) [Cycle]
6. Green [Scene]
7. Purple [Scene]

Desired Operation: I hear Song 1 start to play, so I click on the "Song 1" cycle button. Step 1 (Purple Scene) activates. As the song progresses, I manually go through steps 2 through 4 by pressing PAGE DOWN. Then it gets to the part in the song where I want to run the Trigger Cycle (step 5) that repeats a series of scenes, where each step of that Trigger Cycle is triggered via MIDI. I'll press PAGE DOWN to get to step 5, it runs Cycle 50 (Trigger Cycle) until I press PAGE DOWN again. After pressing PAGE DOWN, step 6 activates, and the Trigger Cycle stops. I press PAGE DOWN one last time to move to step 7. When the song ends, I may select an intermediary scene (not part of Cycle 1). When the next song starts, I'll find the cycle button for that song, click it, and on we go.

I hope this explanation is a little clearer.

Thanks,
Brian

Let me try a different approach:

Song 1 = Cycle 1
Song 2 = Cycle 2
Song 3 = Cycle 3
etc..
This makes more sense. This is how it should be.

Let's call these Cycles listed above "Song Cycles". My "Song Cycles" will contain Scenes, Switches, and Cycles. When I start to hear Song 1 being played by the band, I want to simply click the button, "Song 1" with my mouse. This should initiate the first step of the "Song 1" Cycle. Then, I want to be able to manually control the steps through the "Song 1" Cycle using the PAGE DOWN or possibly some other key, but it MUST be a manual step activated by me.This again is no problem and I am guessing is working fine right now. Then, when Song 2 starts playing, I will simply click the button, "Song 2", and so on. Got it.

"RBG Repeat" Cycle = Cycle 50

Let's call this Cycle the "Trigger Cycle". This is simply a repeating cycle of Red, Blue, Green, Red, Blue, Green, etc. Each step of this cycle advances via an external MIDI note, triggered by the snare drum. So the magic here is the ability to trigger the Red, Green, Blue steps via MIDI? I have this set up already, and it is currently working as described in the previous post. The thing is, I may want the "Trigger Cycle" to be nested in some "Song Cycles".

Are your Song Cycles in the same page of your light?
If so try and create a blank page. Name this page Song Cycles.
Here you will store all your cycle for your songs only.
On the light page you will have your "RGB Repeat" Trigger cycle and all your scenes.
Here you should be able to plug in scenes and cycles from another page.
You should also, if you wish, be able to play the Song page cycle and the lighting page cycle at the same time.
Try this out and let me know what happens.

So the magic here is the ability to trigger the Red, Green, Blue steps via MIDI? Yes, but the Song Cycles must be controlled manually. So is it possible to assign MIDI to some cycles, but not others?

Are your Song Cycles in the same page of your light?
If so try and create a blank page. Name this page Song Cycles.
Here you will store all your cycle for your songs only. I did this.
On the light page you will have your "RGB Repeat" Trigger cycle and all your scenes. When you say "light page", what do you mean? Currently, all of my Scenes, Switches, and my "RGB Repeat" Trigger Cycle are in the MASTER page.
Here Where? The MASTER page or the Song Cycle page? you should be able to plug in scenes and cycles from another page. When you say "plug in" I assume you mean selecting scenes and cycles and adding them to each Song Cycle, is this correct?
You should also, if you wish, be able to play the Song page cycle and the lighting page cycle at the same time. The use of "lighting page cycle" is throwing me off. Can we try and use consistent terms? I think what you mean in my case is the MASTER page.
Try this out and let me know what happens.

So I tried creating a blank page, and called it "Song Cycles" like you said. In the settings it asks me the DMX channel range to apply to this page. I entered the full range of channels for all of my lights. That's what I should be doing, right? Also, at this point, I did NOT attach the "Song Cycle" page to the MASTER page (via the little crown icon). In fact, it won't let me because of the same channel numbers of the MASTER page.

Then, I created a new cycle called "Song 1" in the "Song Cycle" page. It opens up the edit box automatically after creating the cycle. Then I start selecting scenes in the order I want them for that song. The last step I select for the "Song 1" cycle is the "RGB Trigger" cycle. It lets me add it...great. I save the "Song 1" cycle and begin to test my creation.

Here's what happens:
1. Since my PAGE DOWN command is linked to the MIDI trigger, every time I hit the trigger, the "Song 1" cycle steps to the next step in that cycle. This is not good, because, remember, I want these steps to be manually activated.
2. When it gets to the last step, which is the "RGB Trigger" cycle, it activates the Red (first step) of that cycle, but that's it. It does not go through the steps in my "RGB Trigger" cycle, or even repeat them, like I want. When I hit the trigger again, it starts the "Song 1" cycle over.

Instead of "plugging in" the "RGB Trigger" cycle into my "Song 1" cycle, I also tried just leaving it out. Then when it gets to the point in the song where I want to run the "RGB Trigger" cycle, I click that cycle in the MASTER page, and the lights essentially abort the "Song 1" cycle from the "Song Cycles" page and begin running the "RGB Trigger" cycle in the MASTER page. So in response to your earlier statement, no I cannot "play the Song page cycle and the lighting page cycle at the same time". This is not a problem though. I actually want the lights to switch from one cycle to the other. The problem is though that when I go back to the "Song 1" cycle in the "Song Cycles" page, it starts completely over in that cycle. So, now I'm back to the first scene of the song...not good.

I could almost live with this problem by creating multiple cycles for songs that use the "RGB Trigger" cycle in the middle. For example, "Song 1 Part 1" cycle would contain nothing but Scenes from the MASTER page. "Song 1 Part 2" would also contain nothing but Scenes from the MASTER page, but those scenes would pick up after the "RGB Trigger" cycle. Not sure if that makes sense to you or not.

The biggest issue right now is the fact that ALL of my cycles, regardless of which page they are on, step through the cycle (PAGE DOWN) either via MIDI or manually. I need to be able to have some cycles' PAGE DOWN command controlled by a MIDI note and some cycles I want the PAGE DOWN command to not be triggered by a MIDI note...those should be manually controlled by me pressing PAGE DOWN for each step through the cycle. Does this make sense?

Thanks,
Brian

Hi Brian,

Like I said in the beggining.. there is more to this than we can write on the forum. Your best bet would be to call me.
If you can, save your show and e-mail it to be prior to calling me.
you can e-mail me a john at Elationlighting dot com. or call me a 866-245-6726 ext 523

no you can't do that. Not possible.
Sincerely,

If this is not possible, then I'll have to find another way to do what I need to do.

I suppose I could create a new Page for each song. Each Page would only have the Scenes, Switches, and Cycles I plan to use for that song. It would be a lot of pages, but oh well. The hardest part about making this happen is getting certain Scenes, Switches, and Cycles from my MASTER page to each SONG page. Is there any way to copy and past a Scene from one page to another?

Thanks,
Brian

Nevermind...just figured out how to do that.

I'll try creating a few SONG pages and see how that works for me.

Ok, so using separate Pages for each song, seems to be working quite nicely. This is definitely the way to go, instead of using Cycles. There are still 2 things I'm having a little trouble with:

1. I can copy Scenes and Switches from the Master page to each Song page by using the "Duplicate" function. This greatly reduces the time it takes to build each song. What's strange though is that when using this command ("Duplicate") for Cycles, it creates the duplicate in the Master page, even when I select the applicable Song page. Does anyone know why I cannot duplicate a Cycle FROM the Master page TO another page?

2. Is there any way to use a keyboard key to advance to the next Scene in a Page? I tried using PAGE DOWN and the Arrow keys, but neither of those work. Maybe there is a way to assign a key to this function. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brian

Is anyone there?

Matchless, I would chime in here but this is johns thread really. that and i dont know a whole lot about midi. i'm sure john will get back to you at his earliest convenience. or give him a call. i believe he posted his direct number.
Sincerely,

Bump.

John, have you had a chance to look into these yet? I have a show coming up soon.

1. I can copy Scenes and Switches from the Master page to each Song page by using the "Duplicate" function. This greatly reduces the time it takes to build each song. What's strange though is that when using this command ("Duplicate") for Cycles, it creates the duplicate in the Master page, even when I select the applicable Song page. Does anyone know why I cannot duplicate a Cycle FROM the Master page TO another page?

2. Is there any way to use a keyboard key to advance to the next Scene in a Page? I tried using PAGE DOWN and the Arrow keys, but neither of those work. Maybe there is a way to assign a key to this function. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brian

Hi Matchless, i'm checking it out right now.

I find it interesting how you have you master scenes on the JohnnyB good Chorus 1 cycle. seems to work.

But i'm not liking all your pages with songs..hard to handle page, johnny b good page, yellow ledbetter page.. you should only have your fixtures pages, your master of course.. and 1 blank page to hold music.

In this blank page you will have Johnny b good cycle, hard to handle cycle and yellow ledbetter cycle. All the music.

page up page down only changes scenes when they are in a cycle.
Try it on your chorus cycle in the Johnny b good page.

Originally posted by Elation_Pro:
I find it interesting how you have you master scenes on the JohnnyB good Chorus 1 cycle. seems to work.

But i'm not liking all your pages with songs..hard to handle page, johnny b good page, yellow ledbetter page.. you should only have your fixtures pages, your master of course.. and 1 blank page to hold music.
Since I cannot have a cycle within a cycle (i.e. Chorus 1 Cycle inside of Johnny B Goode Cycle), I have no other choice but to use Pages for songs. You see, I need that "Chorus 1 Cycle" you mentioned above to be accessible within each song's Page or Cycle. And since, Cycles won't let me do that, I have to use Pages instead. Yes, this will create a lot of Pages, but it's not that big of a problem since I can place them (all of my song Pages) in one Page window, which lists all my songs at the bottom on tabs. Have you ever done that...combine more than one Page in the same window...it's actually very handy!

The other nice thing about using Pages for songs (as opposed to using Cycles for songs) is the fact that I can rename each button in that song's Page so that it relates to an identifying part of the song letting me know when I need to activate the button (i.e. Verse, Chorus, Drum Solo, etc.). Now, I don't have to reference an external cue sheet that tells me when to activate certain buttons. This way I can build the cue sheet into each song's Page.

In this blank page you will have Johnny b good cycle, hard to handle cycle and yellow ledbetter cycle. All the music.
Already tried this. Again will not work due to reason stated above.

page up page down only changes scenes when they are in a cycle.
Try it on your chorus cycle in the Johnny b good page.
Right, I understand that concept perfectly. What would be nice, though, is if I could assign a key to simply step through each scene listed in a Page. So whatever order your scenes are arranged in a Page, you could press an assigned key to step through each scene: top to bottom, left to right. Sounds like this is not possible currently, but it shouldn't be too difficult to program. It's already set up for Cycles; just set something similar up for Pages. Instead of Page Down and Page Up, maybe use the up, down, left, and right arrow keys to navigate through scenes on the active Page.

What about my first question:
I can copy Scenes and Switches from the Master page to each Song page by using the "Duplicate" function. This greatly reduces the time it takes to build each song. What's strange though is that when using this command ("Duplicate") for Cycles, it creates the duplicate in the Master page, even when I select the applicable Song page. Why can't I duplicate a Cycle FROM the Master page TO another page? This seems like a bug in the software.

Thanks again for your help John!

Brian

Bump.

Any insight John?