Comments on: MIDI controlled fire drums

By: PocketBrain

PocketBrain — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:52:11 +0000

The trick with fireworks is timing; you can’t press a button and have a starburst appear overhead. You have to think several seconds ahead of time. Even fireworks displays that are synchronized to live music are constantly re-synced during performance. Stage pyro, on the other hand, is pretty quick; you could probably get it to work with a responsive system.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:27:52 +0000

Needs more cowbell….

By: Gavin

Gavin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:00:43 +0000

I was actually there, these things were loud as hell :) They also had it hooked up to a DDR mat at one point.

Much cooler in person

By: bish

bish — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:58:15 +0000

I thought MIDI was used for fireworks all the time. Gotta agree with durp, singing Tesla coils are cooler.

By: grovenstien

grovenstien — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:33:08 +0000

Check out Arcadia, they have done loads of stuff like this in recent years at festivals in the UK Beautiful Daze and Glastonbury. At Beautiful Daze they had an array of 12! Chasing them it was amazing!

By: Hopo28

Hopo28 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:44:33 +0000

“DMX512 is unidirectional and does not include automatic error checking and correction, so it is not safe to use for applications involving life safety, such as controlling pyrotechnics or laser lighting display where audience or performer safety is involved. MIDI is sometimes used for this task.”
from wiki, “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX512-A”

but i agree there is no error correction so this may be dangerous but for homebrew stuff MIDI is a wonderfully versatile protocol

By: Benny M

Benny M — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:15:05 +0000

BAM

By: hogiewan

hogiewan — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:54:48 +0000

It looks well synced to me. The fire was coming right between the beats (second 1/8 note of each measure)

By: RDB

RDB — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:43:59 +0000

rad. from the video it is hard to tell if the response time is good or if the tempo is synced to the lag, i.e. if you knew the lag was 1 sec you could play at 60bpm and it would look perfectly synced.

By: aimo

aimo — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:23:24 +0000

“midi-controlled fireworks, anyone?”

I think that a french guy did this already in the 80s, J-M Jarre. There was a pretty good description on how the (simultaneous channels etc) limitations of midi were over-come by using multiple midi-sequencers on individual buses using a common master clock source to drive both the music and the fireworks sequencers.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:22:04 +0000

“midi-controlled fireworks, anyone?”

As I understand it, MIDI does not contain a method of error detection/correction. This makes it unsuitable for life-safety applications.

Don’t try this at home, etc.

By: Phnepsilon

Phnepsilon — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:23:38 +0000

That’s the camp of SMGU (Spank My Glitch Up) at Firefly 2009. Give credit where credit is due :-p

By: bitSmasher

bitSmasher — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:14:47 +0000

do a search for “large hot pipe organ”

By: TheFish

TheFish — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:42:59 +0000

hmmmm, i like the idea of midi controlled fireworks!
gives me an idea for the next 4th of July.

By: Bill ate a Cat

Bill ate a Cat — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:36:25 +0000

It’s Ok….. I couldn’t tell if there was a midi lag or the dude had know Idea how to play the drums…