Cuelists for each song?

[traviss]

Hi again everyone.

I've posted once or twice here at CB as I'm working on learning the ins and outs of moving lights and running shows for the acts that come through our theater.

I am constantly tasked with busking shows for our acts, and 90% of the time I have never heard the music before in my life. However I don't mind doing my research and looking up the music to see what I'm getting myself into and to prepare for the show.

My question lies with how I should set up shows in general. Let's pretend that I have a setlist so I know the songs the band is going to play. When setting up the cues/looks/ etc. Should I be creating a cuelist for every song or should I be using a couple of large cue lists and just using what seems to fit?

I'm using a Horizion Control Marquee ILC console which seems more than capable for the rig we have. Our rig consists of about 20 par64 LEDs, 40K of conventional pars, 14 Lekos, 16 Fresnels, 4 Mac 250s and two Vision Scan 575s.

I have total control over the rig, and have no problems putting looks on stage. I just don't know how I'm supposed to be running cue lists for bands. I understand how it would work with a theater production, but I'm having issues grasping the process of running shows for live music acts.

Just wondering if anyone out there with music lighting experience could help me out.

Thanks

[JD]

The one thing about live acts is they sometimes scramble up the set lists right in the middle of the show. If you don't know what to expect, you may want to sort your cues by "Look" so that you have a pallet to play with as compared to a defined routine. This is one area of lighting where theater and music part ways.
Even the most professional bands will often change things around, especially if there is an equipment glitch with an instrument, or if a vocalist decides he is not up to singing a specific song.

[MNicolai]

Don't do it.

We had an Elvis gig last February I tried this on and ended up not touching a single pre-recorded cue stack. I used a lot of my pre-recorded presets and palettes, but no cue stacks. The band deviated from the songs with solos, extra bars where the band would play a while as the vocalist gets the crowd hyped up -- or in our case as "Elvis" goes wandering through the audience and improvising. Though they gave us the set list the day-of, the second half of the show was nothing like the list they gave us. If they had given it to us a week earlier so I had time to customize the show, I'm sure they would've deviated even further from the list -- changing their minds on what they're going to play as the week progresses.

For me, the purpose that night was to try using my console a little differently. I had a pretty good feeling that would all happen so I didn't pre-record more than a few cue stacks, but the time it took me to make even those few was not minimal. It was not an efficient use of my time.

If we were doing something more consistent (touring with a music group sync'ed with a click track and any number the band might play already has a cue stack in the console) or dance (because dance rehearsals like to rehearse out of order, making it difficult to record cues in-order), then I'd go sequence-per-track, but outside of that the most effective way to work is to only make presets/palettes in advance, then recall them as it seems appropriate.

A deeper layer to this is that if you pre-record lots of stuff that you end up not being able to use for the performance because the band had something else in mind or they changed the set list on you, you'll get frustrated mid-rehearsal or mid-performance because now that you're throwing out work you invested a lot of time in.

It's a potential source for the resentment for the programmer feeling towards the performers -- a cloud that you don't want to have hanging above you when it's showtime.

[bishopthomas]

I agree with everything Mike said. 100% of my shows are busked, so I know the benefit of general cues and palettes very well. In fact, I'd have to take some time to remember how to put my console (Avolites) in theatre mode to be able to hit the go button on a cue stack. Record position, color, and gobo palettes, put your dimmers and shapes on faders, and go from there. Have fun!

[MrsFooter]

A +1000 for not programming based on a set list. 75% of the time I won't get a set list, and of that 25%, 90% of the time I don't get it until less than 10 minutes before the show. And even if I were to get it days ahead of time, (which happens never,) that's almost never how it plays out. When I lit Ben Folds, I was handed a list and told that these are the songs he'd probably play, in no particular order. You just can't rely on it. Besides...how do I say this nicely...you're not being paid enough to do that much work. Of course, it's great to listen to a few of their songs, get an idea for their style and their vibe. It'll make you a better busker and less likely to be surprised by an sudden style change. But if the band wanted a perfectly lit show with the perfect hit on every downbeat by someone who knew every note of every song, they would have hired an LD. Do your homework, but don't bust your balls; you'll run yourself into the ground.

That being said, there's no reason you can't do some pre-programming. But instead of thinking of it as recording looks or A-Z cue stacks, think of it as building yourself a toolbox. Record some chases, some movement, some pallets, some sequences that can be used alongside your washes. Make them quick to access and be familiar with them so that when the music suddenly takes off you can grab what feels right. What I have* ready for myself is a series of cues in a stack, every cue with a follow and the last in the sequence linked to the first. Cue 1-1.9 is one sequence, cue 2-2.9 is another, and so on. Some of them are a series of looks, some are movements of a single system or between two systems. All times are 0, and I use the AB fader to take the time as the music dictates. Cue 100 is a blackout. Between these my major washes on subs and these 24 (as of right now) sequences I can do a surprising amount of busking quickly with seamless transitions.

*Keeping in mind that I am on an Express with an entirely conventional rig. Obviously by adding LEDs and movers you'll do your programming a little differently, but it's the concept that I'm getting at.

[traviss]

Thanks everyone for the replies. This has really helped me understand things and let me know that I'm not on the wrong path by trying to busk entire live music shows.

As I go forward I'm going to rely on pallets as much as possible as that seems like it will give me the most flexibility. I'm going to have to figure out how to get my console into a mode that will give me easier access to pallets though.

Thanks again everyone.

[bishopthomas]

Also, when using palettes... If your console allows fading into palettes then you'll have even more flexibility. I will snap to color/position palettes between songs to set up a new look, but during the song I might fade from one position to another over a defined amount of time. This works even better if there's haze. So I'll have a single fader that does a circle with the ML's, size and speed increasing as the fader position is increased. Then, using position palettes, I can fade from one static position to another as the music transitions from slow/fast, verse/chorus, etc. Two of my position palettes are up/out, and straight down. Then I can do a slow sweep over the audience as the song ends by fading between position palettes. The same goes with changing the color on the LED's and/or any CMY ML's you may be using.

[coldnorth57]

I also run a Marquee, so one of the trick I have tried is to build a few cues lists for the movers... cue 1 --postion 1 ... cue 2 --postion 2 and so on with 5 or 6 postion and then run them as a chase that I can change colour and gobs in.