GrandMA+TD_performing: conceptual structure

Hello,
I am a theatre lighting designer and I’ve been working with lighting boards for so long. I decided to switch to TD this year as it is less restrictive than a linear cue list. However, I find myself stucked with the problem of midi controllers to trigger and modify my effects, and from my point of view the midi controller are in no way more interesting than dmx controllers, plus they are less precise. So my questions are:

  • Is there anyway I can use a GrandMA 2 on PC to control TD (instead of buying midi controller such as novation MK2)?
  • If yes, are there any online ressource that would be helpfull? I can find nothing
  • If no, what midi controller would you suggest? Faderpro16? Novation MK2?
    As my main expertise lies in theatre, I need something that will allow veeery smooooth light transitions (which is difficult with cheap faders) and flexible interface.
    Thanks!

Hello,
I was, during ten years, light designer and since ten years I do mainly images for the stage, first with Director, then Isadora, now TouchDesigner. I try to give you my experience.
– nothing is better than proper light board to manage a show with a lot of spots, you have memories, sequences, group, subgroups, chaser etc. and you can send orders from TD.
– managing a simple 30" fade from 20 blue lights to 20 yellow lights is not so easy to do for the machine.
– you have to reinvent the wheel for the memories, the sequence, the timer, the correction
– you have to reinvent the wheel for the UI
– you have to reinvent the wheel for the midi interface (I recommend Mackie MCU Pro)
I use TD for light for mini set (less than 24 channels) when I am alone to do light, video and sound and if I need a very tight sync between light and video/sound. I use a lanbox to avoid most of the memory management in TD, I just have to send order to go to cue but I can also send isolated commands.
For midi console, I use multiple cheap Korg nanoKontrol with home made TD Comp and Behringer for motorized faders.
If you really want to do all in your computer, you can try to use the free D::light who can be driven from TD by OSC.
getdlight.com/en/
Jacques

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With a DMX in CHOP, you could receive the DMX data from your GrandMA 2 on PC. Then in TD you grab the values that you want to manipulate, and then merge the TD data and the GrandaMA data, and send to your rig via the DMX out CHOP.
You will need the adequate DMX hardware to receive and send DMX.

I am not 100% familiar with Grandma 2 on PC, but generally speaking you can do the opposite too: you can send DMX from TD to your Grandma, merge the incoming data, and output to your rig from the GrandMA.
For example in this scenario you could use TD to send pan and tilt to your moving lights, and let GrandaMA dealing with everything else (gobos, colours, dimming, as well as doing all the cueing etc…).

There’s this topic in the forum, although I have never tested that myself
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12547&p=48585&hilit=ma2#p48585

years ago I have purchased a second hand Behringer BCR2000 and it never let me down. Sometimes I use just 4 or 5 knobs and buttons, other times I use the whole thing. it’s a bit bulky to travel with sometimes though.
Consider that in TD, you can smooth the MIDI CC incoming signal, with a lag or filter or spring CHOP or others, depending on the effect/curve you are after and the type of fixtures you intend to control.

We use TD often as a virtual light fixture, so the GrandMA operator controls our TD mediaserver from his lighting desk - which is usually the case for large live events.
TouchDesigner can directly connect (send&receive) to Artnet / sACN / DMX, so plug in an ethernet cable and you’ve got TD hooked up to your GrandMA, and you will be able to control both from both, no need for any extra midi controllers if you prefer your GrandMA desk.

OnPc with no MA hardware attached isn’t licenced for output using anything besides MA-Net. So unless your other system speaks MA-Net, just onPC won’t let you drive TD afaik

I build my TD file with any parameter that I might want to change connected to a DMX channel using the DMX in CHOP. Then on the console I built a few generic “Fixtures” for different parameter types. For example I have an RGBA fixture that allows me to use the color picker the same way I would for a light.

I am on a Hog4 instead of MA but the concept is the same.

For me it is less about the control surface and more about workflow. Timecode triggers all of my cues and since TD is part of those cues everything moves and changes together. During rehearsal I can make any changes from one place.

The only trick is that you will need to figure out how much delay there is between the time you send a DMX change to the time that the change hits the screen. In my case it’s ~20ms. For any cues with a transition time under about 0.5s I delay lighting changes by 20ms and trigger the cue 1-2 frames early. This keeps everything synchronized.

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If you are saying you have a GrandMA2 Command or Fader Wing (or OnPC node) then yes you could kinda use the command wing or the fader wing as a controller for TouchDesigner. You would have to have onPC running and make a show that just has a different Dimmer Channel in each executor fader (or even just use the channel faders page instead of executor faders page)

The only problem with this setup is that you can’t use all of the buttons on the Command Wing. The fader wing may be more suited to this, but even then you need OnPC running and you couldn’t really separate the faders from the buttons above and below them.

If you don’t have ANY GrandMA2 hardware that enables parameters (like an actual console, or a command / fader wing, or even an OnPC ethernet node) then you won’t be able to get any data OUT of the MA2 software, though you can certainly send data INto it. OnPC alone will still accept Art-Net or sACN inputs, even MIDI and MSC over UDP inputs as well as possibly a telnet connection.

And even though you can’t get usable DMX data out of OnPC without hardware, you can still view everything that is going on with the free MA2 3D previz software that is downloadable in the same place as the free OnPC software.

It really depends on what exactly you’re trying to do. If you’re trying to use a command / fader wing as a control surface, it will not be as usable as a MIDI control surface as everything has to go through the MA2 OnPC software and most of the buttons are dedicated functions in OnPC that can’t be repurposed or passed through to TouchDesigner.

But if you’re trying to control lights, or test out controlling TouchDesigner from an MA2 console on a real show, using MA2’s excellent ability to store presets and recall cues / sync to timecode / keep track of discreet values for specific lights perfectly complements TouchDesigner’s ability to do complex realtime / procedural and organic data manipulation / generation that you could never achieve on any lighting console.

You may also find this of some use.
It’s a comp that simplifies some of the work of creating fixture personality entry points into a TD network. (ie: defining 8/16/24bit parameters, channel breaks, etc.)

Just edit the channels dat inside and it should speed up the process a bit.

I haven’t looked at it in a while, but it should be pretty self explanatory.
dmxChannelParser.tox (3.5 KB)

Thank you very much for all this information, I have enough to work on for the next month. I will let you know what I chose in the end as soon as I find the best option for me.
Cheers,