Tonight we made headway in figuring out the Elation Cyber Pak 8 midi/dmx dimmer pack.  The core group ( the three students and myself that are working out the bugs of the software and hardware before  teaching it to the rest of the class )  started going through the dimmer documentation.  It is pretty thin at best, it took us a while of trial and error and web searches to determine the device responds to only one midi channel and the dimmers are tied to a single midi note.  If the pak is set to 4 channel, then midi notes 1 through 4 are used.  As the velocity of the note is increased, so is the power to the channel.  We were using the noteout object in max.  I am almost certain I can use the midiout object.  The immediate issue with the noteout object is that we get pulses of whichever duration is currently set.  The next thing to test will be if I can just send a midi note on and then a midi note off as distinct events.

The rest of the class is engaged in the first of the video projects.  An essential "warm-up" exercise in Adobe Premiere.

Video of tonights work.