Your first Memory Lighting Console

derekleffew

Resident Curmudgeon
Senior Team
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Year. Manufacturer. Model. (I'll start.)
1981. Strand-Century. Light Palette v4J.
 
2005. Electronic Theater Controls. Express 48/96.
 
1992. Strand. GSX w/ Genius software.
 
Oh, I thought it was year of board manufacture. In that case it was, um 2004.

No, that will be gafftaper's kids, "Well, I started on a Smartfade when I was 3....."
 
1995ish I want to say it was a 72/144 express, but I was on a strand miniLight Palette (thats sitting in my living room right now...) soon after. Still need to get that thing back up and running.
 
Oh, I thought it was year of board manufacture. In that case it was, um 2004.
No, that will be gafftaper's kids, "Well, I started on a Smartfade when I was 3....."

Actually it'll be "I first used a Strand Classic Palette when I was three"... but close.

For me it was 1989 on a Colortran ? 24/48

First non-Memory console was the "Wall-o-Dimmers" in 1983. When you locked all the handles in together to do a full stage dim it took two people to have enough strength to lift them up or pull them down. Then you had to watch out for those times when showers of sparks would shoot out the dimmers. Ahh the "good" old days. Amazingly they didn't replace those things with moder dimmers until the mid 90's. Our little theater had 8 circuits and four dimmers. We had two electrics of Red, Blue, Yellow, and White colored household outdoor floodlights (the kind people buy at Christmas). The apron was lit by one row of white household flood lights. There were two floor pockets. My senior year I got a guy to weld a 10' piece of muffler pipe to a tire rim for me and I had a boom. I ran power from the floor pockets out to the back of the house into a home made box with two light switches on it plugged in two 360's from the big stage and for the first time we had light on the faces of actors without hollow eye sockets. It was blinding to the actors and not the safest thing in the world to do (don't do it kids!) but my career had begun.
 
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2007. Theatrelight Scenemaster II
 
1982, Selecon Deltalight, expensive mistake.
 
Date? I'm not sure 1984 - 6 maybe. Strand M24. Pre DMX but it was a genuine memory board. There's still one in a theatre here in Adelaide. I try not to go there.
1980's LSC can't remember the model name.
I discovered ETC in 1995 except that it was an Arri board then. I love the Insight
 
1992ish Strand light board M
 
1975, some big console (size of a desk) with 12 channels and 2 scenes. No memory. The crossfader was a t-handle the size of something you'd see in a horror movie.

Out of the business for most of the 1980's.

Next was in the early 1990's. A standalone pc Martin 2032 with a trackball. Had to install the software every time it started up.
 

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