Need an onstage VU light

Shep2112 · Post by **Shep2112** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 4:52 am

Hi, I'm working on a touring gameshow for elementary schools. The show is a health show and during one scene we need 'heart rate monitor' on stage.

During the last run of the tour, we used a $20 'party light' with 6 colored lights on it.. Layed out like @@@@@@..The lights were able to sync to audio, but it didn't work reliably. So I just used a built in chase sequence with an infrared remote and sped it up at the same time the heartbeat sound sped up.

I used a drum machine playing a boom-boom, boom-boom, bass drum pattern for the heartbeat sound. To increase the heartbeat I sped up the tempo wheel..

Now here's the question..

Is it possible to make a VU-style meter using 4 dimmer channels? I'd like to use 4 incandescent lightbulbs with gels. They would be horizontal like @@@@ with the gels in green, green, yellow and red.

I'd like to control them entirely from Sunlite 2004 First Class if possible. This would include playing a midi bass drum sequence (1 measure loop) and increasing/decreasing the tempo.. If that's not possible, I'll use the drum machine again going into the computer's line input.

So the general idea here is convert line input sound to 4 channels of dimmer, in the style of a VU meter. It doesn't need to be '*accurate*, it just needs to move like @, @@, @@@, @@@@ based on incoming volume.

Any ideas? I need to have this ready in the next week and a half roughly.

Many thanks in advance!
-Eric

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:00 am

Hello,

You can do that with the "Graph audio IN" feature of the "Sequencer" rack. This enables to create a VU light with up to 216 channels.

Shep2112 · Post by **Shep2112** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 3:03 pm

This feature is built in??

Wow, you guys thought of EVERYTHING..

I'll try it out right now, thank you!

Shep2112 · Post by **Shep2112** » Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:07 pm

I set this up and enabled the Audio In and the Audio Analysis window. I see activity in the Sound to Light and/or Sequencer windows (the red lights at the top of the window). But I don't have any dmx activity, regardless of where I set the faders at the bottom of the window.

Did I miss a step?

Thanks!
-Eric

machtl · Post by **machtl** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:11 pm

turn on the tool, when you see the red lights at the top of the window, select 1 to 16 of them with the left mouse button, then click with the left mouse button on the dmx-channels below you would like to connect with. done. (if you select the dmx-channels below with the right mouse button, the channel will work inverse)

Shep2112 · Post by **Shep2112** » Sun Aug 21, 2005 4:18 pm

Ah hah! Thank you so much! I was wondering what clicking on the red lights on top did, I noticed the outline, but I guess I never clicked below after doing that.. It's working great!

Many thanks!
-Eric