DMX / ArtNet Recording + Playback?

Beam for Live
1

Just a thought - is it possible or reasonable to record the output of a Beam patch digitally? using software instead of one of those hardware in-lin dmx recorders ideally.

Figure with max4live being the weakest link in the chain IMO, if I were to use beam m4l plugs to program and sequence a show, then record it , that would eliminate some failure points with plugins on stage no?.

Better yet if it was encoded as an audio file so that Ableton could playback the recording and have it internally routed to Beam to send to DMX interface to lights etc etc , that might be useful right?

would be wild if it could get rendered offline too… maybe some infrastructure similar to Melodyne or Revoice Pro?

2

I think Capture has some support for recording and playback of DMX: https://www.capture.se, you could give that a try. I don’t have experience with that myself though.

As far as recording in Beam itself goes - it is something we’ve thought of but not something I expect us to look into in the near future. Recording Beam’s output externally - through software or hardware - seems like the best approach for now.

All that said, we’re using Beam on stage regularly and would love to know if you’re running into any issues with Beam or Max for Live, since it’s absolutely our goal and expectation that our software can run on stage without issues.

3

Hello, im currently working on both an OSC + Art-Net Recorder specifically for BEAM engine. More about this as i go along. Im working on a project taking a lot of energy so documentation is not my priority right now.

But i can tell you, that i want to record the OSC port 39999 (this is where i need showsync’s expertise on infrastructure of the engine) and then play that back, preferably by timecode or via ableton timeline, into Beam engine again.

Im also designing a prototype of a timecode/AV-friendly art-net recorder in touchdesigner. That could be made in MAX aswell, im familiar with both.

One idea for Art-Net recording:

Encode an Art-Net universe into a movie file: Record a universe, into 1x512 (or 8x64, 16x32 etc.) pixels and encode raw into a lossless moviefile, that could again be decoded and played back very reliably! This could be expanded by utilising all of modern days video functionality: Multichannel, RGBA and metadata and so on. For example RGB could each represent a universe per color channel. so a regular video could be 3 universes, which is enough for most venues. and if that needed to be expanded, you could just add extra pixels.

So basically: using another medium/media (video) and its existing capabilities (RGB, Multichannel = pixels) and compatibility (supported everywhere basically) for other purposes. Basically as a control signal/messenger.

I also want to see if above is possible with OSC, but there’s and obstacle being that OSC is URLs instead of just channels and values (which both art-net and digital video is)

OSC-recorder would be more flexible and less venue-specific (best option IMO), Art-Net Recorder would for sure be more plain/dumb and IS venue-specific.

@Luka @hidde I think this could be very powerful. Lets get in touch about it - and maybe work together on it!

Hope it all makes sense - im pretty chaotic, so tell me if i need to go more in-depth or reformulate something

Thank you for these amazing products!!

lots and lots and lots of Love,

Jarl

4

@jarlkaad - FIRST - THANK YOU for the thoughtful , detailed post and for the insight. I must have opened the notification for this post while falling asleep as i completely spaced on replying , but for the best as i needed to learn a bit more and try a few things, wild to think how long ago this post was made. For what its worth - I’m currently using a setup this stilll has all relevant lighting automation in Abletons arrangement to lock with show audio and midi, however ive upgraded my diy fixtures [cheap knockoff LED matrices that i gutted the controller and stuffed in esp32-p4-eth and powercon i/o and run ethernet to my audio rig, fixtures config via web app and then are fed artnet from Beam and MadMapper by a priority gate on each fixture that allows for 2 different DMX addresses to be viable [secondary opens when first reads a defined number frames consecutively of all channels at 0] as i have yet to find a clever way to get the same color depth control inside beam m4l or max and not choke out the audio stream . There is something condensing between shader implementation and Videosync and Madmapper and Arkestra etc that is exciting but there is still a huge gap in my understanding of the timing and wishing for the same determinism on stage as audio provides , even when using softsynths. Thus my desire to record artnet. BUT your response echoed in my own hunt when i stumbled upon LightJams and its recorder on windows and realized their recording format was a video file and i suddenly remembered to re-read your post. Even then the idea didnt make sense but now it clicks and i chopped up my own version have been toying with either using video mirror output recording of surface in madmapper and serving that back to MM via Video sync syphon to impress some more musicla timing visually via videosync conrtolled effects cus the artnet handling in madmapper seems so robust for sending 10,s of thoughands of infdividual pixel info , but i am really curious your OSC experience in similar regards as ive had more trouble getting osc reliably in time with ableton its like 60/40 for me and thats not olkay for stage. im probably doing somehing worng as in theory it shouldnt be that bad for the few messages im sending and with the network i setup but we’ll see. How does your system compare with Chataigne? thats another one i am a little behind on fully comprehending or setting up with confidence. Anywhere i can follow your progress? thanks for your time and help.

5

Hey no worries! Very interesting :heart::sparkles:!

Lets maybe hop on a video/audio call and share our progress, and then we can share some of it here afterwards :slight_smile:

Im quite busy with Festivals this summer, but in super up for it, when i have some free time :blush:

Cheers, Jarl