Hi, yes your dimmers should be fine, move them all to
DMX and get a new
desk, and as everyone else said
Strand 300 /
ETC Ion (Pref
Ion but your choice) should make your
system seem brand new, leave the dimmers alone, and you will be fine. Good luck!
Nick
Strand 300 hasn't been produced for a couple of years. Like buying an
Express at this
point, the days of the 300 are passed and it's time to buy a
Palette.
Don't replace your dimmers get them a good professional servicing and do the upgrade.
Currently your best option for a
console is a a
Strand Basic Palette II. You should be able to get one for around $4,000. While
Ion rocks, if you only have 48 dimmers, it's WAY over kill for your
system needs. Smartfade
ETC's other option currently is not up to you needs. I own a
Strand Classic
Palette the big brother of the Basic. It's a great
console and great software. Easy to use and learn yet powerful. The only difference between my
console and the baby brother is you can only run 100 channels (not a problem for you) and it has less submasters. The software is exactly the same for all
Strand Palette and
Light Palette consoles. So you get a very powerful software package with that little
console. If you ever decide to upgrade your
dimmer capacity or you add a bunch of intelligent gear you can
call Strand and upgrade up to 1500 channels sold in packages of 128 or 512 channels. If you do anything with
DMX toys like
gobo rotoators or color scrollers you'll find them very easy to deal with in the
Strand/Horizon software.
If you can wait until sometime between early Summer and the end of the year,
ETC has a new
console coming that may also be a good fit for your needs. We are speculating that it should fit between Smartfade ($1,700) and
Ion ($6k with sliders) in both price and abilities. But there's no guarantee when it will be announced, actually begin shipping, what it will even do, or what it's price will be.
ETC's been very quiet about it, the fact that they have publicly told us it's even coming is huge. You could see it announced as soon as
USITT in March and shipping a few months later or it may not appear until
LDI and shipping at the end of the year.
As far as bidding do as much of the
leg work you can yourself.
Call dealers, get bids. Don't let any of this get in the hands of a contractor or you will pay HUGE price markups. Find out from your school's financial people what the rules are in your state and dig in getting bids from local, regional, or national dealers. If you need help finding dealers in your area let us know. You will need at least 3 bids... and it may be large enough of a
purchase you are required to go through a public sealed bid process. Talk to the person in charge of finances at your school to find out how all this works and keep as tight of control on it as you can.