Strand 300 - Operator Error, or Computer Glitch?

[Charc]

So I've been debating posting this for a day or so now, 'cause I don't want ask CB too obscure questions, but here it goes.

We have a Strand 300 series board. I strolled into the booth Tuesday, and it was unlocked, the board was on, and someone had done set up some rehearsal light for the choir. So I don't think much of this until later that day when none of our channel faders were responding. Submaster faders were okay. Let me clarify the issue we are having when the channel faders. Pulling the fader up and down (if fader is the wrong term, please correct me here 'cause I'll look like a fool saying fader two dozen times.) only brought the intensity from 0-11. I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure that it was scaled, so that when the fader was at 50% the channel was at 5.5% intensity. This is quite weird to me. Well I troubleshot as much as I could. Keypad entries were fine, as aforementioned, submasters were fine, none of the settings on the board, or in the live / patch screens seemed to be touched. Everything seemed okay. None of the typical "scaling percent" numbers were under channel numbers in patch. Nothing I could ascertain. Well at this point I realized that the channels would now fade up to 12, but no higher. Well I didn't figure it out, until I noticed that doing something on the board, changed the maximum of the faders. I know it sounds weird, let me clarify. So If I pulled up the Channel 1 fader, it would max at 11. If I then brought up some submasters, flashed 'em around, bumped some instruments, input commands, the maximum up level changed, usually by one, but not one for every action. So after playing around and doing different stuff for 10 minutes, I got the channels to max out at 19. Well then the drama head comes in, I explain it to her, and she seems to think I messed up the board! Just because I'm a student doesn't mean I'm automatically the one to mess something up! (Teachers here, remember that.) So she messes around with it, comes to the same conclusion I have. The other adult that has a semi-understanding of the board said the same thing, so we've all been sitting around scratching out heads tryin' to figure this one out. Is this an operator error here, or is this a software glitch, or what? If any of this is unclear, please mention it and I'll rephrase it.

Thanks, Charles.

[icewolf08]

I can't say that I have experienced your issue directly, but here are some troubleshooting tips that I use with my Strand consoles.

In your twiddling around with the console did you try rebooting? It is a computer you know, and sometimes rebooting makes all the difference. From here, if your faders still don't work right try loading a different show file, it is possible you have a corrupt one that is messing things up. Check to make sure that your channel faders are not set to be Submasters or something else. This is relatively easy in that when you run up a channel fader the value should come up in a different color on screen than a Sub. Do you have an inhibitive sub set up, or did someone set one up? Those are the top tips I can think of at the moment.

Now a shameless plug. Get over your channel faders! The lighting gods gave you a keypad for a reason, it is faster and more efficient than hunting for the right channel fader. If other people use the space that is what subs are for, program the light they need to a sub, label it, and tell them not to touch anything else. I think you will find that the more you do in theatre, and the more powerful consoles you sit down at the fewer channel faders they have (if they have any at all). Even if you go back to some of the first computer controlled memory consoles they don't have channel faders. You get used to it.

[Charc]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

I can't say that I have experienced your issue directly, but here are some troubleshooting tips that I use with my Strand consoles.
In your twiddling around with the console did you try rebooting? It is a computer you know, and sometimes rebooting makes all the difference. From here, if your faders still don't work right try loading a different show file, it is possible you have a corrupt one that is messing things up. Check to make sure that your channel faders are not set to be Submasters or something else. This is relatively easy in that when you run up a channel fader the value should come up in a different color on screen than a Sub. Do you have an inhibitive sub set up, or did someone set one up? Those are the top tips I can think of at the moment.
Now a shameless plug. Get over your channel faders! The lighting gods gave you a keypad for a reason, it is faster and more efficient than hunting for the right channel fader. If other people use the space that is what subs are for, program the light they need to a sub, label it, and tell them not to touch anything else. I think you will find that the more you do in theatre, and the more powerful consoles you sit down at the fewer channel faders they have (if they have any at all). Even if you go back to some of the first computer controlled memory consoles they don't have channel faders. You get used to it.

Trust me, I'm all for keypad entry. I almost exclusively use the keypad. It’s a lot easier for me than, as you mentioned, hunting for the correct fader, and you get so many more commands right at your fingertips. And I do realize that fader control for each instrument (from my understanding) is almost extinct. The problem here is I’m not the dept head. The dept head doesn’t understand half as much as I do about the board. She flipped out on me the other day when I set it to “One Scene Preset” mode. She tried “fixing it” for 10 minutes, succeeding in only messing up the show I programmed by altering cues and having the show run on both go buttons on manual / automatic fade. Conceptually she didn’t understand it. Conceptually she doesn’t understand half of it. That’s why I have to take my time explaining how to do stuff, and how to correctly patch in a “Force Four” (Apparently she never read the name on the side of the instrument.). So if the dept head isn’t happy, and thinks I broke the board; she won’t be very happy with me either.

[Footer]

I have seen this before. There is a time delay on your faders. Let me do some digging and see if I can remember how to fix it...

ok.. here ya go... see if this does it...

1 THRU 1000 TIME 0 *

That should take care of it. Strand has this thing where you can assign fade times to any fader. This is very useful, but can also mess a lot of things up. I have not personally experience this with channel faders, but have seen this on the 500 series subs. This fix should work for ya, if not try a variation of that.

[Charc]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

I have seen this before. There is a time delay on your faders. Let me do some digging and see if I can remember how to fix it...
ok.. here ya go... see if this does it...
1 THRU 1000 TIME 0 *
That should take care of it. Strand has this thing where you can assign fade times to any fader. This is very useful, but can also mess a lot of things up. I have not personally experience this with channel faders, but have seen this on the 500 series subs. This fix should work for ya, if not try a variation of that.

Hmm. So the time delay function makes faders max out at a certain intensity? Interesting, does it have a useful purpose?

[Footer]

Originally Posted by charcoaldabs

Hmm. So the time delay function makes faders max out at a certain intensity? Interesting, does it have a useful purpose?

Not max out, slowly fade up. Its why when you first sat down they were at 10% and slowly went up. It could take an hour for the faders to reach their "full" value. Think of it like you would the timing on a cue.

[Charc]

Yea I realized that after I posted it. At first it didn't make sense, then I realized that when we rebooted the unit it kept going back to 1. Say, is the default fade up time 0?

Edit: Though the fade up was on all faders, not individually, which is kinda weird, 'cause you expect whichever channel is up, to fade up, not all channels.

[MHSTech]

There's a variable somewhere on the console that sets it, I believe. I don't remember where though. Maybe try re-patching the dimmers?

[pudgeo2]

If all else fails, go into the patch mode and clear everything on the board. That way everything is set to default, including the fade time to 0

[icewolf08]

Originally Posted by pudgeo2

If all else fails, go into the patch mode and clear everything on the board. That way everything is set to default, including the fade time to 0

And by clear everything I assume you mean delete all the channels. That will clear any information associated with a channel. Then have fun repatching.