Resolume Forum

Hi there.
Sorry, my english isn’t very good.
I’m using Arena 6.1.4 in a vinyl and VJing duo project, and in addition to the video sequences that I project I would like to send differents BPMs (that I would choose) to DMX LED lights in order to get flashes really synchronized with the music.
I bought an Enttec DMX USB device and DMX cable but after, I read on the the website that Resolume Arena does not work with this stuff.
I read that i could make it with “artnet” technology.
Could someone help me to understand how does it work in the simplest way possible? I search informations on this topic since days on internet but can't find tutorials that I can understand.
I work with a macbook pro 10.13.6 / 2,2 GHz Intel Core i7 / 16 Go 1600 MHz DDR3
but my budget is really limited for buying equipment and i'm looking for second hand...
Thank you very much if someone has the patience to explain to me a little!

What kind of DMX led lights do you have?

Artnet is just a slightly updated network version of DMX.
So starting from nothing, DMX is 512 channels in one XLR cable, each type of light fixture can take up a certain number of channels, so you have to patch those lights in software, which assigns a starting number for each light, you then set each light to have the correct starting number and jobs done. Each light receives the full signal so you can do tricks like give as many identical lights the same number, and they will behave identically.

Artnet is just an ethernet version of the same thing BUT you can have many universes... Meaning its a digital multicore of DMX.
Same theory as before, just works as an ethernet protocol where you have to supply the universe number AND dmx address while working in the ethernet part of the signal chain.

So you go from lighting software or resolume, you can have 2 lights, both universe 0 (artnet starts from 0, not 1, dmx starts from 1) but addresses 1 and 20 (for example) on the same XLR cable
OR you can have each light as DMX 1, with their own XLR cable but universes 1 and 2, using different outputs of the artnet node (artnet to xlr/dmx converter).

Software like artnetominator is excelent for helping you visualise what's going on.
Also dont need to go crazy with gigabit networks. Some of the most capable lighting desks that do huge arena shows have a 10/100mbps ethernet interface.
DMX in the end is a very old slow communication standard, then artnet in it's modern forms does not continually spit out all the data non stop.