MADRIX Forum

Hello

If u just want to answer the questions i have u can skip the presentation part and go straight to the question part But since i am hoping this to be a longlived thread for like a year or longer i thought id make a brief presentation.

PRESENTATION PART:

12 of us local Djs in Stockholm recently started our own friday club in a venue that has quite a bit of potential with its high ceiling and large main floor! We play mainly house music and love what we do. This is a part-time project but most of us pour 15+ hours each week on this

We are in our 8th week and so far things are looking okay!

The problem has been that it has been a while since this venue had any type of shape-up in forms of lighting upgrades! The current lightning fixtures are more adapted for rock concerts than club experience!

We want to change all that and we started this project mainly not to make money but to work towards the club of our dreams in stockholm! Our dream is to one day in maybe a few years reach international club standard (if we get there god knows but thats what we aim for)!

We made immediate basic upgrades to the venues light system with what money we had starting with budget items:
6 triphases
8 moving heads (4x mv250 and 4x mh-x25)
16x par64
2x stairville strobe 1500
1x Antari Z-1200 (soon to be 2)
8x Pixel bar 12 (going to be 40)

Current controllers
Dmx joker 1024 (1 universe used atm)
Dmx Master I (hooked to the 16 pars with some very basic programming)

Now on the Dj side we are quite good but we know almost nothing about light control .. Although so far we run all the lights live with some basic programming! The upside to this is we know all excatly all the house tracks and where the drops, breaks and buildups go so we can sync the effects perfectly there.

We are willing to learn and work hard for this and with time we hope that we will grasp light programming and setups allot better. After allot of research we found Madrix to be the most affordable software so therefore we are hoping people here could help us out to get started!


:: QUESTION PART::

As mentioned earlier we are not in it to make money atm! So we put most of our revenues back into upgrading our friday club, we believe strongly that a great club is not only bout promoters but about the experience! At the moment i'd say we make around 1000-2000 euros per week depending on week that we can put straight back into lightning fixture upgrades!

Naturally this doesnt take us far but we'd like to try to do the best we can, so we have started investing in a "ledwall" made out of pixel bar 12's and hoping these can be controlled! Last week we bought our first 8 pieces and naturally ofcourse we found that its gonna take hell to make programs for them manually with "dmx joker"... We are aiming to finish at around a total of 40x pixel bar 12's
http://www.thomann.de/se/showtec_pixel_bar_12.htm

We want to make something like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjQZ9YeC64g
And put it somewhere behind the dj booth!

Picture from last week
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 5754_n.jpg

more clear pictures of the venue to come....!


Since i would like to make this a longterm post for continues upgrades im posting our questions weekwise if thats okay?

2012

Questions for Week 31:
1. Is controlling and pixel mapping a ledwall out of 'pixel bar 12' possible with Madrix and what hardware do we need to think about? in terms of Computer with madrix all the way to the fixture including cables and patches along the way... (currently we just simply run dmx cables from fixture to fixture...)

2. Does madrix support Dmx joker 1024 or do we need to get a new controller. If so please recommend one that is future uppgradeable/scalable since we will be upgrading for atleast a year with more and more fixtures such as co2, many more moving heads, (real led walls?)

3. In terms of cost versus effects anyone know what we should get next after we complete our purchase of around in total of 40x pixel bar 12's
Since we made a base upgrade we are now looking to buy more expensive moving fixtures such as Robe robin 100 and mac 101's aswell as a permanent installation of Co2 effects.. Ofcourse it'll take us weeks and weeks to get it all done.. but hey 0.5-1 moving head each week aint to shabby in our eyes as long as we get there in the end!

4. [Low-priority] We are also looking to build our own ledwall one day from scratch with rgb strips... so far there are some guides such as this one which make it all look so simple.. we are sure that it cant be that easy atleast not in larger scales... and are looking for good links with guides and info on how to learn more bout these!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbdvrfwr ... re=related

Hi Zeppan,

Thank you very much for this interesting report. I want to answer now all your questions for week 31:

1. The Showtec Pixel Bar 12 is controllable by DMX512 with 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 18 or even 36 channels. Of course you are able to control one or even hundreds of Showtec Pixel bars with the MADRIX software. No problem! All you need is the MADRIX NEO. This USB 2.0 DMX512 interface comes with the MADRIX software. You can use one NEO for controlling up to 512 / 36 = 14 x Showtec Pixel bars. If you want to control more than 14 x Showtec Pixel bars just connect a second, third etc.MADRIX NEO. If you would use 5 x MADRIX NEO you could control 5 x 512 = 2560 / 36 = 71 x Showtec Pixel bars. You can use up to 60 MADRIX NEOs on one computer using active USB2.0 hubs.

MADRIX NEO = The hardware and software package you will need.

Currently you are simply run the DMX cables from fixture to fixture. If you are using the MADRIX NEO you can use one NEO for controlling up to 14 bars. So from the first NEO you are going to the first bar .... 14th bar. The second NEO will be the 15th bar ...

2. The Stairville DMX Joker 512 and 1024 is not supported since the company don't support us to implement the drivers. But the MADRIX NEO comes already with the MADRIX software so I think it's a better package for a great value.

If you are upgrading to co2 and many more moving heads, please use an affordable lighting control. MADRIX is not able to do the job. Movements (pan/tilt) is not supported. Many clubs are using Sunlite, Daslight, e:cue or other lighting control solutions together with MADRIX for the job. You are able to remote control the MADRIX software using DMX-IN, ArtNet-IN, MIDI ... Please check the download section http://www.madrix.com/en/home/download/ ... tware.html and scroll down to "Libraries And Profiles".

3. "what we should get next after we complete our purchase of around in total of 40x pixel bar 12's" I'm really not able to answer this question. I don't know your location / the club and you will find hundreds of moving heads, fog machines, Co2 effects ... on the market.

4. Thanks for the YT link. But unfortunately you will be not able to use this SD card controller together with MADRIX. This controller is not controllable by DMX512, ArtNet, SACN, DVI signal ... You can only upload shows with the shipped software. So you will miss all the amazing MADRIX stock effects.

Greetings from the MADRIX team. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the reply!

So u dont think its better to get a higher level of madrix immediately? running more and more neos doesnt seem practical in the long run? Or i dont know. Ofcourse it would prove good as a starter and if we are going to run moving heads on a separate controller we would probably not need the key versions?

It depends how many Showtec Pixel bars you want to use in total. If you would need more than 8 Universes (8 x 512 channels) I recommend buying a MADRIX basic. If you would need more than 16 Universes go for the MADRIX professional. The advantage of the NEO is that you do not need an additional supported DMX512 interface or ArtNet node. So for all LED applications below 8 DMX universes I recommend to use the MADRIX NEO.

If you want to remote control the MADRIX software using a lighting desk or another lighting control software go for the MADRIX USBone and use a 5pin-male-to-5pin-male gender changer. http://www.madrix.com/en/home/products/usbone.html