My problems with it:
-No monitor output... no built in video card. They just recently added the option of providing your own computer, running the software and connecting the Smartfade to it. Um, ok. That's "convenient".
-You can sort of run a cue stack but not in a normal sense of having things like having nice "go", "stop", and "back" buttons.
-It's confusing. Too many tiny buttons with multiple functions depending on what color they are lit. It doesn't work anything like a typical theater console. I've seen four demos of Smartfade. In three of those demos the person doing the demo got lost and confused (1 was an ETC regional sales rep, 1 was an ETC employee at LDI, 1 was one of those ETC LDI award winning student designers trained by an ETC expert. The only Demo I've seen that didn't get lost was a Barbizon sales guy).
-There are high expectations in the industry that ETC consoles will be quick to learn and have some uniformity of design, terminology, syntax and operation (The main reason Congo get's trashed as well). Anyone who has experience on an Express(ion) or Obsession can walk up to an EOS/ION and figure it out fairly quickly... good luck with that on a Smartfade.
-In the end it's biggest problem is it's not an Express replacement. It's something far different. As you know, Ion/Eos/Congo/Jr. are all much more than many schools/churches/small theaters need. When Smartfade came out we knew Express was going away and it was exciting to see what would replace it... and we are still waiting. While I completely support ETC's "no 2 scene preset" stance, there's a hole in the product line between Smartfade and Ion where a lot of us live. An Ion with one wing panel has a street price around $6k. A Smartfade 24/96 has a street price around $1600. There's a HUGE gap there in price, quality, and abilities. A hole that used to be occupied by an Express 24/48 with a street price around $4k.
Perhaps to the novice lighting volunteer at his school, church, or community theatre the SmartFade is an appropriate choice. For those too entrenched or pig-headed in their ways, perhaps not. The same can easily be, and often is, said of Jands Vista.
Didn't we ALL think our first board was the greatest thing ever? I remember being amazed at the KliegPac 9, once upon a time.
Being flexible with consoles is a skill. While I can step up to an ION, any flavor of ETC Obsession, an Express, an Expression, an Insight, or just about any other regular ETC desk and start programming right away, I can also walk up to just about any DJ board or fader controller and figure out intuitively how things work.
Oh, and don't compare it to the Scene Setter, that's not what it is. It's much more like an NSI MC75xx series in syntax and thought process, or a Show Designer, MLC16, or Magic 260 on for the SFML. You just have to have a flexible concept of where things are, and know that it's based on this setting or that button. Then it's easy.
For instance, on the SFML, there are 24 buttons and 24 faders. There are a few different buttons that determine the function of the main bank of 24 buttons, and a few different buttons that determine the function of the 24 faders. Once you know what does what when, it's a piece of cake.
And besides, show me another hardware console for $2K that has focus, color, and beam palettes, 12 pages of actual playbacks, shape effects, sequences, a basic theatre stack (which is actually a piece of cake if you approach it with a clear mind and not a super bias towards keypad based theatre boards), and parameter and fixture masking for recording memories. There isn't one.
The Smartfade ML will control 48 channels of intensity (completely patchable), and 24 full moving lights (not 24 channels). I've got a rig patched in to the SFML that's on loan to me from ETC for the next few days that's got 14 independent zones of LED Pars (some single fixtures, some doubled up or quadrupled up, because I have a lot of 'em for this gig), 6 movers (4x MAC250 Entour, 2x Roboscan 518), and some dimmers (just Leprecon and Chauvet packs).
The regular smarfade (1248, 1296, 2496) doesn't have palettes and whatnot, it's just a fader board with a few more capabilities than an MC75xx.
Do yourself a favor and download the video demo of the SFML from the ETC website (under the downloads page for the SFML), and watch that. It gives you a good overview of the console.
I will check it out. I might start using them for club installs and DJ stuff. I cant imagine programming moving lights without a monitor. But that is just me and my old fogey ways. ;-)
Mike
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