Just the theory

[kingfisher1]

Okay, right now moving lights for my school are at least a year away if the happen at all, but i cann't help but drool over the concept of having them. When the prospect of getting mls first arouse i ran immeadiatly to our boards manual (ETC Express 125) and read up on the movng light section. from there i concluded that wihile teh express is an awesom board its lack of encoders could be annoying.

my question is, is it inefficient to load each channel control each attribute onto a sub master and use that as a jury-rig encoder? with 10 pages of subs and only 4 possible lights (old crapy moving mirrors, but hey THEY MOVE!!!!!!)i think i have enough room for everything but am i missing an easy was to do this .

given, the express dose have a track pad for x,y but to my knowledge you could only use that for one light at a time makng running a live show more difficult. preprogramed stuff would be eaisier with cues and everything.
possible preprogrammed chases into subs? seems a bit limiting....

anyway... i feeling like i'm begining to ramble....

[moojoe]

...random post above me...

anyway, yes, it is inefficiant. but if your going to have to use an express, thats really the best way of doing it. it would of course be best to buy a moving light console, even a cheap elation or american dj for $400>, but as is the case of this not always being possible, that would be the best way of doing it.

hell, if i had any say in the purchase, i would drop one of the movers for a crappy console, just because it makes life so much easier.

[Footer]

Programming intels on the fly is not an easy thing to do on just about any board there is, except for the boards that are specificly made for it.... you can record looks to your subs and run off those, and using the subs as encoders works just fine.... also you can control more then one fixture at a time with the trackpad... and there are encoders made for that board, they are just nearly impossible to find....

[JP12687]

Footer,

You say they make encoders for the express series..where have you seen them and where can i look to find one???

i saw no documentation of it on the ETC site....

[kingfisher1]

best kept secret in town i guess. yeah, i have no possobility of having money spent. the movers are being donated/borrowed so dropping one of them for $$ isn't an option.
I'm trying to convince teh mall down the road from my school to give them to us. i thiknk they've been turned on once. the same mall has like 700 s4s just sitting in the air, 1/2 aren't even pluged in.

[jonhirsh]

"Programming intels on the fly is not an easy thing to do on just about any board there is, except for the boards that are specificly made for it"


Hey, Just to clarify your post. controlling fixtures on the fly is hard and kind of useless. and no board is really made for it.

but some boards are made to do something called busking. which is where you pre program the movement and the effects; so you are not controlling the movment on the fly but you are executing premade movement cues. then you add in colour and gobos on the fly. and by mixing and matching the pre programed movements and effects and such you creat an intresting show on the fly.

On all consoles you are able to take controll of fixtures and move them manualy but its kinda hard.

JH

[kingfisher1]

oh, think i can do thta easily on the Express? i'd need to think about it.

my application would be for little school taletnt show things (bad 3rd graders dancing to music they're 15 years to young for)

so yeah, i could program chases into the top 12 subs, the leave the bottom 12 to control colors effects etc.

[jonhirsh]

Ahh.. but here is the issue with that.

The express will record anything and everything into subs when they are brought up so for example.


you have light one, two , three up at full. you record this as sub one.

you now want to make one fader as your red fader; so you set all your fixtures to red and record that sub master two. (repeat this step with blue as sub 3)

now you have lights one, two , three up at 50 % and lets decide you want to put them all into red. so you bring up your red submaster.

since you recorded your sub master with them at 100% all your lights will bump up to 100% if you want your actual red to show through.


This sums up the first issue.



The second will be when you try to just bring up one fixture in blue lets say. since it is HTP all three lights you programed will come up to full in blue.

That is why there are Moving light consoles. and express is ok and kinda to run one or two movers preprogramed off of. but anything other then that i would hate to have to do your life will be a living hell.

I can say this from experiance i programed a musical on an express with two movers this was the candian premire of tick tick boom so they thought they had to do somethign special. lol so programing time jumped from an easy 5 hours to atleast 12 or 13 not to mention the time trying to build the profile for the express and make it work.

i think everyone over looks renting a console they like to rent the lights but dont think ahead. rent a console get a fat frog if you need to but for gods sake rent one if you dont you will surely regret it even if its a bunch of kids dancing its still a gig in which you need to have light on stage if its dark there the kiddies wont be to happy

JH

[Footer]

Originally Posted by jonhirsh

Ahh.. but here is the issue with that.

The express will record anything and everything into subs when they are brought up so for example.


you have light one, two , three up at full. you record this as sub one.

you now want to make one fader as your red fader; so you set all your fixtures to red and record that sub master two. (repeat this step with blue as sub 3)

now you have lights one, two , three up at 50 % and lets decide you want to put them all into red. so you bring up your red submaster.

since you recorded your sub master with them at 100% all your lights will bump up to 100% if you want your actual red to show through.


This sums up the first issue.



JH

This is why you capture all the the color wheels at full with nothing else up (including intesity) and record that to the sub, and as long as you subs are set to pile-on this wont be an issue, and do the same for your iris, shutter, and about anything else... record your subs cleanly... and also you would not use a sub to bring back a different color, that is what groups are for

[jonhirsh]

But this shouldnt work on an express because when it is last takes precedence.

there fore when you record your colour wheels with your fixtures at 0% it puts your fixtures in black when you bring up your colour sub master. becuase it it the last sub to be brought up.


JH