My escapades in the wonderful world of midi - connection problem in Win7 finally solved!

I finally cracked the hard nut and I'm somehow very very satisfied with my achievements. And I want to share what I learned.

I have been fiddling with the possibility to control GrandMaOnPC with midi fader-extension for a long long time. First attempts were about a year ago with BCF2000 by Behringer. I didn't get very far with this since the Windows 7 Pro refused to recognize my gadget. I managed to establish the fact that the problem lays, not within the gadget itself or the software I wanted to connect it with, but with Win7. At that point I didn't find a solution to overcome the obstacle. I had all the necessary drivers and the device management claimed that the thing is working properly. Nonetheless, the controller was useless because none of my programs could see it. It was just not enough to install the manufacturer's driver. So, I gave up.

But now I'm back again since I really need the function for the show I'm working with and bought myself a nice and slick Korg nanoKontrol2 for that. So I looked into it again. And did some serious googling. It seems that the problem is a common one. I found (again) loads of discussion threads complaining about the exact same problem, but no obvious solution. -Until I stumbled upon this video clip on Youtube (below). It explains how to connect a midi controller to Pro Tools and Reaper in Win 7. I wanted to use the midi for another application but nevertheless the magic trick is the same.

The thing is that Win 7, or basically any version of Windows above XP, can only handle up to 10 midi devices. I thought that this couldn't possibly be a problem for me, since I never tried with midi before. So how on earth all the seats could be taken if I only once plugged in the Behringer??? Anyhow. What this brilliant guy, coolconvertible999, suggests is that one should open Regedit and navigate down to Microsoft driver32 folder to see what's cooking there. When I did that, I realized that actually all the positions were filled with the generic Windows audio drivers and my actual Korg driver did not show at all even though the device management informed that everything is installed and working properly. So I went ahead and deleted all the entries except the the initial "midi" entry. After that I installed the driver for Korg again and BUM! -There it was. This was the most important thing to fix. WhooooaYippeeHooray!!!

This was a start. At least I now had the gadget connected to my laptop, but I still was far away from being able to use it.

I already had MidiOx, which is a free midi-mapper utility, installed on my computer so the next step was to open it to see if the gadget is sending something. Everything checked out, but still GrandMA didn't connect with my controller. At this point I cross-referenced with a little light controlling program called "Acidlight" and there it worked just fine after assigning some notes. So further study was required. By doing this I learned that GrandMA can somehow only process midi notes and not the control change messages which Korg sends natively. I needed to translate the messages. The MidiOx can do this quite easily and the transmission can be monitored over the program.

MidiOx port configuration

Still nothing on Mama. Hmmmm... Back to Google. I need virtual midi ports GrandMA can listen to. In MidiOx there should be inbuilt MidiYoke which is supposed to create exactly this, but somehow I didn't manage to get it running. So I looked for an alternative and decided to go with LoopBe1 which is a free virtual midi driver. I configured MidiOx to get midi signal in from Korg and send it out to LoopBe which I set GrandMA to listen. Then it was down to write some notes to mama's midi remotes and again BUM! -There it was. For overview and quick editing the "Kontrol Editor" program provided by Korg is very easy to use.

Below some screenshots of  my set up:

MidiOx data mapping

GrandMA options for midi in/output

Console controls

Some notes

It was a long road but I finally arrived to the finishing line and can't wait to give the set-up a real test drive in few days. But as it seems, everything should work just fine. Maybe my configuration is not the most intelligent one, but at least it is finally up and running. And maybe this post might help someone else solve similar problem.

Now I'm going to look into the original idea of using Behringer again and see if I get that operational. It would have motorized faders... luxurious. Albeit for me the NanoKontrol2 was more appealing alternative because of it's very light weight and compact size. I-I'm trying to keep my system as portable as possible. Now it all still fits into a normal backpack with two days' change of clothes =) =).

I'll keep you posted about my findings =)

Prolight + Sound

In the end of March I went to Frankfurt to attend to Prolight + Sound, which is one of the most renowned international fairs of event technologies and services.

I've been wanting to visit this annual fair already for couple of years, but somehow I never managed. -Well overdue to update my knowlegdebase on what's cookin' the the industry nowadays.

So better later than never. And this time it was actually pretty close to perfect, since I hooked up with a friend of mine who'd been there already for two days. In addition to having a chance to pass all the latest gossip, he was my brilliant private guite to the selection. No need to hover around the trivial =) Thank you so much, Pikku-Markku!

What is hip and hot and cool today?

I was pleasantly surprised that my knowledge is not so hopelessly out of date as I feared. Nothing really mind-blowing was on display, but it doesn't mean that things haven't progressed.

LED
Today's magic word is LED. The conventional halogen fixtures have completely disappeared from the market. And finally it seems that the LED technology has reached the point where an adequate luminance starts to be a standard. So there is finally something really coming out of those buckets and the beam has even and smooth color-mix without multicolored shadows. Good example of this would be JBLighting with their A8 and A12 moving heads.

One nice invention was presented by ShowLed. This is a fully customizable LED-net which you can for example rig on the backside of a normal truss. If you hang a projection foil on the fronside, the distance of 20-30 centimeters is enough to produce smooth picture with pleasant contours. No dots or other disfigurements of the color / brightness are visible. One possibility to control the images on the net is to use Arkaos or other videoDJ-program as source. Veeeeery nice.

I was looking for simple LED-Pars, but they also seem to have vanished from the smörgåsbord of more convincing manufacturers. That I found bit strange, but I guess one can include the movement option to the gadgets nowadays without major extra cost, so why not do so.

Widescreen video image showcased as "split screen" by ShowLed

Also LED "mirrorball" is available today. Artmos.

Recycling
One of the coolest ideas on the selection was displayed by ADB. Thay have designed this LED module that can be constructed to the body of any of their old luminaires like profile, PC or Fresnell. -It is sort of a ecological idea where you can prolong the lifespan of your old fixtures without having to replace them completely with new technology. Me like.

Another similar idea comes from a company called Seachanger. They produce gadgets that turn an old ETC S4 profile into a dichroic color changing light fixture. Company provides also different kinds of interchangeable bulb-modules in collaboration with another company. So you can really pimp up your old profiles. Aesthetics may suffer a little, since after the work-up the gadget looks more like an odd space weapon, but who cares; "Kattoon ei kukaan kato! (Nobody looks at the ceiling!)" 

Cuties
A bright pink light console Hydra Piccolo by LT-Light with full controls for moving heads. Need I say more???

Pretty in pink

To summarize:
I had a wonderful day in Frankfurt. The mere size of the fairground is mindboggling and I had really enough of beaming, blinking and spinning things in one day to last for a while. It was a godsent to have Pikku-Markku there with me, so I could easily skip all the crap and concentrate on the good stuff. And of that there was plenty too. I have somewhat set my sights on acquiring the MA on PC software with necessary nodes in order to go independant for my touring. -And managed to convince the rental company I'm working for that they should look into the offerings of JBLighting when planning future purchases =)

It was also great to meet so surprisingly many friends and colleagues from Finland during that one day!