Any shy lighting designers here? I want to use timecode by myself without full collaboration.
Hello, lighting designers of Earth.
Today I did a hip-hop show and programmed the entire show with LTC timecode.
But since there was no proper timecode collaboration with the DJ/artist side, I ended up manually starting playback from REAPER myself and trying to follow along.
The problem is… I keep listening for one beat before hitting play, so it never becomes perfectly tight timing lol ㅠㅠ
The flow feels much better with timecode-based cues, but because the start timing depends on my hands and ears, it drifts a little every time.
Honestly, I also feel a bit awkward bringing up:
“Let’s run the whole show with timecode.”
So I’m curious if there are other people quietly running LTC by themselves like me.
- What kind of workflow do you use for DJ/hip-hop shows?
- Do you add count-ins or dummy intros before the song?
- Do you manually trigger the first cue and let LTC handle the rest?
- Are you using REAPER, QLab, Ableton, or something else?
- How do you keep things feeling tight when you're starting playback yourself?
Would love to hear real experiences or survival tips from others haha.
