lighting4him
Member
Hi all,
Although I haven't frequented this forum much, in the past I have found some nuggets that I can use, and I'm thankful for them! Now that we are in the process of migrating to a new system, I've actually joined as a member, and anticipate I'll be up here more often to leverage the wealth of experience here! Please forgive me for the length of this post; I felt it necessary to explain both our previous and current setup in order to clarify the issues we're having.
I lead the Lighting ministry for our church (so yes, I'm a volunteer). Up until now, we have used an ETC Express 48/96 console, with a couple dozen conventional fixtures and 10 K-9 Bulldogs (BDs) for color changing on our backdrops and stage props. Each BD has been set up in 5-chan mode and programmed in the console as a 5-chan fixture. Our cues have no BD channels in them (tracking is off). Instead, we have created pile-on submasters that each have only BD in them so we can effect different color changes by hand in concert with the feel and rhythm of each worship song. Color blends are achievable with this setup, and there is no need to worry about which sub "has control".
Planning for the future, we recently purchased an ION console and my team underwent ETC-provided training for it. We have migrated our weekly show over to it, mostly. Fixture management, as anyone familiar with both consoles knows, is very different from that of the Express. Whereas the Express co-opted the channel paradigm for management of fixture attributes, and required consumption of a channel for each DMX address, the ION assigns a fixture type to a single channel, and manages the addresses associated with the attributes in the background.
On the ION, we're using our standard Bulldog-free cues to control our conventionals. We then have 10 channels each defined as an 8-chan BD type (the BDs are now in 8-chan mode). We have constructed the building blocks of groups, color palettes (by Type), and presets using these channels, whereby each preset is a group of BDs in a given color scene. Submasters have then been created using combinations of presets, and assigned to virtual faders, which we then control using our fader wing. The subs are all Additive, Proportional, HTP, Exclusive, and Independent. Again, tracking is off.
The problem we have is that we can no longer blend or cross-fade our color scenes with the same freedom we had with the Express. There are a few anomalies we need to resolve:
I have a feeling these differences are due to the all-channel fixture model of the Express vs the Intensity/Non-intensity attribute model of the ION. Is there anything I can do, in terms of configuration and/or procedure, that can effect Express-similar behavior on the ION to resolve these issues?
Although I haven't frequented this forum much, in the past I have found some nuggets that I can use, and I'm thankful for them! Now that we are in the process of migrating to a new system, I've actually joined as a member, and anticipate I'll be up here more often to leverage the wealth of experience here! Please forgive me for the length of this post; I felt it necessary to explain both our previous and current setup in order to clarify the issues we're having.
I lead the Lighting ministry for our church (so yes, I'm a volunteer). Up until now, we have used an ETC Express 48/96 console, with a couple dozen conventional fixtures and 10 K-9 Bulldogs (BDs) for color changing on our backdrops and stage props. Each BD has been set up in 5-chan mode and programmed in the console as a 5-chan fixture. Our cues have no BD channels in them (tracking is off). Instead, we have created pile-on submasters that each have only BD in them so we can effect different color changes by hand in concert with the feel and rhythm of each worship song. Color blends are achievable with this setup, and there is no need to worry about which sub "has control".
Planning for the future, we recently purchased an ION console and my team underwent ETC-provided training for it. We have migrated our weekly show over to it, mostly. Fixture management, as anyone familiar with both consoles knows, is very different from that of the Express. Whereas the Express co-opted the channel paradigm for management of fixture attributes, and required consumption of a channel for each DMX address, the ION assigns a fixture type to a single channel, and manages the addresses associated with the attributes in the background.
On the ION, we're using our standard Bulldog-free cues to control our conventionals. We then have 10 channels each defined as an 8-chan BD type (the BDs are now in 8-chan mode). We have constructed the building blocks of groups, color palettes (by Type), and presets using these channels, whereby each preset is a group of BDs in a given color scene. Submasters have then been created using combinations of presets, and assigned to virtual faders, which we then control using our fader wing. The subs are all Additive, Proportional, HTP, Exclusive, and Independent. Again, tracking is off.
The problem we have is that we can no longer blend or cross-fade our color scenes with the same freedom we had with the Express. There are a few anomalies we need to resolve:
- With one color sub active, introducing another into the mix blends to an extent, but not to the same level as we saw on the Express.
- A complete cross-fade to another sub leaves residual color from the now-out sub in the live display.
- After introducing a second sub into the mix, if the first sub is lowered even 1% (and still above the intensity of the second), the second takes control. If the second is then removed from the mix, all color goes out completely, even though the first sub is still "active."
I have a feeling these differences are due to the all-channel fixture model of the Express vs the Intensity/Non-intensity attribute model of the ION. Is there anything I can do, in terms of configuration and/or procedure, that can effect Express-similar behavior on the ION to resolve these issues?