The Lighting Controller

The manual which is for V6.2 shows preferences for Timeline, specifically for adjusting BPM. I've built a complicated sequence of cues in a timeline using a music track as a guide. But when played live, I'd like to be able to adjust the overall BPM if this is possible. If not, what is the BPM tool in the time line popup do?

Thanks for all the help being given here.

The "BPM tool" sets the manual BPM.
Only the scenes with "Light Event properties" set to "Manual BPM" follow the manual BPM.

oh…it didn't dawn on me that you had to set that property for each SCENE! Thanks!

ok, so I made a copy of my timeline to test. I enabled 'manual BPM' in all the scenes. I put in the BPM tool at the beginning of the first timeline. When I change the time, nothing happens. I see the number change, but the progression remains the same. I tried inserting the BPM tool on all timelines being played (there are 8) I tried disabling the audio track.

Timelines is a great feature. It seems to be the only practical way to program the really complex cues I want, but I really would like to be able to adjust the speed at which it plays.

I made a little test time line that had 3 scenes containing 2 steps each. It seems like I could alter the time of the steps in the individual scenes w/ the BPM function, but not the overall time.

I'm not sure I'm being clear. What I really want is to vary the speed or tempo of the the entire timeline. The easiest way to visualize this is to think of that moving cursor speeding up or slowing down. If that could happen, this software would be unbeatable.

You can build very cool shows with timeline and do things I don't see possible with just linking buttons in Live Mode together, but being able to expand or compress the timeline to fit a beat is really important. A band is not alway going to play at the same tempo every night.

BTW: I'd be happy to upload one of my test timelines if you want to see what I mean by a complex set of cues.

The BPM tool effectively adjusts the time between each step.

You can post a zip of your lightshow. We will have a look at it.

Ok, so it can only adjust the time between step? Steps being what make up a scene….right?

But it can't alter the time between scenes?

In timeline, the scenes are my building blocks. Lets say I have a scene which is a red wash, and my next scene is a blue wash. In timeline I position them so I get a quick cut between scenes (cues) on a half beat.

Example: red goes" 1 and 2 and 3….. then on "and" it flashes to blue, then comes back to red on the 4 count. This is a lovely musical (but tedious!) way to program. But I need to be able to change the tempo of the count.

I don't care about altering the BPM of steps. My scenes for the most part are only a single step, just a static look. I have a few multistep scenes for fade effects or to get some pulsing actions.

I know how in other threads you've talked about not adding new features for now but if this ability to adjust w/ the over all speed of playback of the timeline exist( and I don't know how to implement) or if it could be added, it would give this software a huge advantage over anything else I've compared with it.

Not every musician wants to play with a backing track to sync lighting, but if someone could just tap a button to set tempo…..that would be a game changer.

Can I export just one timeline to upload for you to see what I mean?

Again thank for the help. There are things about this software that are genius, but sometimes hard to find!

here's a screenshot of my time line for the first part of the song "locked out" by Bruno Mars not sure how to upload the file to demo, but you can see the cues.

Hello? Anyone there? The live buttons may work for DJ's but for bands, timeline programming is the way to go, but to really make this practical, the idea of modifying the playback speed of the entire timeline (not individual scenes) is crucial.

I can't wrap my head around programming songs with multi step scenes. Maybe 2 steps for a fade or a pulsing effect at most. Timelines make sense to me.

I am still demoing all the DMX programs out there. If this product could do that (vary the playback speed of timelines) it would beat them all.

So far I love 1) Runs on Mac, 2) 3D visualizer 3) Timelines 4) scene stacking in Timelines (awesome!) 5) MIDI and DMX control (also awesome) and all for a reasonable price.

Noted.
Waiting to see if "single person" requirement, or not.