Using MIDI Controller to Suppress Clips?

[letthead]

Hi everyone, I'm a fairly new Resolume Arena 4 (PC) user and have thoroughly enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the software over the last few weeks. I now have a client with an unique request I'm hoping I can get some feedback for.

This client is looking for a game show element to their event. There will be a "Family Feud" style head-to-head during which contestants will use a ringer to chime in. I've built some video assets to be triggered by the footswitch inputs on my APC40 and it works like a charm with the exception of the fact that one ringer needs to keep the other ringer from chiming when it's pressed. And I have to assume that both contestants may not ring in every time.

I've gotten it to work by setting up a blank dock and having each footswitch trigger both the ringer video AND a blank dock panel, which instantly causes the other footswitch to trigger a clip that's not there, because by that time it's switched to the blank dock. The issue with this is that I have to manually switch back to my main dock and that makes me nervous because of how it seems to want to re-load all the clips when I do that, and I've experienced a crash a couple times - something I cannot afford to happen during the show.

Anyway, I hope this is making sense! I'm looking forward to any suggestions for what to try. Thanks in advance.

[Sadler]

I would think the only way to be sure is to remove the midi mapping for all subsequent buzzers after the first has been pressed. This can't be done in Resolume AFAIK but perhaps could be done in processing, pd, max or vvvv where there is enough logic and control to turn off mappings and recreate them for the next question.

[letthead]

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately I don't know anything about the systems you mentioned. Would you be able to point me in the right direction to find out more? Which one do you think would be the easiest to learn and use for this application?

[Sadler]

http://processing.org/ - Free and easy-ish text based programming with OSC and midi libs
http://puredata.info/downloads/pd-extended Free and easy-ish visual programming with midi libs
http://vvvv.org/ Free-ish and easy-ish node based visual programming with midi...
http://cycling74.com/ Not free (but player is) simliar to PD

Hard to say which would be easiest to learn - depends on whether you're a visual or a coding person.

[letthead]

Thanks again! Lots of exploring to do. I'll let you know how it turns out!