Magic Music Visuals

a certainly far-fetched idea came to mind. there are apparently DMX controllers (standard thing to control lights) that allow for midi input. sooo, what if magic was also able to output MIDI values? that way you could control your projection and additional lights/lasers/whatever at the same time.

this could be done with a midi-OUT module in addition to the magic module, where one could connect the values of certain modules, like a beatclock or volume or midi input stuff. for example with my midi controller fader i fade in a video (alpha and brightness of a colorHSB module go from 0 to 1). that colorHSB module is connected to the midiOUT module which gets the value going from 0 to 1, transferring it to a dmx controller, transferring it to a light.

from what i've seen so far, maybe a conversion into a midi note would be necessary. will do further research .

what do you think about this ?

A couple people have asked about that, but it would start to make Magic a different kind of application (more of a MIDI router/processor -- not just something that creates visuals). So it's not a huge priority in my mind, especially because you can hook up your MIDI controller directly to the DMX input as you said. And if you need to modify the values in between, there are many other programs that specialize in that, such as Bome (https://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator).

I'd really have to think about it to make sure it's the direction I want to go.

i understand that of course. is it possible to use the same midi controller to controll multiple programs on the same computer?

Another solution is to use Resolume Arena as your base software. Magic is a great tool, but it is not a stand alone VJ solution. However, Arena is, and also it will control DMX lighting natively, plus a lot more features in line with what you seem to want to do. And, Magic through Spout to Resolume works fantastically.

One other great benefit is, you can then have tons of smaller Magic projects, because if you want to close one out and open another, you still have Arena sending video to the output. That way you don't need a gigantic magic file with a 100+ of scenes just to get through a night of work. Plus, it allows you to create new Magic content on the fly since you can stop the Spout sender while you set it up and then bring it back in when it's ready.

FInally, regarding lighting, my experience has been that either the show is so big there is a professional lighting guy on hand and you just work with them in concert all evening, or it's so small the lighting does it's own thing. I've never been in a situation where I needed to control the lighting personally, although I'm sure there are times when it would be necessary.

i understand that of course. is it possible to use the same midi controller to controll multiple programs on the same computer?

Yes, definitely . You can use the utility I mentioned above, or many other similar ones, to route MIDI input from one hardware device to multiple applications.

One other great benefit is, you can then have tons of smaller Magic projects, because if you want to close one out and open another, you still have Arena sending video to the output. That way you don't need a gigantic magic file with a 100+ of scenes just to get through a night of work. Plus, it allows you to create new Magic content on the fly since you can stop the Spout sender while you set it up and then bring it back in when it's ready.

Magic 2.0 will address some issues like those.

dj0le wrote:Another solution is to use Resolume Arena as your base software. Magic is a great tool, but it is not a stand alone VJ solution. However, Arena is, and also it will control DMX lighting natively, plus a lot more features in line with what you seem to want to do. And, Magic through Spout to Resolume works fantastically.

i realize that, maybe i do need to look into other software. i just really like magic though

What about a midi player plugin that would play midi files as control sources?
I could really use this because it would allow a specific midi note velocity to be available as a parameter control.
As a computer based producer, I generally am controlling all instruments by midi.
A simple midi file export from my daw to Magic would grant me very specific control over specific module parameters.
Cheers,
Ken

That exact feature is planned for Magic 2.0 (due out later this year).

Yes!
Thanks for the ongoing development of Magic.
I can't wait for Magic 2.0.

Hi,

I actually posted about this same thing a long time ago, and just came back to see if there were still any requests comments going about this.. As a continued user of magic 2.0 I would still love love love this feature! I think a lot of other people would too

Eric I think you are selling yourself a bit short by saying that adding this to magic would just make another redundant midi translator!

I use Magic, Arena, and Bome simultaneously almost every day and could see endless reasons and uses for this..

Resolume is great, especially in combination with Magic, but is not useful for generating any interesting midi controls, and very limited with its FFT input.
It does not support multiple channel audio inputs and resolume HQ has stated they have no immediate plans to. It cannot even separate the inputs of a two channel input. Magic could be used as the audio input section to animate any parameter of Resolume or ANY other midi software/hardware to any frequency of any input..

Bome can not do anything with an incoming audio signal and cannot do anything interesting such as generating a sine wave from a single midi note..

I just think magic is the best at what it does as far as translating live inputs into easily controlled data and I want to do more with it!! Anyway, Hope you do keep it in mind!

Keep up the great work!!

Sure, thanks for the feedback . To be honest, if I were to create some functionality for MIDI output, I think it would be best served as a separate lightweight standalone app. Magic is pretty resource-intensive, and it would be overkill to use it only for generating MIDI. It would be better not to deal with the graphics at all and just have pure audio-to-MIDI or audio-to-OSC. It would also be less expensive for people who don't already own Magic. So perhaps there's a possibility for a new product somewhere in the future! No promises though

No prob. And good idea! Maybe it could be available as a standalone app AND as an extra add on module purchase for performer edition. Sign me up!!