Control/Dimming - Hog Vs. Vista

[dyarb]

Hello all, been a day or so. I am looking at doing some new installs at the church I work at, and am looking at installing some new fixtures, including some MAC 2000's profile, and possibly utilizing our existing MAC 600's, Im pretty set on the fixtures although wouldn't mind some feedback on the 2000 fixtures, or if there is a better light for the money right now. What I really want to know is some opinions on using a Hog VS Vista systems, pro's/con's. Let me know what you guys think, and I can answer any relevent questions to my situation that you might need to properly answer my question. Thanks.

[TimMiller]

The Hog and Vista are both great consoles. the style of programming on both of them are totally different. In the hog you work in a cue list like any other lighting console, in the Vista you work in a time line like you are editing video. When it comes to dance shows i love the vista, you can drop in all of your music, lay it out the time line for the music, then build your lighting timeline right next to it, makes life much easier. When it comes to theatrical lighting I like the hog, but dont mind the vista. The vista is a little clunky when it comes to dealing with large attributes, but i think the new software has been released or about to be released, which is an entrie rewrite of the software to address all of these issues. Also what vista and hog models are you looking at? Also I do not like the MAC2000's. They are kinda loud, and even when DMX is off, their fans are always running. Every tech i have talked to who works on mac 2000's say that if you lose a piece of glass in the color mixing module the whole color mixing system self distructs. The color mixing system in the MAC 2000 is made out of very thin glass, and it is shoved right up next to the lamp. Personally i like the ROBE 1200. I did a shoot out a while back, and the ROBE kicked the MAC2000's butt badly. In the ROBE the zoom is better, gobos are better, if i remember speed was about the same, I like the colors in the ROBE better, they were more concentrated.

[TechnicalProjectDesign]

See, Not having use the Robe 1200 like Tim has suggested above I'm not qualified to comment. I lean towards the Hog as my theatrical choice for musical theatre and it's good because it makes it easy to program position groups and have template for your venue which you can alter for whatever show you have. I've been VL ing for the last couple and we use Mac2K profiles a fair bit in the shows. Though I just did a gig with Robe 3000 DLP's....possibly the best thing ever.

[theatre4jc]

My church did a shoot out between the Mac 2K and the VL 3500. VL won hands down. We also are using a Vista which gives us the ability to create per song similar to what Tim said with his dance concerts. Basically we program per song and then gang them together to form our service. Has worked great for the past year and it makes it perfect for pulling past songs back up which saves on programing time.

[Grog12]

Originally Posted by theatre4jc

My church did a shoot out between the Mac 2K and the VL 3500. VL won hands down. We also are using a Vista which gives us the ability to create per song similar to what Tim said with his dance concerts. Basically we program per song and then gang them together to form our service. Has worked great for the past year and it makes it perfect for pulling past songs back up which saves on programing time.

You can do the same on a Hogg, MA or even Vector.

[TimMiller]

Pretty much any good moving light console will let you merge cue lists together. In the hog you can store over 1000 cue lists and you can link cue lists to cue lists, to trigger other cue lists. I strongly suggest checking out the robe, and dont be afraid to call up vendors and ask them for a demo. Call Robe, Martin, and varilite and ask them all for a demo, set them all up side by side, fire them all up and see what you think. Personally i hate the framing system that is in the varilite. Clay pakys framing system is the best one made. Once clay paky decides to start selling to end users again, rather than being forced to go through a dealer (our dealers are crap, their markups are unreal) maybe i will consider buying more claypaky.

[JChenault]

Originally Posted by TimMiller

Personally i hate the framing system that is in the varilite. Clay pakys framing system is the best one made.

Tim

I'm curious. What about the varilite model do you not like? I find it intuitive and simple to use ( at least on my console).

John Chenault

[TimMiller]

VL3500 i dont like the framing system. Clay pakys framing system you can pull any shutter completely across the beam, varilights framing system is the same as the framing system in my pals, you can pull it almost half way, when you pull all the shutters in you get this great square of a light. Not being able to pull the shutters all the way in makes it limiting for those really weird shutter cuts. Also you can do some really cool reveals, by pulling the one shutter all the way in, then having it go out. Tell me can a VL3500 do this http://www.claypaky.it/video/alpha_p...ium%20320).zip