we've got a lot of nice feedback from ourlast video, the performance we did at praguequadriennal so we decided to make a tutorial video about how we did the performance because quite many people were askingabout technical details.
how to make lights dance to music, so, we are going to show you how it wasdone! you might think that in order to create some cool and awesome lightinginstallation you need a lot of technology andexpensive gadgets,
but this is not true. in order to re-create our soundkitcheninstallation, there are couple of things you might needto buy, but this is definitely not a high-budgetperformance! the first thing you are going to need is aprogram called lightjams. you can download it's free trial from theinternet. this program allows you to control lightsby incoming audio signals. you will need a special cable to connectyour computer to your lights. this will convert data from usb to alighting standard called dmx.
this cable is very much used in theatreand showbusiness, you can buy this kind of a cable for about30 euros. if you have some smartlamps around, that change colour and move around bythemselves, you can probably connect dmx cabledirectly to the lamp. we, on the other hand, wanted to useregular household lamps for our performance. to control the lights we are going to usethis big box here. this is called the dimmer, and what itdoes
is to control the voltage of electricity, so we can control the intensity of the lightbulbs. this one here cost me about 500 euros, but you can find similar one starting from200 euros. my dimmer here has this very big powerplug, but i'm using an adapter to connect it tomy living room wall, so that i can use it at home. i can connect up to 6 lamps to thisdimmer and i have attached one that we are goingto try out now
how it works with a lightjams. i have set lightjams to respond to thesound from laptop microphone so i can influence lamp here with everysound that i make using the microphone is quite simple. you just plug it in and have fun. what you should understand about it, is that microphone, or even mp3, givesyou a solid signal it only has one parameter - volume. which means means that there is nodifference between voice,
the sound of drums behind you or yourcat meowing in the background. if you want to do more than that, youshould use midi. midi is a technology that allows computerand digital musical instruments exchange information and talk to eachother. usually they exchange the midimessages. midi message contains information aboutvelocity, tone, pitch and all the other parameters of the note. or basically each key that you press. the technology was invented quite awhile ago,
so now even the entry level keyboardshave the midi inputs and outputs, those five-pin ones on the back of yourkeyboard. some soundcards, and i meanprofessional soundcards, come with the midi inputs as well, however most of us are using thosebuilt-in soundcards. so what you will need is the actualadapter, thatwill convert midi into usb. you can pick up one of those for about 50euros in your local music store. if you have the modern keyboardshowever, they already have the usb-midi.
so you just plug it into your computerplug it into your set and we are ready to go! now you can play a round with yourkeyboards, triggering the different lamps. we, however, went a bit further - we haddifferent musical parts controlling various lamps at the sametime. let me explain how it works. to do this you will need a special kind ofsoftware called the sequencer. there are a lots of differents sequencerson the market,
i'm using the one called cubase, but you can find much cheaper optionslike program called reaper. now, midi standard has 16 channels which means that you have 16 streams ofmidi messages that can go at the same time, controllingthe sounds of your keyboard - any parameter of the sound -, or theactual loudness. now, i believe that even after watchingthis video, you still have some questions. you can contact us! go to our websiteand send us a message!
we'll gladly help you with any questionsyou might have about the project. and there is one more thing. down in the description you can find alink to johanna's submission to the philipslight world tour. so please go there and vote for her!
if you want to see more cool videos fromus and especially from her, travelling around the world andwriting stuff about the lights and all these fancythings. thanks for watching! bye!
