ShowXpress not functioning correctly.

[CharlJ]

Hello, I recently bought my second Chauvet Intimidator Spot 375z IRC. I want to be able to control my lights using ShowXpress but I want to be able to have them move to the beat of the music while changing the gobo and colour wheel like it does in the stand-alone sound activated mode. ShowXpress has 8 different Sound-Activated modes already added to the Intimidator 375z IRC dmx personality but all 8 modes just does the same pan/tilt audio movement without change the gobo or colour wheel. Does anyone know how to make use of the Sound-Activated Macros in the ShowXpress software for the Intimidator Spot 375z IRC?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Charl

[Coronaoperator]

Those macro's are movement only macros. You have to program your own color and gobos. There are lots of good tutorials on you tube for that.

[CharlJ]

Hi @Coronaoperator,

Thanks for your help. Do you have any suggestions on good tutorials?

Regards

[Coronaoperator]

Setup your movers and showxpress, go to youtube and search for "showxpress tutorial" watch all of them and follow along with your software and fixtures, namely you want to learn "steps" and "live". There is a big learning curve to get into DMX programming but showxpress is probably the easiest software to learn. It will seem foreign at first but you will eventually learn one concept after another and then be able to stack them to put on a show.

Essentially you make a "steps" file in "editor" where you have multiple steps. Click the add steps button above the white rectangle in the middle until you have a few steps. click on each step and select a color and only the color fader. Save that and then go to the "live" page, right click and "add steps scene" and add your file. Then right click that button and go to "speed properties" and select "auto bpm", you can then select if the steps change every beat, or every 2 beats, etc.

Then when you get that working you make another steps file for gobos and add that to your live page and do the same for speed settings. You can then make steps scenes for your own movements, prisms, etc.

Then when you want a show on the live page you start mixing and matching your buttons. Select a movement button, a color chase button, a gobo button, etc. Make lots of them so you can mix and match in endless configurations, this is called layering because you layer a color theme with another movement with another gobo theme. Make 10 of each of them and you have 1000 combinations.

Watch the tutorials and play along with your controller to get the hang of it. It takes time to learn so don't feel bad if you get frustrated, everyone does at first until they get the hang of it.

[CharlJ]

Hi @Coronaoperator,

I did go watch the tutorials, they are really helpful. I learned a few new tricks and even managed to have Virtual DJ send the beat information to ShowXpress using the os2l protocol. In my personal opinion it works way beter than the pre-programmed sound activated macros.

Really appreciate your help.

[Coronaoperator]

Hi @Coronaoperator,

I did go watch the tutorials, they are really helpful. I learned a few new tricks and even managed to have Virtual DJ send the beat information to ShowXpress using the os2l protocol. In my personal opinion it works way beter than the pre-programmed sound activated macros.

Really appreciate your help.

If you did that in one day, just think what you can do with DMX in a year from now? Of course it works better than pre-programmed files, you'll never be satisfied with pre-programmed demo files ever again, now you can make your lights do what YOU want.

Cheers!