Control/Dimming Considering a new Avolites console

pacman

Active Member
I am looking to replace an aging ETC Congo Sr and am seriously looking at Avolites; specifically, the Arena and Sapphire Touch. Part of their appeal comes from the abundance of physical faders they both share. I've seen a brief demo of the Arena in my space with my lights . I've been told the main differences between the Arena and Sapphire Touch are the moving faders, additional touchscreen and three external video outs instead of one on the Arena (and of course, a substantial price difference). I am used to working with three external screens, one of which is a touchscreen, so I am bit hestitant to give up the extra display real estate that would be required of the Arena.

I am aware both Avos run the same Titan software. The Arena has an audio in that the Sapphire Touch apparently does not. I have not been able to determine if they use the same processors, but I know that Sapphire Touch was released several years ago and logically, may contain an older CPU.

I was pretty impressed with how easy it is to do a lot of tasks on the Arena, but understand it is a pretty different way of working from what we're used to with the Congo. I've been watching a lot of the Avolites webinars and software tutorials, and plan to download the software for a spin as soon as my schedule permits.

I am in a multi-purpose PAC that does a lot of scripted theater, but also does a ton of on-the-fly stuff including talking heads, pageants, concerts, etc. I'm using a mix of conventionals, LEDs and movers. I also work with students and some voluteers, so learning curve is somewhat of a consideration. On the other hand, I've had to explain Congo's RPN to people for the last 10 years. It looks like a move from Congo to an Avo would result in loss of a good bit of cue list info; the Avo cue list looks pretty bare bones compared to what I'm used to.

I've not completely written off moving to a Cobalt and have used both the Cobalt 10 and Cobalt 20 in-house as loaners while my Congo was out for service. I'm not a fan of the turn pots replacing 20 faders and there are a lot of quirky little things that are inherent to the Congo/Cobalt software/hardware. Having used a Congo for the last decade, I know it does some things incredibly well, but I have no experience to compare with other modern-day consoles. It appears there are a lot of tasks that can be more easliy accomplished with other consoles. I will say I am definitely not interested in a software-only solution.

I would appreciate any comments from current-generation Avo hardware users, particularly those with Areana and/or Sapphire Touch experience. Also, your experience with Avo software and technical support (US) would be welcomed.
 
How many movers and LEDs do you have? I think if you are going to be more cue list type of shows then you should stick with ETC. Unless you are going to be doing a lot of rock and roll shows and have yourself, or another LD that knows avo on board duty.
As for Cobalt, I have used both Eos and Cobalt software. Eos is definitely geared more to theatre. Look into a Gio and the Eos TI. Both have three external monitor outs. If you do decide to go with Avolites, an Arena would probably fit you well. The Sapphire Touch may be a little overkill unless you have a ton of movers.
 
I have been using Avolites consoles for years. When Titan first came out it was awful - and I and a lot of people bailed. Some went to ChamSys, some to MA or Hog. Then at around version 5 I think it was, Titan started getting good, and by 7 it was really useful. We are now on 9.1 and I really think there is nothing an Avo desk cannot do. Titan 10 is about to be launched and I have been told by somebody high in the company about some of the new features - which I cannot talk about here - but its a really impressive step forward.
I own a Titan Mobile and use a Sapphire on a lot of shows. Cannot comment on the Arena, it has some features that Sapphire does not, but its cheaper. I think you'll find that processing power on either desk is fine. Unless you are running thousands of pixel mapped devices you will not run out of power.

The shows I do are generally hybrid type gigs, so I'll have a main cue stack plus a few pages of cues and chases that run manually or get triggered by cue macros. I have yet to find a situation where the cue stack is lacking. Its certainly better than a Congo. It has all the tracking and Move in dark options you need, split timings, hold, wait, macros. Maybe not as featured as an Eos, but what is? The point is that Avo started life as a rock and roll desk and over the years has learned to dress up nice, and it went to college and learned how to be a theatrical and multi purpose console. And it did it well. If I was just doing theatre I would choose a Gio, but for sheer versatility an Avo is an excellent choice. It makes pixel mapping easy, and the keyframe generator is very useful.

There are frustrating things of course, especially if you are used to other boards - Avo does some things differently. And not always intuitively. For example, to record a cue on a lot of desks - set up your look > Record > Cue number > Enter. On Avo you have to use the connect button to record steps - or if the cue list is live, you can set look and then double tap the select button to add a step at end. Or use the menu to insert elsewhere. I dont think its perfect but I have got used to it.

Coming from a Congo - well everything is different, apart from a Cobalt. I have yet to see one in the flesh but it looks like a really nice machine. I am not quite sure where it fits in the grand scheme of things though. It may be too late for that, I cannot see it getting much traction.
As for reliability, in 5 years I had the Titan Mobile crash on me twice - luckily in rehearsal - and that was down to a faulty USB connection between the desk and the laptop. I have experienced one Sapphire crash and one Tiger Touch crash. It happens. The first time I ever plotted a show on an MA2 it fell over - just as we were finishing up the cue stack.

I am in the UK and I know I can call their service engineers at pretty much any time if there is a problem. Once we were plotting a TV show and the aforementioned Tiger went weird on us, and Adam one of their senior engineers put a new one in his car and drove across London with it - and ours was an old desk that was probably out of warranty. They really care and I have no reason to doubt that its any different over in the USA.
 
I own a Quartz, and have done a mix of punting and cue stacked shows with it, very happy. I think the Avo family would give you the power to do what you need, and you could make a simple "punt page" for your volunteers.
 
Avo repair service for replacement parts in the US is a nightmare. I own an assortment of Tiger Touch 2s, Tiger Touch 1s, Titan Mobiles & Avo Pearls. There is one guy in the US who handles replacement parts AFAIK. I know of several repair companies who will no longer fix Avo gear because he is IMPOSSIBLE to get ahold of and NEVER ships parts when he says he will. Keep that in mind when deciding.
 
Thats bad, what is up with these Group One people in Farmingdale? They have the avolitesusa.com website. Are they any help? If not contact HQ in London and let them know.
 
Okay, so its official now - one of the new features of Titan 10 is that they have ditched the old wireframe visualiser, which was basic at best and now the software has built in Capture Argo 3d viz. Now its not the full version, so you will not get all the stage objects and stuff from the Capture library, but you will get to plot all your lights. This is a major deal and I am really looking forward to it. I already have Capture as a program, and my workflow is quite complex on a bog show. I first draw the plot in Xara, then patch the desk, then patch AGAIN in Capture, and finally plot the show with the desk and Capture. This is going to make things so much smoother. Martin have a built in 2d viz but its nothing like this. MA have their vis but its overly complex to deploy.
 
First off, Avo service is terrible to get ahold of, and get the parts you need, that's true. That being said, my Pearl Experts run like champs, and even though it takes more than a month to get parts, they are rarely out of service. We're looking at upgrading to the Arenas. There is nothing that programs faster, or busks better than an Avo. The cuelist functionality is there, and the last few revisions of Titan has made it a heck of a lot more intuitive for programmers coming from other desks. I've never done a scripted show on the desk personally, but my other programmers have. After all, their motto is "From rock to opera". The live programming functions are phenomenal.
 
Full disclosure, I work for a company that is an Avo dealer, When the boss gets back I'll find out what I can about parts and repair (might try and convince him to jump into that). That said we are currently looking at getting a used Expert Pro with touch wing. From the few times I've touched an avo desk I've been very happy. I can't say I've ever been happy in front of a chamsys board. The couple times a year we do a show with a GrandMA and haven't heard too many great things from them (we sit in a C level provider market so FWIW). 99% of our business runs on one offs so busking is a must. The cue lists are a bit different than ETC but still exist and don't seem too complicated granted I haven't used them. The thing that sold me on the Arena console is the built in UPS, for a venue maybe not as important but for touring festivals a life saver.
 
Console would "Save" and we would leave for an hour come back and the file would be missing 70% of the information. Handles would not respond correctly and some key presses were sluggish. This was after a deep clean and factory reset (recommended by Chasmys Support). No solution was found and the venue would rather replace than to send in for repair.
 
probably 3 months ago, In the boards defense I believe it was a fairly early model still had the Red faceplate.
 
This is not normal behaviour for a ChamSys console! It certainly sound like as Phil mentioned it likely had a hardware/disk fault.
Phil above looks after all things ChamSys in the USA and holds spares for all console models in stock down in Vero Beach.
If you come across this console again with the issue do get in touch directly with ChamSys USA and we'll get this resolved for you.
 

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