Thread: How easy/practical is DMX to use?

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Alright, so first of all, I'm an apartment haunter right now (til the end of college...when I will hopefully get a real job that will enable me to pay for stuff haha). But, basically for someone with a good general knowledge of computers and their systems, how easy in DMX to actually setup/use?

Basically, I'm thinking about trying to go ahead and start investing in a DMX system that I could use to hook stuff up in the apartment during the year. ( sorta like this Emergency Party Button except nowhere near as cool...yet!) but, then I could also use it during Halloween to automatically turn down the lamps (maybe time them with a lightning effect?) and turn on my props that I'll have hooked up.

So, basically, although it's abit of overkill, I was thinking about investing in it so I could do some cool stuff with it through the year and start figuring out the system, that way when I can actually become a home haunter I'll already know some of its limits and can go from there. ....an item that I can grow and learn with, basically.

...or maybe I'm just missing something.

Normally DMX is fairly easy to use, however, recently there have been several problems with the hardware/software changes, but Im sure those will get fixed very soon.

As a control system its probably the most versatile to use, there is plenty of disco equipment that is DMX compatible, and lots of DMX controlling software available.

For haunting you need to decide what kind of system you want, ie do you just want a show that plays on a loop, or do you want something more interactive.

If its just the show you want then the basics are fine, and that's VSA plus the Enttec open USB, which is pretty much the DMX starter pack.

when you want to up the anti then you need a more sophisticated interface, adn thats where I come in, ive developed the Exorcist and DMXorcist system, which allows you to cue multiple routines for playback on triggers, VSA cant do this alone because it has no trigger interface, and it will only let you play one routine at a time DMXorcist can play 16 routines simultaneously over a single DMX network, meaning you can have background lighting routines and triggered effects running simultaneously over the same net

So it really depends upon your ambitions, if you want to keep everything small and manageable then maybe DMX is not for you, but should you change your mind then your initial
hardware may prove useless at a later date when you upgrade to a more versatile system.

However, to my knowledge, nobody and I mean NOBODY who has gone DMX has yet out grown it

You can start very small with the basics and have a lot of fun and expand over time to complexities yet to be imagined. I think though that most of the people who use DMX, and that includes all of the DJ's and stage type folks, mostly use hardware controllers. At least when I went outside of the forums here and onto the net or to telephone tech support from people who sell DMX equipment I found they had very little knowledge on controlling DMX with software.

I too am interested in some form of controler. I, though, am not very well versed in computers, I just use them. I am keeping an eye out for a system that can do a lot, but is easy to interact with. Maybe that will end up being DMX. What would be a good starting point? I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. Thanks.

There's a few things that are really nice about DMX. It's a standard with really good device support, so there's lots of stuff you can add on as you go. There's plenty of lighting fixtures and smoke machines you can find, but there are also several different 'hobbiest' type products that let you control other things (e.g.: my Medusa DMX). Also, it's able to run really long distances, which makes it nice for haunts.

I'd second pretty much everything Phoenix says, as well. All you need to get started (the way we do things around here, anyway) is...

$60 - VSA for generating the animation
$60 - Enttec DMX USB Open (to let your computer make the DMX signals)
$18 - 20' DMX cable

I've you're already a VSA user, you're looking at ~$80 to get started. Once you've got these in place, things are pretty simple from there on out. Using VSA is a little bit like using electronic music composition software.

And there's always all of us, to help out
- Hook

So, how would you go about using such a thing?

I mean is it just like, plug lamp A and B, smoke machine A, strobe lights C and H into it, run the VSA and make a command for it to dim lamp A down while turning strobe light C on?

Originally Posted by ChangedReality

So, how would you go about using such a thing?

I mean is it just like, plug lamp A and B, smoke machine A, strobe lights C and H into it, run the VSA and make a command for it to dim lamp A down while turning strobe light C on?

Actually that's fairly close. I would recommend going to www.brookshiresoftware.com and downloading their demo for VSA. Play around with that and I think they also have some tutorial information. Without the USB DMX Open, you won't really be able to test everything but it will still give you a good idea.

I made sort-of an introductory video showing the basics of how I hooked things up. That may also give you a sense of what's involved: Oh, by the way I said I was using Pro Enttec. My bad, I actually use the Open version.

YouTube- Boogedy Halloween prop how-to of DMX, pneumatics, VSA and sound