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[Earl Teigrob]

I am a complete newbee to dmx and lighting.

I believe that all I need is a simple controller with beat activation for my needs. Are there any (low cost) hardware contollers that have PC emulation software where I can program the board and then download it to the hardware controller? I know M-Touch can do that but it is way more then i need.  Do any of the cheep ($150) controllers have software emulators? I may end up with an M-Touch but thought I would ask first.

Thank you.

[Lyle Williams]

Simle controllers are just that, very simple devices with one fader per dmx channel.

The PC-controlled surfaces are rarely independently programable.  They need to work with a pc/laptop attached.

There are plenty of software packages that talk DMX from a pc/laptop.  They will either need a USB-to-DMX interface, or talk "Artnet" (which is DMX-over-ethernet) which will require an Artnet-to-DMX interface.

One of the interface companies has a long list of DMX software:

https://dmxking.com/control-software

[Jeff Lelko]

Do any of the cheep ($150) controllers have software emulators?

Not that I'm aware of.  The closest that you can probably get would be a USB-DMX interface that offers some degree of standalone operation.  Even then, it's usually simple presets at that point and wouldn't take the place of an actual console where one would be needed.

One of the interface companies has a long list of DMX software:
https://dmxking.com/control-software

I'll throw in the Enttec USB DMX Pro as another widely supported interface.  This is what I have and used in my MagicQ PC days. 

Can you speak to your needs for beat-activation?  Most controllers with this capability are just guessing, as they only respond to various amounts of audio frequencies.  Some can "guess" better than others, but it will never take the place of an LD or console operator.   

[ProSoundWeb Community]