So now, to all of you who were wondering what to do with those old, unemployed DMX interface boxes gathering dust on your shelf…Blow off the dust and put ’em back to work!
Category Archives for "News"
General News and Information Updates
VenueMagic 2.1 Official Release Announcement
VenueMagic’s unique timeline approach to lighting control makes it easy to synchronize audio and lighting effects, by letting you see them “side-by-side” on a timeline. Drag and drop multiple layers of audio and lamp effect clips and line them up in tracks on a timeline. The DMX channel router lets you adjust DMX levels on-the-fly (while timelines are running) using your favorite MIDI or DMX console. Or you can use VenueMagic’s Virtual Control Surface, a unlimited set of programmable sliders that work well with both mouse and touchscreens. A set of programmable cue buttons can be used to run timelines instantly with a click, or a touch. These capabilites makes VenueMagic ideal software for controlling stage lighting and audio, DJ lightshows, nightclubs lighting, and Halloween haunted house control. VenueMagic 2.1 is offered at an introductory price of $347 for download, or $397 including the VM-USBDMX-01 DMX adaptor.
2.1 RC Announcement
Ben Holmes VP of Product Management
VenueMagic DJ Edition Now Available in Guitar Center Stores Nationwide
We have finally shipped and VenueMagic is now available in stock in the following Guitar Center stores: Hollywood, CA (Store Page) Palmdale, CA (Store Page) San Jose, CA (Store Page) Hallendale, FL (Store Page) Atlanta, GA (Store Page) Chicago, IL (Store Page) Brooklyn, NY (Store Page) Las Vegas, NV (Store Page) Houston, TX (Store Page) SLC, UT (Store Page) And more to come!!! All Guitar Center stores nationwide can order it for you upon your request. About Guitar Center Guitar Center is the world’s largest retailer of guitars, amplifiers, percussion instruments, keyboards, and pro-audio and recording equipment. Its retail store subsidiary presently operates 214 Guitar Center stores across the United States. Guitar Center is also the largest direct response retailer of musical instruments in the United States through its wholly owned subsidiary, Musician’s Friend Inc., and its catalog and Web site, www.musiciansfriend.com. In addition, Guitar Center’s Music & Arts division operates more than 100 stores specializing in band instruments for sale and rental, serving teachers, band directors, college professors and students. More information on Guitar Center can be found by visiting the company’s Web site at www.guitarcenter.com. The Guitar Center logo is a registered trademark of Guitar Center Inc. Other brand or product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
Last Updated (Friday, 07 May 2010 14:05)
VenueMagic Retail Version Now Available
The full version includes:
· VenueMagic 2.0 DJ Edition Show Control Software (CD)
· VM-USBDMX-01 USB DMX Interface (w/USB cable)
· User’s Manual (on CD)
· Video Tutorials
New Release Uploaded
- Timeline Markers
- Play timelines in foreground during Events and Cues
- Note fields available in most dialogs
- Improved Beat Tapper
- Flash Lighting Effect
- All Pan/Tilt Lighting Effects have been enhanced to allow more flexibility
- New Lighting Fixtures added to library
In the next few weeks we will also be making pre-built shows available to purchase and download. The intention is to build a library that you will be able to just take and use in your own shows. In order to do this effectively, we would like to get feedback on what people out there are using as a primary setup. For example, one of our customers uses four LED Lights and four Moving Head lights, so we have already created a number of different timelines around this setup. Please post your feedback and suggestions in the forums.
What’s Different About VenueMagic?
VenueMagic is not your typical lighting control software package. It’s a revolutionary new approach to DMX light show design that is quite different from anything else out there. VenueMagic DJ Edition is a powerful show control software product with features and capabilities that focus on creating an increased appeal in the DJ lighting market. At ESG, we recognize that the lighting control software industry has been slow to respond to the specific needs of the DJ market. Whereas available products do provide the user with varying levels of power and flexibility, their approach to show design continues to be directed more towards experienced lighting engineers, rather than to DJ’s. Typical lighting control software is designed to mimic traditional hardware-based lighting controllers. Each fixture channel is assigned a slider control. Each slider is adjusted to the desired position and then a time is assigned. This is called a step. Other parameters allow you to set the transitions between steps as smooth fades or instantaneous jumps. A sequence of one or more steps creates a scene. Individual scenes can be attached to triggers, such as clicking on a button, pressing a key on the keyboard, or a message from a MIDI controller, which will cause the scene to be executed. More sophisticated and higher-priced software may allow you to line-up scenes, or blocks, on a timeline to help synchronize it to music or to other blocks. This “time-step entry” approach to programming light shows has several disadvantages: First, using this method, shows must be carefully laid-out in advance on cue sheets, often second by second, before programming can even begin. This is especially true when precise synchronization to music or other events is desired. This approach may work for large-scale concerts and theater, but your average DJ is not going to take the time to do this. For this reason, many DJs become disenchanted with synchronized lighting control before they even start into it. Another disadvantage to the time-step entry approach is that it is difficult to make changes, especially to timing. Quite often, doing something as simple as shifting the timing of one cue can involve going back and redoing dozens of steps in a scene. Unless you have had many years of experience in doing light shows time-step entry is tedious, time-consuming and often frustrating. And there is little tolerance for mistakes. DJ’s are artists, and they think like artists, while the time-step entry approach is really more suited to the mindset of engineers. Many of the disadvantages of time-step entry are addressed by high-end software-based systems costing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. However such capabilities have always been well out of reach to typical DJ’s and other lighting specialists. That is, until now. VenueMagic makes the experience of light show design far more enjoyable by shortening the gap between dream and reality. VenueMagic abandons the time-step entry approach altogether. Instead it uses a more intuitive, timeline-based approach similar to that used by popular audio-editing software such as Cubase, Pro Tools, and Ableton Live. Creating a light show using VenueMagic begins with a timeline. A timeline can contain as many tracks as you like where you can drag over audio clips, lamp effect clips and events. Audio clips can be moved and sized, and you can also apply envelopes to control volume, pan, echo, reverb and other audio effects. This allows you to put your audio mix together right in VenueMagic. This is great if you want to mix-in additional sound effects or other audio clips on top of your music. In most cases, there’s no need to create a mix-down in advance with other audio-editing software. Lighting effect clips let you control fixture channels the same way you would control audio envelopes. Precisely synchronizing lighting effects with music is simple because it’s all on the screen in front of you. The powerful envelope editor feature gives you even more precise control. There is also a library of pre-programmed chaser sequences and other special lighting effects that you can simply drag and drop onto the timeline. These effects can even distinguish between dimmer, RGB, gobo, color, motion, and other fixture channel types and will automatically select the appropriate channels to control in your fixture. One of the powerful and unique features of VenueMagic is the ability to blend multiple lighting effects onto the same fixture channel. This opens the door to some amazing effects and capabilities. We believe that VenueMagic’s unique approach to light show design has many advantages:
- • The graphical timeline makes it easier to see what is going on in the scene as a whole.
- • Synchronization of lighting effects to music and other audio clips is much easier.
- • Changes in the show are easier to make.
- • Light show designers spend less time with the technical details and more time being creative.
- • Built-in library of chaser sequences and special lighting effects makes show creation much faster.
- • Similarities with popular audio editors significantly reduce the learning curve, especially for DJ’s.
VenueMagic includes many additional features that were designed to give it greater appeal in the DJ market.
- • Full-featured Playlist.
- • Programmable cue buttons for triggering timelines.
- • Programmable sliders for controlling lamp and audio levels.
- • Auto-beat detection and synching.
- • Beat tapper for real-time manual synchronization of chaser sequences.
- • MIDI input for triggering timelines and controlling lamp and audio levels.
- • MIDI output for signaling external controllers.
- • Channel routing for controlling and adjusting DMX light levels directly with anyMIDI controller.
- • Channel grouping to allow multiple fixtures to be controlled together simultaneously.
- • 2-D Show preview window.
- • Custom chaser sequence design tool.
- And many other features…
VenueMagic DJ Edition has a suggested retail price of $399. This price includes:
- • The VenueMagic 2.0 DJ Edition Software CD
- • USB DMX interface hardware
- • Serial cable
The software CD also includes a full user’s manual and nearly an hour of video tutorials that will get users up to speed building sophisticated lightshows in no time. No other lighting control software on the market offers so many advanced features and capabilities at such a low price. VenueMagic. DMX lighting control redefined.
New Fixture Forum Created
So far I have received the following fixture requests via email. I’ve added them here and invite everyone to add additional requests in this forum to help reduce duplication 
American DJ 46HP LED
American DJ 64WH LED pro
Chauvet Min wash
Omnisistem LED PAR 36
Elation Design PAR 575H
Chauvet Scorpion Series
Additional Generic Fixtures up to 20 Channels
Also on that last note, remember you can chain Generic Channels together to create whatever kind of fixture you need to have. This allows you to basically create any fixture you need immediately. For Example the Scorpion Sky could be put together as follows:
1: Generic 1 Channel – Mode
2: Generic 1 Channel – Pattern Selection
3-4: Generic Scan Head – Pan/Tilt
5: Generic 1 Channel – Size
6: Generic 1 Channel – Speed
You can also double click on each Generic fixture as you added it and change the name to the correct channel name.
Advanced Users Only… Once you create the fixture you can then create a fixture group and combine all of the individual Generic Fixtures you created above into a single group. This will allow you to more conveniently assign the fixture to different tracks in your timeline.
Remember to post whatever you need added as well so we can make our database the most complete in the DJ Lighting Industry.