Favorite Light Board Feature

LightingPenguin

Active Member
So after having a demo today of the Ion, and seeing its features and capabilities, I started wondering:

What is everyone's favorite feature on a light board?

This is not a favorite console thread, but a feature thread, so don't simply post the console name.
 
It's a mix of three for me:

- Record
- Go
- Blind

But I'm a pretty simple LD. Perhaps even in front of all three of those, it's Patch.

On top of that, I like it when all those features are easy to find and use. Patch is great, but I feel like if its not a nice, simple system to do so, its worthless (this is pretty standard on pretty much all consoles that pros use)
 
Well, on the Ion specifically:
Copy From (I use it in programming a lot, for instance: [Group] 12 [Copy From] [Cue] 7) It saves a lot of time when dealing with moving lights as well, Channel 102 [Beam] [Copy From] Channel 101)
Trace (Tracking backwards on the Ion)
Undo
 
I really like the rig plan on my Chamsys MQ100Pro. Although it isn't a replacement for WYSIWYG it is really nice to see all my lights in the position that they are hung in turning on and changing color like they they would be if they were actually connected.
 
I think my favorite feature is not a button or function like many have mentioned. I like the change in the "school of thought" that happened gradually after DMX was used more and more to control things other than dimmers. What I am talking about specifically is that channels are not thought as simply one attribute, intensity. Each channel being thought of as a fixture with many attributes allows for much easier control of "intelligent" equipment.

-Tim
 
...I like the change in the "school of thought" that happened gradually after DMX was used more and more to control things other than dimmers. What I am talking about specifically is that channels are not thought as simply one attribute, intensity. Each channel being thought of as a fixture with many attributes allows for much easier control of "intelligent" equipment. ...
Yes and no. One manufacturer's "100 channel" console can only control four fixtures having a footprint of 25 DMX channels. Another manufacturer's "250 channel" console can control 40 of the same fixture, up to its limit of 1024 DMX outputs, but could run 250 fixtures of four channels each. Still others differentiate between 8bit and 16bit attributes. I've never used a console that used syntax like "Channel 2.7" to refer to say the fixed color wheel of an automated fixture, but I suppose I could adapt if absolutely necessary. On the board I run most often, "channels" are initially different from "fixtures", but one can make them the same so that one doesn't have to press <Channel> or <Fixture> before entering the "User Number."

"Channels," "dimmers," "fixtures," "attributes," "parameters," and "outputs" all mean different things to different users and manufacturers. It's more confusing than ever.
 
The one feature I'l like most to see isn't available with most boards.

A cup holder. . .

I'd rather see waterproofing...
 
Right now it's a toss up between the Ion's fader wings ability to plug in, and/or get struck when I don't need them and need the space for a visiting console. The other great thing is the text labeling on the fader wing LCD screens which means I no longer have to lay tape and label the bloody console !.

Note that I've only had the Ion a week and haven't even turned on the ML's, so my favorite feather next week may well be the touch screens.

Steve B.
 
The one feature I'l like most to see isn't available with most boards.

A cup holder. . .

I'd rather a coffee maker first but that's just me.
 
Well, since I have only used a small number of consoles, the feature I've seen and thought was really cool is motorized faders. :D
 

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