1:1 patch: Do you use it?

What type of patch do you use?


  • Total voters
    122
I've used a 1:1 patch only when the board I'm on lacked the abillity to have a patch, a EDI 24 channel 2 scene board. Anything I'm doing is a 1-2 week run with at least a half week of tech rehearsals. I've never used groups before, even when I set them up and try to remember them.
 
I've never used groups before, even when I set them up and try to remember them.

Here's a trick with group numbering, use the first number of the series. So say your front light is chan 11, 12, 14.... and your down blues are channel 21, 22, 23.... The front light would be group 11, and the blues would be group 21. This also lets you pick out individual channels in your systems easier too! The trick is just to start groups on x1, and not be afraid to have "empty" channels between the live ones.
 
Not denying what you're saying, but that's exactly why there's an ABOUT key on most consoles. Also I'm assuming you're all hardwired and no mults?

Nope. There's no one who benefits in our theatre from that. Then we get people coming in who need a piece of paper to cross-reference circuit numbers with channel numbers. I've found it a real PITA with a patched plot when someone calls out "Circuit 149" for that light they just added or were just troubleshooting. If the light isn't patched, I have to take the time to patch it. If I'm working on an RFU, that means running up to the console in the both. If it is, that probably still means running up into the booth because there's not a snowball's chance I'm going to remember what I patched that as. Either way, there's lost time waiting to get the light turned on, and if I'm the only one in the theatre at the time and I'm in the scissor lift, it now means as much as an extra 10-15 minutes getting the thing patched before I can turn it on and focus it.

Our rep file in the console does include a graphical light plot in it. If someone asks for the "third red fresnel on the end", I can either grab my group for Down Red and then quickly Next through it to get to my light, or I can just use the trackball on my console to arrow to that fresnel, click on it, and bring it up.

Elaborate patching systems are great for touring acts that have to worry about doing the same show on different dimmers each night. They're also great when you're console is as dumb as bricks and you need to compensate for that by having an encyclopedia's worth of useless numbering schemes logged in your head. For us, our console, and our shows, we stand only to waste time with those numbering schemes though. I know this from experience because for a few months I tried and only found it to make my life a rotating cycle of listening to people come to me and say "Why doesn't this work?" and "That's...uhhhhh...channel.....51?...61?...maybe?" and "Bollocks! I need to run up to the booth to patch that new circuit in before you can bring it up on the RFU."
 
We have a hard patch and mults but still a 1:1 house, about key is just another step in a process that I may have 15 mins to light a show...
 
In our small proscenium space, we use 1:1 because it's about 20 lights working off of a two scene board. That said, I still usually end up running the show off of subs. In our black box, we usually have maybe a maximum of 10 lights that can be controlled by DMX so we use a little 8 channel board that I think is just meant to test lights, but we've adopted it for that space. In our courtyard we can use a 1:1, but we usually borrow the local Uni's ETC Express for those shows so it's probably a waste if we do. I've never worked on lights out there. In our auditorium, the dimmers are arranged by phase so they don't match up with circuit numbers (wastes so much time when trying to change the plot) so a 1:1 wouldn't be all that useful. In there, we usually assign each area to one channel (not my choice, director's preference). I wish I could control each light in an area independently, but most FOH circuits are paired and we don't have enough circuits to avoid using the pairs.

When I work in community theaters, I try to leave the patching alone. Most TDs are a bit wary of letting a 17 year old change too much on their boards. Some don't even allow me up on the ladder due to understandable liability issues. Usually I don't run the shows when I design for community theaters, so I leave the board op with a look sheet and let them patch it however is easiest for them.
 
We have a hard patch and mults but still a 1:1 house, about key is just another step in a process that I may have 15 mins to light a show...

The issue that you seem to be overlooking (at least from my long distance perspective) is that time you might save in hang/focus is lost in cueing, if you need to keep looking at paperwork to find the unsequenced number for a specific light, rather than knowing (because your channeling is always the same reguardless of where the light ends up being plugged in) what number it likely is, or at the worst--it's one higher or one lower. I find that theres always more time earlier in the process, and so to me, I'd rather hang take 20 minutes longer--or focus take 10 minutes longer, than for cueing to take a cumulative 30 minutes longer.
 
Like most high schoolers, I simply use 1:1 because I havent been taught differently. I plan on soft patching when I design a new rep plot in the fallWith house lights controlled from the board it makes more sense to patch them into a single channel then have them randomly dispersed between channels. Also, with my Strand 300, I have the capability of 48 channel faders but only 24 sub faders so it would give me alot more physical faders for zones, specials, house lights, ect.
 
The issue that you seem to be overlooking (at least from my long distance perspective) is that time you might save in hang/focus is lost in cueing, if you need to keep looking at paperwork to find the unsequenced number for a specific light, rather than knowing (because your channeling is always the same reguardless of where the light ends up being plugged in) what number it likely is, or at the worst--it's one higher or one lower. I find that theres always more time earlier in the process, and so to me, I'd rather hang take 20 minutes longer--or focus take 10 minutes longer, than for cueing to take a cumulative 30 minutes longer.


And you are overlooking that our lights stay basically the same the entire year. Sure we add one or two lights in but thats as simple as oh yeah first cat starts at 40 and goes to 60 oh 40 at full, next, next, next oh there it is (takes 5 seconds) compared to oh what did we patch that into. Oh whats the circuit number. Oh okay we will cross reference it in the patch oh... okay there it is (about 20 seconds) now see why it would take us longer to have a specialty patch?

Granted most of our stuff is thrown to submaster faders.
 
Our venue is dead hung with draconian rules regarding lift use, and therefore the lights remain in a rep plot 365 days of the year ( :(, we do sometimes rent in stuff, but it goes on floor stands). Because of this, a 1:1 path is the best option - the average operator only knows which submasters light up which areas. When it comes time to control individual channels, the circuit numbers visible on the backs of the raceways coordinate perfectly with the channels on the board (and a cheat sheet taped to the wall). It's not a complex setup, but because of that it is very easy to explain and to use.
 
I'm honestly shocked. This would be as surprising as a sound engineer saying "I never EQ my system for the space I'm in".

In my professional opinion, if your plot never changes and you have spare circuits... patch, it'll make your life easier in the long run, and it'll take someone unfarmiliar with the space the exact same amount of time to figure out your space (looking up channels or looking up dimmers, same difference). If you're worried about untrained ops, when you bring up the submaster it shows you what channels are active, again same difference.

How can you have multis and not patch? Unless your mulits never move, in which case why do you have multis?

I have never seen a touring show that doesn't patch, maybe not for focus, but come cueing time they're always patched.
 
I'm honestly shocked. This would be as surprising as a sound engineer saying "I never EQ my system for the space I'm in".

At least it my case, it's actually more like the sound guy (also me) saying "I try my darnedest to tune the system so that I can routinely have the best sound with the least EQ'ing possible."

I have never seen a touring show that doesn't patch, maybe not for focus, but come cueing time they're always patched.

Touring shows need to make the same cues work on different dimmers each night. They also do the same show for months at a time. Of course they'll have a patch.

The issue that you seem to be overlooking is that time you might save in hang/focus is lost in cueing, if you need to keep looking at paperwork to find the unsequenced number for a specific light.

You grossly underestimate how powerful my ETC Congo lighting console is. I never have to look at paperwork. When I want any fixture on stage, my console can get it for me faster than it takes the LD to tell me which light they want. It's not unusual for me to know what the LD will want before or just as they're asking for it. Before they reach the period at the end of their sentence I can have it on.

In Congo, I can have a graphical light plot shown on the monitors, grab any fixture with a trackball to select it and turn it on.

But I don't use the trackball. I don't use the trackball because as fast as it is to click on something, there are other ways I can grab any fixtures on stage without flinching -- groups of fixtures or individual ones.

There's a lot to be said for being a fluent programmer on a powerful lighting console. Believe me when I say that a patch gives me zero benefit. All it does is waste my time plugging it into the console and inevitably fat-fingering my way into some headaches later that night.
 
Last edited:
The issue that you seem to be overlooking (at least from my long distance perspective) is that time you might save in hang/focus is lost in cueing, if you need to keep looking at paperwork to find the unsequenced number for a specific light, rather than knowing (because your channeling is always the same reguardless of where the light ends up being plugged in) what number it likely is, or at the worst--it's one higher or one lower. I find that theres always more time earlier in the process, and so to me, I'd rather hang take 20 minutes longer--or focus take 10 minutes longer, than for cueing to take a cumulative 30 minutes longer.
I think the difference is production schedule. Either way you do it you have to either spend extra time at hang patching or extra time during programming. The decision is based mainly on the schedule. If youve got alot of time for hang and then a quick tech week youll make it easy onyourself and patch. Ifyouve got a two hour hang and then two weeks of rehearsals, theres alot more time for programming and alot less for implementing a patch.
Also, for those of us in schools where the day of a talent show you were notified of yesterday you have a kid focusing on the cat witb a crackly broken walky talky, or even worse, you are focusing and the inexperienced freshmen is behind the console, there is no confusion when the circuit number displayed is the number on the console. Just some thoughts.
 
You grossly underestimate how powerful my ETC Congo lighting console is. I never have to look at paperwork. When I want any fixture on stage, my console can get it for me faster than it takes the LD to tell me which light they want. It's not unusual for me to know what the LD will want before or just as they're asking for it. Before they reach the period at the end of their sentence I can have it on.

.

You grossly underestimate the power of a well thought out patch. I generally know what light an incoming group wants without looking at paperwork, what its plugged into or a screen on a board.

You'll notice I dont' say LD...because anytime I have an LD come into the space they repatch the system so it makes sense to them.

As an LD, anytime I go into a space that isn't/refuses to patch because of a graphical display I get exceptionally annoyed...it takes me far less time to say bring up 41 than to say bring up the Stage Right Boom 1 Shin....
 
I don't refuse to patch if someone wants it, but nobody coming into our theatre does and so I don't.
 
I think the difference is production schedule. Either way you do it you have to either spend extra time at hang patching or extra time during programming. The decision is based mainly on the schedule. If youve got alot of time for hang and then a quick tech week youll make it easy onyourself and patch. Ifyouve got a two hour hang and then two weeks of rehearsals, theres alot more time for programming and alot less for implementing a patch.
Also, for those of us in schools where the day of a talent show you were notified of yesterday you have a kid focusing on the cat witb a crackly broken walky talky, or even worse, you are focusing and the inexperienced freshmen is behind the console, there is no confusion when the circuit number displayed is the number on the console. Just some thoughts.

I take it a step further. All of my patching and dimmer assignment is done in the preproduction phase, when I walk into a hang call I load the show file (patched offline) and roll out the hang tapes (with circuits, unit number, and instrument type labeled on it) and away we go. My crew gets the information they need, the designer can refer to information in the way that she needs to, and I have both sets of information (thanks to the wonders of paperwork) so I can cross reference as necessary. If the designer needs to add a light, they go through me, and I'll give my electrician a circuit to plug the light into before they even go up into the catwalk. This way I can be patching it while it's being hung, and it's a seamless process. Even if I get distracted, I can always bring the light up by dimmer on any modern (or not so modern) console, and focus it that way, and then retroactively patch it. I'm not saying that there are some situations where 1-1 might not be simpler, but I don't think it in any way saves time in the big picture.
 
In theatre I do a 1:1 for conventionals, record subs, then patch any DMX toys in the second universe accordingly. I have a feeling that may change depending on how the remodels go. We should be getting enough instruments that the theatres will be more of a rep plot. In the past every show coming in had to hang almost the entire plot. You usually only got a trained crew of two, maybe some free help so 1 to 1 is easier on the fly.
 
In my venue, we run a 1-to-1 patch, since that seems to be the easiest and most efficient way for us to run our system. However, our dealer is always telling us that 1-to-1 isn't an efficient way to run a system.

So, when might you not patch 1-to-1, and why?
 
In my mind the patch is how you make it easy to remember where things are. My front lights are in dimmers 5-24. Area 1 Warm is 5, Area 2 is 7, area 3 is 9; area 4 is 6, etc. That's a pain to remember. Area 1 warm is channel 11, area 2 is 12, area 3 is 13; area 1 warm is 21, area 2 is 22, area 3 is 23, etc. I know if I want my warms, they're 11-18, Cools are all 20s, Tops are all 50's. Area 1 is 11, 21, 31, 41, 51, etc. It makes it really easy to quickly find the exact unit I need at a given time.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back