How to Automate Lighting for a Live Show with LightKey Featuring We Three

[@chrischisnall6966]

Hi David, just wanted to say thank you for your extremely well made videos. You have a wonderful, logical and engaging way of explaining how things work.

[@jaspermelly]

My band is using LightKey and Ableton tracks/automation and I can say it’s friggin amazing

[@MrSublimely25]

Hey jasper I am looking to do the same thing and can’t find what I need to know, we play pop and rock covers, I have a MacBook pro m2 ableton live lite and Lightkey, where the heck do I go from here?

[@jaspermelly]

@@MrSublimely25 with lightkey and ableton you already have everything you need to start automating your lights. Start with creating a lightkey project with some preset buttons and try to find this lightkey project in Ableton, from there it will go quite easy

[@jaspermelly]

@@MrSublimely25 kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y3ymhZJmpbqfbbs

[@bluemanshoes]

Thanks for the video! One question, how do I program Ableton to switch from each scene I've created for each song? Like you mention at 5:46

[@SimonElmlund]

How can i control the faders when I’m using Ableton live triggers? If I use for example a dimmer for foh lights? Saw u talking about it, but how do I do this in practice? :)

[@LostStarsband]

How do you sync the bpm in lightkey to ableton? Having trouble getting timed fx to sync properly

[@hodgesofficial]

Hey David, looks like all your links are broken for Learn Stage Lighting

[@MatthiasMandl]

If I'm using a sample pad to play backing tracks in a live setting, could I use midi out from the pad to fire off a lightshow straight from lightkey?? (forgoing a middle man software)

[@LearnStageLighting]

You could potentially do this with LightKey's cuelist functionality, yes. The problem is that you would have to keep perfect time, which is why a DAW is typically used, to keep the artists in sync with the lightshow via backing tracks.

[@jameshicks3847]

Hi David - thanks so much for all your lightkey tutorials - really helped me get going programming lights for our band set up. In this video you say 'the band can use this at all their upcoming live shows'. Does this mean its possible to keep this live show, and efficiently apply it to new, different or additional fixtures? Or would they have to carry the exact same package with them? We have a couple of shows coming up soon where we may have to use different lights - I'd love to be able to simply switch all the programming over to the new fixtures. Is this possible? James

[@LearnStageLighting]

Not in LightKey, - that is a feature that pro-level consoles have.

[@jameshicks3847]

@@LearnStageLighting I thought this might be the case! Thanks for your reply :)

[@0419210317]

hey David, how do I get the lights to stop when I stop the track during the song playing? the lights just stay on. I run Ableton off an Spd-sx so when I hit stop, the lights won't turn off. any help is much appreciated!

[@LearnStageLighting]

Set it to a scene where the lights aren't doing anything

[@0419210317]

@@LearnStageLighting *UPDATE* I Figured out I just needed to route the "deactivate all cues" to the same midi note as my Roland SPD pax that is used to stop the tracks.

[@walterjohnson8192]

How do you sync the light show with an MP3 rather than Ableton?

[@williamthomas4852]

Hey David, I'm new to lightkey. Do you have any videos or know where I can find more information on Ableton and Lightkey working together. I think you had a free guide to this, but the link didn't work.

[@LearnStageLighting]

Hey William, we have some great LightKey tutorials on our website. Feel free to join us there: learnstagelightinglabs.com

[@lightingFM]

Chauvet ShowXpress (aka SweetLight in Europe) has a neat timeline feature too ;)

[@jessecoonen7805]

The toggle behavior in lightkey isn’t super friendly. Basically you can’t just play a song in ableton at any point because if you have a cue triggered by a midi note, you might intend on it turning on during the first instance of the midi note being played. Therefore you can’t skip ahead to a spot and for it to work unless you do a cuelist and each cue mapped to a specific note? Not sure if this works in lightkey though

[@Sebyyy_1]

Would anyone know if you could use reaper for this?

[@LearnStageLighting]

Yeah, should work no problem, MIDI is MIDI :)

[@DTPGMedia585]

For people doing this live all the time please remember, Put UPS in between the computer and all the lighting. So in case off a breaker outagte for your computer plugs You have so much time to get people out Before the mac shuts off and then turns all the lighting off. (Annoying feature about digital boards)

[@jaspermelly]

Thanks for this tip, could you explain what a UPS is and how it prevents the lights to shut off in case of an outage?

[@LearnStageLighting]

Yep, though most folks I work with just use laptops, so that's not an issue.

[@LearnStageLighting]

A UPS is just a battery backup - so that if the power goes out, you don't have to wait for the computer to boot up, then open the programs, etc.