help with matching QS and Freestyler to music

[jammah]

Hi all,
I am fairly new to working with lasers in the club scene and Im looking for some advise with regards to live shows and matching the music.

at the moment I run two full color Lasers off 1 FB3 the second has the x inverted, and I use freestyler to control a pair of moving heads as well as 8 led cans and a pair of large strobes.

I run the lot off 1 laptop with a second screen, QS on 1 freestyler on the other.
In freestyler I have sequences made up for each of the dmx groups and a couple extra sequences made up for a all out strobe and a music mode for cans, all saved as cues. I have assigned these cues to keys on the laptop so I can easily click them on or off and I find that combined with the master speed allows me to have some basic music matching, I slow speed down for rifts, drop all out strobe for big drops and fade in or out different lighting groups for effect.
On QS I find it much harder to beat match, If you use the inbuilt beat counter and virtual LJ the only way (to me) it looks well in time is if it is set to change cue every beat, which ends up too erratic, I have found I get best results using virtual LJ but on every 16 beats, left at 120bpm and using the live control animation speed to match tempo and brightness to fade in and out.
here is where I get stuck
Keys on the keyboard change cues and effects for the dmx lighting on freestyler, and quickshow is on the second screen, If I adjust anything on the quickshow side it makes that program the active window and the keyboard keys dont affect freestyler anymore, untill I slide the curser back to the first screen and click, so getting Both programs to work at the same time is a nightmare.
Wow sorry for the long explanation but I diddnt know how to put it shorter
soooo
what are my options?
can you get a Midi controller that I can assign things from two different programs?
second laptop?
ditch freestyler and go back to my old dmx desk?
does pangolin's LD2000 or livepro work better?
or maybe does Phoenix work well?

any help would be really appreciated, Im new to this and it wouldn't surprise me If Im going about this completely the wrong way LOL

The club I work in plays hiphop 1 second dubstep and house the next and pub anthems to fill the gaps so live control is really nessacary, Im really keen to hear how you guys work with dmx lighting and lasers at the same time LIVE

Cheers
James

[norty303]

Yes, you can assign a midi controller so different channels are assigned to different applications.
Personally, I do all the things you suggest, separate computers for lighting and lasers, dedicated midi controller for lasers and 'wing' for lighting, and touch screens.

[jammah]

Thanks norty, after posting I continued looking and ended up ordering a enttec dongle and I'm looking at midi controllers now