NEED: New School Lighting Board

[SouthFloridaSFX]

Looking for ideas, I have a small school that has a old (mid 90s) ETC 24/48 board. Cant think of the model, it was the popular beige board.... Anyway, I am looking for ideas for a replacement board. Could prob get away with a 12/24 or 16/32 board, just looking for a decent replacement for the school, and cost is always the factor. As far as programming scenes have never really been used as long as I can remember, so simple works!

[soundlight]

ETC Smartfade 12/48 or 24/96. Basic board, but can also use submasters or scenes if anyone decides that they really want to get in to lighting.

[Pie4Weebl]

get an ETC express, its a far easier board to use than the smartfade.

[Smatticus]

Is it the ETC Idea series that you have now? I've got a 36 channel Idea in our community theater now and I would love to replace it. Whenever that happens I'm planning to go with the Express 24/48. By the time we get around to it maybe a different console will look more attractive but the Express is very straightforward to use and relatively easy to teach other people how to use. I'm partial to ETC consoles in general because of how intuitive they are to learn and operate. The couple other consoles I've used with similar capabilities to the ETC Express 48/96 were not pleasant at all (Strand LBX and Leviton Innovator). I would definitely stay with ETC.

I played with a SmartFade for a couple minutes once but not really enough to get to know it very well. It seems like it would be worth investigating though because of the price range, the option of going 24/48 or 24/96, and the option to save to an SD card rather than a floppy disk. As Pie4Weebl said, these perks of the SmartFade might be outweighed by the difficulty to learn and operate compared to the Express.

What is the board usually being used for at the school? Is there any chance that the school will be using it for more intensive purposes in the future?

[Footer]

Sans the monitor, the idea is not too bad of a console, but that console was gray. Big beige board... hum... ETC made mostly gray stuff in the early years. I would say go with an express or a strand 300. I would stay away from the smartfades due to the lack of the monitor thing (that REALLY annoys me). You could probably pick up a used express fairly easily. Go with either the 24/48 or a 125 or 250. The 48/96 and 72/144 are just too huge.

[NABster07]

Having spent the summer programing shows on the smart fade, I would not recommend it. If you are running a festival type event with a bunch of subs, you will be fine with it. If you are programing shows that run for weeks on end as I was, with over 100 cues per show, your life will be a living hell. Yes it is cheap, but you pay for it in the end.
My issues with the board
a) Patching - Patching is not easy on a small lcd display with a scroll wheel. It takes much longer than it would on any other board.
b) No offline editor - When I first got to the board, I thought maybe there was an offline editor that will make it easier because I will have a keyboard. Well there is an offline program, but its just a flash video that allows you to play with it, but not do anything worth while.
c) Cuing - If you intend to do any cuing at all, especially if you will have large amounts of cues, stay away from this board. First off, every cue needs to be written as a "memory" which is the same as a submaster. Second, to make a cue stack you go through and hit the subs in the order you want them to be for your stack. At this point you can only have whole number cues. Then if later you decide to delete a cue that was a whole number, it drops every cue after it down (so cue 41 is now cue 40) meaning that you have to go through and remark your script. After the cue stack is built, you can add decimal cues, but only after you make the initial stack.
Bottom line is, unless you have all the time in the world, and very basic designs, don't go with this board.

*Rant over*

PS - I once got a call from the artistic director of the theater, as he was trying to put light onstage, and i quote "What do I do now!? I turned on this board and it looks like a christmas tree!!"

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

...Big beige board... hum... ETC made mostly gray stuff in the early years. ...

Original Vision was beige, Expression I was beige. I suspect the OP has an Acclaim.

[Footer]

Originally Posted by derekleffew

Original Vision was beige, Expression I was beige. I suspect the OP has an Acclaim.

Forgot about the acclaim, that is probably it. Ya, the first expression were that wonderful pink/beige mix....

[Charc]

If you are replacing that Acclaim, let me know, I have a $20 bill with your name on it. (So I'm cheap, eh?)

[avkid]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

Forgot about the acclaim, that is probably it. Ya, the first expression were that wonderful pink/beige mix....

If you mix pink and beige, doesn't it look like vomit?