Note that Patricks methods, while useful, requires a great deal of setup time prior, first to
build up the literally hundreds of macros required, as well as his method of using cues as a primary look playback. This works OK if you have the time, know the
set list and know the songs. Not as useful if that info is not present. His
system is very
Magic Sheet dependent, as is ours and if you have touch screens, your day just got easier. If not, you will have to rely on subs and hopefully have a good number of those.
We tend to busk for events where we don't have a
set list, have no clue as to song tempo or progression, and am generally completely "in the dark" as to whats next, no pun intended. For this reason, we specified our
Ion to have a lot of faders, using upwards of 120 on our recent dance school recitals. and we use most of them (typically using about 90 or so for a music concert). Patrick makes a
point in his video about not wasting
desk space (faders) for things that you don't need to be accessing a lot, such as
house lights and hazers (his example), building macros on a
magic sheet instead. That can be useful if you run out of faders, so
desk setup dependent as well as whether or not you have touch screens and thus
busking magic sheets. With a lot of faders, it's possible to set up the
desk to have more
manual control over
conventional effects (chases) as well as color and movement effects for movers.
We use a
conventional rig of about 20
FOH used for DC area's as well as band and backup singer specials, as well as a
wash for when they add a dance troupe. Then sides (24 conventionals) doing the same, color washes for the DS area separate from the band. Then 9
MAC Aura's for all backlighting, plus 6
MAC 700 for specials,
gobo's. beam-in-air effects,
etc...
We use 2 primary magic sheets, one for all
MAC 700 stuff, the 2nd for all Aura stuff. I also have individual
fader control of
intensity of each
MAC 700 (though with more fixtures these can be
grouped) as well as each Aura. Plus about 10 different color subs for Auras as well as 4 or so, position/beam subs for the Aura's. The Aura color and position/beam subs allow a quick grab.
The
MAC 700's I tend to run from the
magic sheet touch
screen, as it allows me quick positioning (focus
palette),
image, beam size and
edge, timing,
etc.... in a
manual control function. I also have 2 color effects on subs (slow tint and bump saturated) as well as 4 movement subs (can-Can, Fiqure 8, Bally and Circle - all are
stock in the effects library). ALL effects are
Fade by Rate and usually Attribute effects. The
Fade by Rate allows me to quickly adjust the tempo of the running effects.
Patrick has a section about building magic sheets with buttons that allow different MS's and/or different MS views to be called up. Good tricks.
Then I have an X-Keys 16
button stick with a few key buttons. "
Clear Sneak 3" which resets all
manual; values running for the 700's, "Stop Effects" and "Freeze Effects" These are mostly buttons that require a combination of key strokes and are now a one
button push.
For all this., and while using a somewhat completely different operating method then Patricks (no cues for one), I'm going back to watch the video a few times as there are a lot of useful things in his style.
2
magic sheet views attached
GLP Volkslicht-Zooms, and a handful of moving head profiles, along with incandescent sources. Plenty to control. But how do I make it run nicely on the ION? Has anyone done a quality tutorial online, or where would I look for training like that?
