Starlight
Member
Hello, my church just finished our largest annual production, a Christmas musical. I'm the lighting designer and board op for the show every year and this year was a nightmare.
First, our current setup:
ETC Express 24/48 console
96-channel ETC Sensor dimmer rack (24 channels used for house lighting, 72 dimmers available for stage lighting)
Not bad for conventional fixtures, obviously, not bad at all. But no ability to control moving lights when used. This year, we rented 8 Chauvet Intimidator Spot 250's (TERRIBLE lights, BTW, extremely noisy and flakey as can be - used to getting much better moving heads for large shows). I borrowed the youth group's Martin Xciter to control these moving heads.
Our ETC Express console has always had issues since it was brand new - the Enter key randomly activates itself (sometimes if breathed on or tapped near, sometimes out of nowhere repeatedly). The console was sent into ETC while under warranty, but they claimed no fault was found. ETC has atrociously bad customer service, that is one thing I did learn about them. We had some other issues too... the whole system was designed by a consulting firm right before I started attending this church, and everything is ETC (Unison architectural controls, etc). So, you'd think we'd have got pretty good customer service from them. But we didn't, not at all. Anyways, what's past is past... we have a flakey ETC Express that sometimes totally flakes out for no apparent reason. Though given the seemingly mechanical nature of the problem, I'm sure it's an easy fix. Oh, and we've learned ETC Sensor dimmer modules are really, really prone to failing. We had to replace the electronic "guts" of three of those things (the "power cubes") just this last month...
Anyways, during the first weekend of our Christmas musical, having had a couple ETC Express-related problems, and just generally being sick of running the show off two consoles - I decided to give MagicQ PC a try. I had bought a MagicDMX this summer for personal use (a "why not it's under $20" deal), but had never touched it.
Anyways, to say I'm impressed would be an understatement. I spent a day learning the software and reprogramming the show in MagicQ last week, and ran the show - four performances - this last weekend with MagicQ PC. *zero* hitches other than some very minor DMX glitches affecting the cheap moving lights (might well be related to my wiring at the last minute to get everything on one universe - ran it through the Martin Xciter just to split the DMX).
I found MagicQ PC to be easy to use, easy to program, and to work extremely well. However, for anything other than a rehearsed, "keep clicking go" show. That is - for our every Sunday services - the lack of physical faders would be unacceptable.
Therefore, I got a price quote from PRG on a mini wing (just over $1500), and I have written a proposal to our church board that they approve $2000 to buy the mini wing and a cheap desktop PC for running MagicQ PC.
Does anyone foresee any difficulties we would have with this setup? Any words of wisdom before we buy?
Also, they would want to sell the ETC Express to recoup part of the cost - I told them I imagined that we could probably get at least $1000 for it if we could find a buyer. Does this seem reasonable? Too high? Too low? I really have no idea what they're worth, or where to even sell such specialized equipment (eBay?).
Thanks for any help/words of wisdom/etc you guys have for us!
First, our current setup:
ETC Express 24/48 console
96-channel ETC Sensor dimmer rack (24 channels used for house lighting, 72 dimmers available for stage lighting)
Not bad for conventional fixtures, obviously, not bad at all. But no ability to control moving lights when used. This year, we rented 8 Chauvet Intimidator Spot 250's (TERRIBLE lights, BTW, extremely noisy and flakey as can be - used to getting much better moving heads for large shows). I borrowed the youth group's Martin Xciter to control these moving heads.
Our ETC Express console has always had issues since it was brand new - the Enter key randomly activates itself (sometimes if breathed on or tapped near, sometimes out of nowhere repeatedly). The console was sent into ETC while under warranty, but they claimed no fault was found. ETC has atrociously bad customer service, that is one thing I did learn about them. We had some other issues too... the whole system was designed by a consulting firm right before I started attending this church, and everything is ETC (Unison architectural controls, etc). So, you'd think we'd have got pretty good customer service from them. But we didn't, not at all. Anyways, what's past is past... we have a flakey ETC Express that sometimes totally flakes out for no apparent reason. Though given the seemingly mechanical nature of the problem, I'm sure it's an easy fix. Oh, and we've learned ETC Sensor dimmer modules are really, really prone to failing. We had to replace the electronic "guts" of three of those things (the "power cubes") just this last month...
Anyways, during the first weekend of our Christmas musical, having had a couple ETC Express-related problems, and just generally being sick of running the show off two consoles - I decided to give MagicQ PC a try. I had bought a MagicDMX this summer for personal use (a "why not it's under $20" deal), but had never touched it.
Anyways, to say I'm impressed would be an understatement. I spent a day learning the software and reprogramming the show in MagicQ last week, and ran the show - four performances - this last weekend with MagicQ PC. *zero* hitches other than some very minor DMX glitches affecting the cheap moving lights (might well be related to my wiring at the last minute to get everything on one universe - ran it through the Martin Xciter just to split the DMX).
I found MagicQ PC to be easy to use, easy to program, and to work extremely well. However, for anything other than a rehearsed, "keep clicking go" show. That is - for our every Sunday services - the lack of physical faders would be unacceptable.
Therefore, I got a price quote from PRG on a mini wing (just over $1500), and I have written a proposal to our church board that they approve $2000 to buy the mini wing and a cheap desktop PC for running MagicQ PC.
Does anyone foresee any difficulties we would have with this setup? Any words of wisdom before we buy?
Also, they would want to sell the ETC Express to recoup part of the cost - I told them I imagined that we could probably get at least $1000 for it if we could find a buyer. Does this seem reasonable? Too high? Too low? I really have no idea what they're worth, or where to even sell such specialized equipment (eBay?).
Thanks for any help/words of wisdom/etc you guys have for us!