Controlling the Hog III with Crestron

You should be able to control the Hog 3 with anything that puts out Midi Show Control.

The Hog 3 doesn't take Midi over Ethernet directly. You have to feed the Midi directly into the console or into the I/O Processor.

Does anyone know how to make a Jands ESP II console a Hug 3 expension wing without the MIDI/Timecode processor?

Amir

Tony,

I doubt anyone has tried this. I actually have a Crestron system with an AV2, STX-3500C, and STX-1600C. I don't have a MIDI card, but I'll see if I can track one down to take a look at this. You should be able to just write SIMPL+ code to build and send MIDI strings for MIDI Show Control commands (since we don't have a full implementation of MIDI notes yet.)

The MIDI specification defines a maximum cable length of 50 feet. I haven't seen any kind of MIDI to ethernet adapter. The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is currently working on a standard called RTP that runs over ethernet / Internet and may replace MIDI.

Here is the actual RTP protocol RFC:
www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1889.txt

and here is an RTP FAQ page:
www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/rtp/faq.html

I hope this helps.

Amir,

It's been a long time since I used an ESP II, so this may not be completely accurate.

Based on the information I have and what little I remember, the ESP II is only capable of sending MIDI notes. Unfortunately, the Wholehog 3 does not het have a full implementation of MIDI notes. This is something we plan on adding and is currently logged as feature request #9052.

The Wholehog 3 will respond to a full set of MIDI Show Control (MSC) commands, so with the current software version you could connect to a different console that can send MSC commands and use this to play and release cuelists, among other functions.

O.K. thank you Tom
and what about a Jands Hog 250/600 ??? the 250 can be a wing for the Hog 3 ??

Amir

The MIDI specification defines a maximum cable length of 50 feet. I haven't seen any kind of MIDI to ethernet adapter. The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is currently working on a standard called RTP that runs over ethernet / Internet and may replace MIDI.

ELC LanNode4s are capable of sending Midi over LAN. Works pretty well. They do send RS232 over LAN as well... and DMX via Artnet.
Pretty cool thingies!

Cheers

Thanks for the good info, Denis. Have you had the chance to work with these before? How is the response latency when sending MSC commands? Can they handle running MIDI time code?

Hi Tom,

up to now I have not been able to do some on-site testing on this, I just know the unit is capable of doing this (this is also the way how the guys send WYSIWYG Autofocus commands to the console, which I have used before) and have done this a few times in the prepro-studio.
We at bright! preproductions have 4 of the "big" LanNode4 Units, and I think I might try it pretty soon. Also, sending MIDI time code over LAN would be pretty cool, because we do many things via MIDI time code and MIDI commands...

Just heared you're going to be at the Arcus booth at Prolight&Sound, so lets have a chat there if you don't mind.

Tom:

I think in this circumstance a 50' MIDI cable run is possible. It's just that I have a Moxa Serial to Ethernet converter and Cat5 cable already run to my location, and it seems a shame not to utilize that.

Do you know of any SIMPL Windows modules already written for sending MIDI info? Perhaps that's a question for Crestron.

Thanks for your help!

Tony

Tony,

Crestron has lots of good example files, but they don't generally provide them directly to end-users. They have a network of installers and programmers that they work with and don't cater to savvy end-users who want to program systems on their own.

I searched the web for simpl midi and came up with a couple of examples, but they seemed to be for the older CNSMX series processors. I would talk to your local Crestron dealer and see if they would be willing to track down some examples that are specific to your platform.

Thanks.

But I bet with some research on the net you'll find a program which converts midi into some ethernet stuff and convert it back to midi on another pc... this way you'd just need 2 midisports and 2 pc's...

Tom:

I work at a casino that is a member of the Gaming Partner program with Crestron, so I have access to support and integrated partner modules.

I have come accross some simpl+ files that can be built for series2 processors, maybe these are capable of that too. Do you have any links?

Thanks,
Tony

Tony,

If you have access to the private sections of the Crestron web site, then you certainly can get to some of the good info that I can't access. I'd see if you can search for anything on their private site that documents how to use simpl to build and send MIDI strings.

The only thing that I found that actually had examples for setting up modules was this link that was specific to the CNX processors is here:

www.crestron.com/downloads/pdf/product_manuals/cnxmidi.pdf

Amir,

The Jands Hog 250 / 600 series can send MIDI Show Control commands, so you should be able to use them to trigger a Wholehog 3 console.

Denis,

You are correct, I will be heading to prolight. I leave tomorrow morning to fly to Frankfurt. You should definitely stop by the Arcus booth and say hi.