Theolux: Technologies, Standards and Protocols

• The processing of inputs from the software and hardware interface, in order to produce the required lighting data output, is carried out by a custom software programme written by myself using the REALbasic integrated development environment. MIDI input and output, and audio input, and handled by Monkeybread Software’s plug-ins for REALbasic. The software runs on an Apple MacBook computer.
• Input from the hardware buttons and faders is captured by commercially available MIDI interfaces from MIDI Boutique and Doepfer, connected to the MacBook via a MidiSport 4x4 MIDI to USB interface.
• Output to the illuminated buttons is similarly achieved by a commercially available MIDI interface (Doepfer).
• The drum pad input is captured by a generic commercial piezo-electric device that acts as a crude microphone, connected to the MacBook’s audio input.
• The piano-style keyboard is a commercially available E-MU Xboard 25 MIDI keyboard, connected to the MacBook via USB.
• The lighting data output is an industry standard DMX signal generated by a LanBox LCX device. The custom software communicates with the LanBox using the UDP data protocol over Ethernet.
• Lighting data is stored by the software in XML format, using a custom document type definition.