Control/Dimming - Purchasing a New Console

[midgetgreen11]

Since the express went out of production a week ago, I'm kind of stuck as to what to buy.

I've been trying to find between the 3l and 4k range but the majority of them from our local distributors are two-scene presets, which, to update to today's standards, I would like to avoid.

The Three consoles that one local supply house sent back were:

EDI Bijou 24/48 for $4880

Leprecon 1624 for $3320

and the ION for $4725


Of the three, the Bijou seems the best for its dollar amount, because it has everything the Express had.

The Leprecon I wanted to avoid, because it doesn't have the keys for entering levels and recording cues, its only cue stacking.

The ION seems a little out of our range in that it operates moving lights, which we will never have, and it has no submasters without adding an $840 fader wing, which with high school students is almost essential, and is much better for "busking" as they call it.

He said he may have a used Express 125 that he'd be willing to sell me, but his "used inventory" specialist was not in until Monday.

[Grog12]

Do not...I repeat Do Not buy the Leprecon. I'd probably go Ion....all 3 "can" operate moving lights, its how they operate moving lights thats the thing.

That being said Ion is not just a ML console.

What do you allready have?

You said that you didn't want something 2-scene preset ish but the EDI console, well is.

[midgetgreen11]

The EDI console also has the same capabilities for cue memory, submasters, and two-scene for our new techs.

Our current console is a really old EDI Menstrel Lite, which is also out of production, and is basic two-scene and nothing else.

The current EDI Lite is their strictly two-scene board.

[soundlight]

I would also say that buying the Leprecon would be a bad choice on your part.

The Bijou would get you the fader handles and subs that you need in a console that has a programming style that is fairly easy to learn and is rather similar to many other mid-level theatre consoles out there. The Ion comes with no faders except the crossfader pairs, so you'll want fader wings if you want submasters or faders of any sort other than the fader pairs.

[NABster07]

Just because they stopped making it doesn't mean you cant still buy one. I am sure there are plenty of houses with them still in stock. Sounds to me like you want the express, and it would be perfect for your situation. I would call around, because they are still out there, just because they stopped producing them doesn't mean that they disappeared all together.

[gafftaper]

Ah... you sound like just the type of customer I've been talking about in the some other recent threads. You don't need everything ION has to offer and it's a little out of your price range... if it only came with some submasters you would be set. You also don't need those encoder wheels... you'll never be able to afford the moving lights. At the same time Smartfade doesn't meet your needs. You want something in the middle and so you are forced to look at an odd collection of products from the competition.

I suggest you take a look at the Strand Basic Palette. Strand's strategy for their new generation of consoles is one piece of software for all. You essentially choose the interface that works best for you. I am the owner of the Classic Palette with 32 subs and 1000 channels. I'm very happy with it so far, I really like the software, it's a very smart board... but it's out of your price range. The Basic Palette is the same software with only 16 subs and 100 channels. If you need more channels there are 128 and 512 channel upgrades available. The LIST price on the Basic Palette is a couple hundred more than your bid price on ION WITH a wing pannel. My guess is your bid price on a Basic Palette should be in that mid to upper $4k range*. We had a bit of a debate a while back about ION vs. Strand as far as what they are capable of. The biggest difference is encoder wheels. Strand only puts them on their top boards. The software features are all still there you just have to use a mouse or trackball instead. That's a real drag for some people... but you don't care as you don't have a lot of MAC 2K's sitting around your school. Both ETC and Strand are really all about the software these days... it's really just a PC underneath the hood. Since Strand got on the market first there were several features they had that ION didn't have when it first came out. While in the past that was a problem it isn't any longer. These days new features are just a software upgrade away. I doubt there will ever be a cool feature that Strand/ETC comes up with that ETC/Strand consoles are not able to add to their software in the next update.

An important point to consider is customer service. ETC has a golden reputation... see two recent threads here in CB about that. Strand's old reputation is not great. However I think things have changed some. Six months back I wrote about my disastrous training session here. I'm told new of my post here made it all the way to the president of Strand in a few days, I was told that all their installers were going to be retrained and to make it right with me, the next week they flew in one of their lead software designers from Toronto. They worked very hard to take good care of me and I've had some other issues with my new system and so far I've been happy with their customer service. So while I think everyone around here would agree that ETC is the gold standard of customer service, in my experience Strand is trying hard to improve their reputation and is definitely worth a look over the other console options out there.

In conclusion... Baby Palette isn't ION but you don't need ION. Baby Palette is far more advanced than anything else out there (including Smartfade) and It shouldn't cost as much as ION.

*Remember pricing on products varies wildly. When you ask two dealers for a quote, the price begins with their wholesale price. If dealer #1 does a larger volume than dealer #2 the manufacturer is willing to sell them to dealer #1 for a lower wholesale price. The second factor is the size of the package you are buying. If you are only buying the console you will pay more for it than someone buying a complete system with dimmers, raceways, and instruments... when the package is bigger, the dealer has more profit margin to play with to give you a better deal overall. Finally, the dealer considers the long term benefit of your business. Maybe you only are purchasing $5k today but you spent $20k last year, $40k the year before that, and you are thinking about a full remodel in the future. They want to keep long term customers. A few years ago I became pretty good friends with the custom sales guy at the local dealer. Even though I had very little budget, he gave me the same price cut as the big theaters in town. Relationships with local dealers pay over time.

Where are you at in this great big world? Maybe we can recommend some dealers for you to get prices from. I'll send you a PM with the names of the two national dealers we've been dealing with.

[jb595]

have a look at LSC lighting systems maXim.awesome user friendly console even with/without movers.it has a present and/or wide mode similar to the bijou. it also has the capability depending on what size you get to add in the optional "PatPad" which is their moving light controller if needed.also depending what what size you can get 2 universes. there based in Australia, it also includes easy access to fade times and a easy to use chase function that can be synced with audio/tap to beat or stand alone. awesome console let me know if you need more info.

what do you have??? how many dimmers? planning on expanding??? thinking movers down the future??? how many universes??? i assume it is dmx... how user friendly does it need to be??????

[fredthe]

One other thing to consider is remote control capability. With the Strand Palettes (and, I'm fairly sure, the ION) you can put them on a network, and then remotely run them from a PC. It's great to be able to plug in my laptop on stage and run everything without needing someone at the board. I don't know if the other boards have that capability.

Oh, and with the Palette, one of our more enterprising students figured out how to control it from his iPod touch

-Fred

[midgetgreen11]

Originally Posted by jb595

what do you have??? how many dimmers? planning on expanding??? thinking movers down the future??? how many universes??? i assume it is dmx... how user friendly does it need to be??????

We have an EDI Menstrel Lite 48/96. Its a great board for learning on, but its old and broken, adding another reason to update to "today."

We have 48 stage light dimmers; house lights are on dimmers 49-64.

If I knew what a universe is, or had a reason to know, I would tell you. I'm going to make a guess and say 1. We've had movers in with outside groups before, they just hooked up a separate computer next to it, it seemed reasonably simple to do it that way with I believe it was LightJockey.

It is indeed DMX, and I would like it to be fairly user friendly as it is for high school students, however, I would like it to be complex enough that anyone can use it, which is what happened previously, and the board has been abused, dropped, and destroyed.

[midgetgreen11]

Originally Posted by gafftaper

The LIST price on the Basic Palette is a couple hundred more than your bid price on ION WITH a wing pannel. My guess is your bid price on a Basic Palette should be in that mid to upper $4k range*.

The price I was given for an ION WITH a wing panel was $5565. That was from the local dealer. I inquired to the two you suggested, but it is Sunday, so I don't expect to hear back from them until at least tomorrow.