Flicker/strobe effect

[soundman]

Saterday night I went to a sevendust concert and one of the more popular effects was furing an into the moving lights would be pointed out into the crowd and would case, one would be on then the it would turn and off and the next one would turn on and so forth. I wish to use this effect for our talent show but was woundering the best way to program it. As I see it there are two possible ways. one would do it step by step step one light one on step two light two on then use the rate slider to control the speed. the other way would be step it up using a strobe effect but I am not to clear on how that would work.

[ricc0luke]

You should be able to set it up on your light board as a FX effect. The way you enter it varies from board to board so check your manual. Normaly they are a lot easier to enter than you would think. Yea, you would have to enter it step by step if you want it to sweep the stage with a stobing effect. If you just want a strobe across the entire stage simutainsuly, then you only need to steps. Once you have it into an FX effect, then you can patch it to a slider, program it into a submaster, or you can normaly operate it with the click of a few buttons, but I would not recomend that. The whole process varies from board to board, and that is assuming that you have a board that allows for FX effects.

Because the bulbs (tungston or normal) do not go from 100% to 0% at the click of a button (there is always that fast fade) I would sweep the stage from left to right or right to left to create a more defined effect. Yes, this is a more involved process, but it works great. We are currently using this effect for the tornado in Wizard of Oz at our summer theater.

[ricc0luke]

Sorry, I may have been a little unclear on my last post...

I would not recommend controlling the FX effect by turning it on and off using keystrokes.... I would put it on a slider or put it into a submaster.

Also.... I have no idea what board you are using. We use a Stand 200 Series. That is a relativly basic board so as long as you have something similar or better you should be ok. (You could always rent)



Peace Out!

[soundman]

The lights we will be useing have a mechanical dimmer so the fade is next to nothing but I might program in a sweep look for grins. Now I know I am going about it the right way.

[soundman]

We have an lpx 24 for the movers and it is great if you know the band and have a rough idea when they will play what songs and what effects you wnat to happen during the song. Then you can set them all in 'stacks' and be good to go. My grivence comes in that for things like a talent show where there is no rehersal editing looks on the fly is a bear. The live overide is good only when you know whats going to change, but if its a rando change like for example if I want the sweep to strobe while moving I have a few buttons to go through, too many for a live situation. Now if there were a knob or button for each attribute I would be in heaven.

[digitaltec]

You want to know how to program a moving light to strobe? Move In Black Cues?

[soundman]

I got my question answerd, My gripe was about how it was not easy to edit cues with the lpx 24.