Assorted questions: MagicQ, USB DMX Dongles and more!

S

SamAU

Member
Hey guys, my first real post on here.

I am looking to buy/get my own control setup and am looking at the MagicQ PC range, I worked on a Tiesto gig during the weekend and the LD was using one (and other controllers/desks). I looked it up on google and read some posts on here, and it seems like a pretty decent peice of software. My questions are:

-Should I use a Mac or PC?
-Latency, is there much delay/glitching with it?
-How many universes can the software handle?
-From the people who have actually used it, is it good/reliable?

Im pretty keen on buying the MagicQ PC Wing maybe the Maxi, any feedback on these would be great.

Also as a general question, with the DMX-USB dongles, how many universes can you run/have? If I plug in 6 dongles can I use 6 universes? Are there multiple universe dongles? So 4 or so outputs on one dongle?

The final question is on lighting plot software, all I am really after is top down 2D plots. I see from other posts this question comes up allot, so all im after is just what the industry and amature standard is and any tutorials or guides on how to use them. Yeah I know I can use paper and have done and still do, but I want to learn the software.

Thanks guys, Sam.
 
You are limited to one universe with the openDMX dongle. You can not plug in multiple openDMX dongles. However, if you are running artnet or strand shownet you are limited to 18 (I believe, could be 16) universes. I use a few shownet nodes to run my Magic Q setup and have ran 4 universes without an issue. I have used a wing. They are well built.

I would look into picking up an HP touchsmart PC. You can buy them refurbed for under 700us. You can flip the console into "touch" mode which will get rid of your playbacks and give you bigger buttons to press. If you combine this with the playback and encoder wing you have a pretty good console for under 4k.
 
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Enter shownet into the search box and you will get two pages of threads discussing it and related items. Also, I'm sure if you go to Strand's site there is info there.
 
Really, you only want to use shownet if you happen to have the nodes. I have two that were given to me. If you are going to buy new nodes, look at artnet. The reason they put shownet (protocol strand uses) on the console was so you could walk into a strand house, unplug the ethernet from their console, hook it up to your laptop, and you are good to go.
 
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mmm interesting...

The setup I need is where I can walk into any venue with my laptop + pc wing and hook it up to whatever they have, be it one universe or 5. Been trying to look for dmx-usb interfaces with more than 2 outputs, but not much luck.

Cheers, Sam.
 
SamAU said:
The final question is on lighting plot software, all I am really after is top down 2D plots. I see from other posts this question comes up allot, so all im after is just what the industry and amature standard is and any tutorials or guides on how to use them. Yeah I know I can use paper and have done and still do, but I want to learn the software.

Thanks guys, Sam.
Click to expand...

Hi Sam,
If you have the bucks and the time to learn it LD asstiant gives you a full version of autocad and some marketable skills outside of entertainment. Vectorworks is another good piece of cad software that does a great job of supporting lighting desingers. If your on a budget take a look at softplot, ..::Stage Research::.. they have a "try before you buy" version.
Good luck with it,
Tracy
 
Thanks Footer and Tracyu!

I have been looking right into this artnet stuff, and drew up a very simple diagram to see if i have it right.


Very basic diagram, I take it that basically an artnet node (Looking at the enttec datagate) connects to the laptop via an ethernet cable, then the dmx universes plug into the datagate and you can address the subnets and universes of the datagate via the laptop?

Cheers, Sam.
 
I can't say enough good things about Chamsys. It really is a great piece of software and there is nothing as capable, or as flexible, in lighting control (except maybe a GrandMA, which I have never used).

Its pretty stable, as long as you don't take a beta out to a gig (yes, I learned this the hard way).

There is no latency and it could run on a 10 year old computer. Apparently, it doesn't take a whole lot of processing power to run DMX.

IIRC, you can run a USB dongle and a wing's outputs side-by-side, so you could get 5 universes when using the Maxi-wing. Technically, I think the software is capable of controlling some un-godly amount of universes. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 256.

I'd also recommend an Enttec USB pro, as all the DMX processing is done on the dongle. I've even switched it between Chamsys computers and the show continued with no down time. There must be a reasonable capacitor in them.

Email Chamsys, or their PRG US distributorship. You might be able to get a wing loaned to you.

As far as a Mac or PC, if you get the Open USB by Enttec, Chamsys only supports this on Windows, and not mac or linux. They support the USB Pro on all three operating systems.

If you only need 2-3 universes, I think the PC wing would be fine. All the other added buttons can be accessed easily with a pair of touchscreens. Take the money saved and by an extended wing for another 10 faders and 20 execute buttons.

Also, I'd recommend a pair of touchscreen Panasonic Toughbooks with dual external touchscreens. It gives you 4 touchscreens on top of a wing.
 
Sam, I noticed that you are located in Australia. I also looked into the wings recently and was shocked at the pricing. The indicative pricing I received was between $2K AUD ish for the mini wing and over $11K AUD for the Maxi. At that price I could at the time (not sure if it's still the same) buy an ION1000 with a fader wing for less than the maxi wing.

If you are still interested, these guys are the Queensland distibuters for Chamsys gear: Hills Sound Vision and Lighting They can also arrange to get a demo unit in for you to try.

Hope this helps.
 
Yeah am still interested, allready contacted those guys for a quote, 1 step ahead of you hahaha. but at this stage im still busy researching what will work best for me, artnet etc and mucking arround with lighting plots and what not.

Cheers, Sam.
 
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