Entertainer Archive

Does anyone know how I can make a band macro that will time our lighting effects simultaneously?

The only way I can think is to call it in group chat and hope everyone hits their button at the same time.

I really want to see a band dosimultaneous spotlight and fire jet effects.

That's how we do it in my troupe. With practice you can get very good timing going. We've even managed to take the dances notorious for wander (formal, lyrical) and get everyone dancing in sync by starting with another dance and switching together. It just takes a little practice.

here is what we do kora.... set up a macro that counts down.... before running it tell everyone the effect they should do... "joe you do firejet" "sara you do smoke" bla bla... then run this macro or somehtign like it...

/g que your effects and implement on 3

/pause 2

/g 3

/pause 2

/g 2

/pause 2

/g 1

/pause 2

/g go! Light those candles!

You know, it'd be nice if we had a /bandeffect dazzle2 or something.

C

((Fun ideas! I wish there was a way to do this with the /band commands, because I play on dial up, connecting at 26.4, and I don't want to rely on my own timing to sync with everyone.

While I am thinking of it, is there a way to /bandchange for dancers to change everyone's dance like there is for musicians to change the song?))

Kind of funny sweatyclimber.. That's almost exactly what I use.. A countdown from 3 with a 2 second pause between each.

As far as being on dial-up.. So far lag hasn't been a problem, as long as it is consistent.. People learn the timing they need after some practice.

But I agree,something akin to band flourishes would be nice.

Thanks to both of you! I was hoping that someone knew a secret that I hadn't learned yet, but this will do just fine. Now to find a band. . ...

Not something unheard of. There are still things about the profession that people don't understand. Like for example, if the /pausemusic command equivelent for dance (/pausedance) actually does anything, or if it is just synonymous with /stopdance, as it seems to be.

Here's what I ended up doing:

I stole Tiaga's aliases from the "qued up dances" thing he posted a while back and adapted it to lighting effects. This almost worked. You still have to start everyone in group chat with a standby call but after that you should be able to just cue up some effects if my implementation worked right. Here's what I wrote in:

effect1 /colorlights;/pause 1.9;/

effect2 /dazzle;/pause 5;/

effect3 /spotlight;/pause 1.9;/

effect4 /firejet;/pause 4.7;/

light1 /effect1

light2 /effect2

light3 /effect3

light4 /effect4

and some macros:

LightCue1

/alias nextlight /pause 0.5;/macro nextlight

/alias light1 /alias nextlight /effect1 macro nextlight

etc. down to /alias light4 ....

/nextlight

StopLight

/alias light1 /effect1

etc. ....

/dump

nextlight

/nextlight

/alias nextlight /pause 2;/macro nextlight

-------------------------------------------

Perhaps someone can suggest some better changes to that?

The problem with the timing is that the effects Dazzle and Firejet need to have more of a wait time when they follow Spotlight and Colored Lights. However, when Colored Lights and Spotlight are back to back, the timing can be down to just over 1 second. Even Dazzle following Dazzle versus Colored Lights following Dazzle needs a different timing.

I thought briefly of applying the Bandtoggle idea to make a min./max toggle for the timing if you want to have fast and furious lightshows at the end of a set.

I don't yet have a band on which to try these out so I'd love some input on what you think is good or bad about it. Too complicated for people maybe? or will the timing be different on everyone's machine anyway?

I saw that if you nevercalled theLightCue1 macro (the one that calls all the nextlight aliases) then you could make a simple macro such as:

SampleRun1

/light1 light2 light3 light4

would that be simpler? just call the group chat standby and then everyone hit SampleRun1 ?

I also considered rewriting the bindings for different people in the band as follows:

you have members on stage X, Y, X, Y, X <----- in a nice line or formation, etc.

you rebind the alias light1 to /effect3 and light3 to /effect1 and rename the file LightCue2.txt Send LightCue1.txt to members X and LightCue2.txt to members Y. Now all you have to do is call out Lights 1,2,3,4 in group chat; everyone hits 1,2,3,4; but the lights alternate. You could get creative with this so that your band members all hit 1,2,3,4 and you get a nice chase going or a flash all, etc.

Tiaga and Famous, have you done this already? Is there interest in someone working this type of thing out? i'd love to do it but I might need some alias help from Tiaga (who seems to be much better versed in programming than I) or someone else better skilled than I.

OMG I'm getting excited just thinking about seeing a band do a light chase on stage! With a reverse of direction and some speed fluctuations.... .. I think I can do this.... .