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Marcus Garfunkel (Closter, New Jersey)
MIDI Time Code (MTC) Display
Downloads for this project:
All files and information © 2006 Marcus Garfunkel.
Project Description:
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Click on Image for a close-up
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I have designed a MIDI Time Code (MTC) Display. It consists of an 8 digit 7-segment display which, using the SX-28AC/DP, decodes incoming MIDI messages and displays the current position in Hours, Minutes, Seconds, Frames format. The unit can be used for lighting / sound synchronization and real-time position feedback.
I thought of this idea after running a dance production for my high school. I had programmed the lighting console to execute lighting cues at certain times. The laptop would send Midi Time Code to the lighting board while playing music. This made the timing exact and the show awesome. There was a problem though. The lighting console would take about 5 seconds to ‘realize’ that it was receiving MTC before it would react. This made me have to have at least 5 seconds of silence before the start of the song. 5 seconds is not a huge problem, but anymore than that and it starts to confuse the dancers and the rest of the crew. The real problem is that during those initial 5 seconds, I would just have to hope that the board was receiving MTC so that I knew it would pick up and start on time. If not, the audio would start with no lights (very disappointing). In order to be safe without increasing the delay, I thought that a good remedy would be to have a device in between the computer output and the lighting console input, so that I would know exactly if the board was receiving MTC. The SX seemed like the perfect tool to use. I tried first with the BS2, but it ended up being a little to slow. The SX running at 20MHz was perfect. I was quite excited about this project, and it took me only 1 week to complete. I was planning on implementing many more features, including:
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Click on Image for a close-up
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- Buttons to start/stop internal MTC generator
- Internal count-down timer
- Mini-console with DMX output
- And a computer (midi) interface program to add more control.
School completely consumed my free time and hopefully in the future I will have these features underway.
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