Console Recommendation for High School + Theatre Academy?

[TheaterEd]

Does any one know if the Element 2 runs regular EOS or if it runs EOS for element?

I know that whenever I go from my Element back to an ION, there are certain programming differences that I have to re-learn. I believe the ION treats cue-only mode slightly differently when it comes to movers, and also programming subs to a fader requires an extra step or two.

 

[Christopher Dix]

Does any one know if the Element 2 runs regular EOS or if it runs EOS for element?

I know that whenever I go from my Element back to an ION, there are certain programming differences that I have to re-learn. I believe the ION treats cue-only mode slightly differently when it comes to movers, and also programming subs to a fader requires an extra step or two.

I'm pretty sure that the Element boards do run a modified version of Eos. I remembered seeing listings on ETC's website of separate downloads for "Eos" and "Element" software. Additionally, I just installed ETCnomad on my laptop, and, upon first launch, it prompted me to choose between "Eos" and "Element."

- Chris

 

[gafftaper]

Thank you all for the many replies!!

Regarding our decision to try to get an Ion Xe 20 instead of the Element: We currently have only a few LEDs which we use for certain shows. However, we are planning to upgrade in the next year or two to a mostly- or completely-LED system. (We are looking at fixtures from the Elation Fuze series.) The budget is tight right now because we wanted to try to get the new console in the next few months; over the next couple of school years, the Board of Education has planned to allocate a significant amount of money (probably $50,000 or more) towards switching to LEDs and movers. I have used the Ion in the past at a different venue, so I am familiar with its feature-set and software.

That's great to hear and Ion is an excellent choice for you then. I would still encourage you to get a personal demo. Do you have a local dealer that you work with?

Also don't let them talk you into an all LED rig and then go cheap on you. You probably want to just add LED's into your rig. You can replace your cyc lights and side/down lights, yes. But for front light (unless they are willing to give you enough budget to replace all of your ellipsoidals 1 to 1 with either Chauvet Ovation or ETC Colorsource ellipsoidals) you just want to add LED's.

 

[NickVon]

You would be happy with either the ETC Element 2, or the ION. Though point of analysis on people griping about using movers on the element. While "mildly" wining i think are to much. Would I want to tour with an element over an ion? No. Those encoders do become useful. But for a console that sits in a venue and doesn't move; for the money you can save with an Element it's downsides arn't downsides. Regarding the moving fixtures parameters thats what Focus/Beam/Color paletts are for. Create 20 of them and you'll find you don't miss the encoder wheels anymore for the occasional tweak to a focus position. Get an Ion if the budget affords, but i the extra money can reasonable go to an additional fixtures, or bying a higher teir fixtures go for it.

I don't recall if the ELEMENT 2 is going to support the 3D augmentation that people are talking about, but as a teaching tool that is something that benefits the Ion

 

[SteveB]

You would be happy with either the ETC Element 2, or the ION. Though point of analysis on people griping about using movers on the element. While "mildly" wining i think are to much. Would I want to tour with an element over an ion? No. Those encoders do become useful. But for a console that sits in a venue and doesn't move; for the money you can save with an Element it's downsides arn't downsides. Regarding the moving fixtures parameters thats what Focus/Beam/Color paletts are for. Create 20 of them and you'll find you don't miss the encoder wheels anymore for the occasional tweak to a focus position. Get an Ion if the budget affords, but i the extra money can reasonable go to an additional fixtures, or bying a higher teir fixtures go for it.

I don't recall if the ELEMENT 2 is going to support the 3D augmentation that people are talking about, but as a teaching tool that is something that benefits the Ion

A poor persons encoder system is get an inexpensive tablet, a WiFi router and buy the Alien Stagecraft OSCRFR app. It gives you encoders and is in any event, the best remote for the desk in use.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

If it's your personal money, maybe get the Element; but if it's the School's money, ask for a Gio and settle for an Ion. You can be assured the football coach doesn't ask for less than the very best; and not the band director either. If you keep asking for the very least that will do, you are likely to always get less. It's how the game of taxpayer dollars is played. And if it's ten years to the next one, do you really want to begin at the bottom?

Drives me nuts working on a whole new building when the theatre users are first to jump up and offer to take sacrifices to their part of the building.

 

[RickR]

Does any one know if the Element 2 runs regular EOS or if it runs EOS for element?

I know that whenever I go from my Element back to an ION, there are certain programming differences that I have to re-learn. I believe the ION treats cue-only mode slightly differently when it comes to movers, and also programming subs to a fader requires an extra step or two.

Here is the list of differences. https://support.etcconnect.com/ETC/...ent_Compares_to_the_Other_Eos_Family_Consoles
The software is exactly the same file download unless you want Nomad on a Mac!
The keyboard has a few less buttons, so more is done through soft keys, and makes your muscle memory half useful.

 

[Christopher Dix]

That's great to hear and Ion is an excellent choice for you then. I would still encourage you to get a personal demo. Do you have a local dealer that you work with?

Also don't let them talk you into an all LED rig and then go cheap on you. You probably want to just add LED's into your rig. You can replace your cyc lights and side/down lights, yes. But for front light (unless they are willing to give you enough budget to replace all of your ellipsoidals 1 to 1 with either Chauvet Ovation or ETC Colorsource ellipsoidals) you just want to add LED's.

I would have to double-check with my adviser as to if we can schedule a demo. The two ETC distributors which we have dealt with in the past are Norcostco and Adorama.

And thanks for the advice about LED upgrades! Most of our system now consists of ETC Source Four MultiPAR 12 strip lights, which provide us very little versatility. We plan to replace all of those with Elation Fuze PAR Z175s. For a secondary color wash and effects onstage, we also plan to use Elation Fuze Wash Z120s plus other FX/versatile movers (not sure of the exact model yet). Our current ETC Source Four lekos and PARs will be kept and used as a Tungsten wash and for "specials" for certain shows. Regarding front lights, we are going to keep the 24 ETC Source Four lekos that we have and add four or six (depending on budget) Elation Fuze Profile fixtures. These new front LEDs will also help provide lighting in the auditorium pit, where many events take place throughout the year (and where every presenter is currently in the dark).

 

[gafftaper]

Not getting a demo is a huge mistake that many schools make. You buy a console based on specifications and then determine that it doesn't actually work the way you want it to. It's also a really good idea to get demos of LED fixtures. What does the light look like on your stage with your lights? You don't know. It's a service that any decent sized dealer can setup for you and Norcostco should definitely be able to handle.

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with the Elation Fuze line. At this point, my advice for buying LED ellipsoidals is to only buy ETC and Chauvet Ovation fixtures. I am going to take a good look at the Elation product line at LDI in a couple of weeks. Post a comment in the what do you want to know about at LDI thread and I'll try to get my hands and eyes on the exact fixtures you are looking at.

Finally for front light, I advise not adding LED's without them also having an incandescent "partner" in the same area. Use the incandescent for the base of the light and the LED to tint the color.

 

[Malabaristo]

You would be happy with either the ETC Element 2, or the ION. Though point of analysis on people griping about using movers on the element. While "mildly" wining i think are to much.

I feel personally attacked But it really depends on the circumstances you're working under: if you're busking, or short on rehearsal time, then every speed advantage you can give yourself is huge. The experience that really cemented the importance of encoders in my head was doing an especially ridiculous dance recital that had about 90 different pieces all teched in one 12 hour day. I ended up with something like 300-350 cues and used the movers heavily for patterns on the cyc & floor to mix things up. Palettes are a great way to get close, but I still had a lot of individual tweaking to keep them all from looking the same. I wasn't doing anything that couldn't be done on an Element in terms of complexity of programming or any other features, but I would not have been able to do it in anywhere near the same amount of time--and I say that as someone who uses an Element more often than any other console. Also, in that case I had very little time in advance to do much setup of palettes or other pre-programming.

I don't recall if the ELEMENT 2 is going to support the 3D augmentation that people are talking about, but as a teaching tool that is something that benefits the Ion

My understanding is that everything except the older models running on Windows XP will support Augment3d... so newer Element & all Element 2, Newer Ions & all Ion Xe, Gio, Eos Ti will all support it. Older Element, Ion, and the original Eos won't. Also, with the old ones you can still run it on a connected Nomad client.

The differences between Element and the rest of the Eos family have gotten much smaller with software updates over time. It's definitely a very capable console, and I don't want to sound like I'm disparaging it in any way... or whining too much.

 

[sk8rsdad]

Tossing in my two cents on the Element vs Ion debate. Full disclosure, I have a pair of Ion classic's in my venue, one is a XP with a very low serial number. That one may get replaced by a Gio@5 on the next upgrade cycle.

With the advent of Element 2 and the common facepanel with the rest of the Eos family many of my reservations about Element have been resolved. Element's niche is not about being a low cost alternative to Ion. The intent is to be more accessible to casual or infrequent users. The feature set is reduced accordingly. Pretty much anybody on this forum, certainly the active contributors to the lighting forum, are going to want an Ion, Gio or Eos because they are comfortable with the extended feature set. We aren't the target market for Element.

Encoders are handy but they aren't the only way to be efficient. Their biggest benefit is in fine tuning a gross setting. A touch screen with some knudge macro buttons can do the same thing. The features requiring knudges tend to be focus, built-in fixture spin/effect rates, and framing shutters, all of which depend on your inventory of fixtures.

I think you'll find that Augment3d is going to greatly reduce the need for encoders for focusing, especially if you have a touch screen and the phone remote. It looks ridiculously easy to build focus palettes for the entire rig with a few clicks or a gesture.

 

[dmx]

The Ion vs Element banter is quite entertaining!!

In all seriousness, one additional factor to consider (that may have been mentioned, but I didn't see it) is that the Element is limited to 2 Universes of output and the Ion XE starts at 4 Universes and can be expanded from there.

I'm not sure if this will impact the OP's venue in any manner, but felt it was worth noting.

 

[JohnD]

The Ion vs Element banter is quite entertaining!!

In all seriousness, one additional factor to consider (that may have been mentioned, but I didn't see it) is that the Element is limited to 2 Universes of output and the Ion XE starts at 4 Universes and can be expanded from there.

I'm not sure if this will impact the OP's venue in any manner, but felt it was worth noting.

There are two choices for the Element 2, it is available with two universes or 12 universes. The MAP price for the 1K version is $ 6300 and the MAP price for the 6K version is $ 7200.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Element 2 does a dozen universes - the - 6K model - which I would recommend. You can eat 2 universes real fast.

PS - I still strongly support the choice for an Ion.

 

[almorton]

My understanding is that everything except the older models running on Windows XP will support Augment3d... so newer Element & all Element 2, Newer Ions & all Ion Xe, Gio, Eos Ti will all support it. Older Element, Ion, and the original Eos won't. Also, with the old ones you can still run it on a connected Nomad client.

Hmmm, my understanding is that the client and the primary both have to be running identical versions of EOS and fixture libraries, and any XP based console simply will not load the 3.0 software, so if you have a XP based console you won't be able to use Augment3d at all, even with a Nomad client.

 

[Malabaristo]

Hmmm, my understanding is that the client and the primary both have to be running identical versions of EOS and fixture libraries, and any XP based console simply will not load the 3.0 software, so if you have a XP based console you won't be able to use Augment3d at all, even with a Nomad client.

Ahh, memory is a problem. I had to go back and watch the USITT intro video to see where I went wrong. Lowell mentioned that difference between older and newer consoles, but he was referring to a couple versions of Windows 7 hardware with different types of display output. You are correct that Windows XP based consoles will not be able to run Augment3d in any form.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Thank you all for the informative responses! After talking everything over with my adviser, we are going to try to get an ETC Ion Xe 20 with two touch screens. (As an accessory, we will install the iRFR app onto our crew iPad (which we already have).)

Excellent choice -- especially from the "we're trying to teach people to go out in the world" front.

Look at oscRFR for your tablet; well worth the money.

 

[tyler.martin]

I'm pretty sure that the Element boards do run a modified version of Eos. I remembered seeing listings on ETC's website of separate downloads for "Eos" and "Element" software. Additionally, I just installed ETCnomad on my laptop, and, upon first launch, it prompted me to choose between "Eos" and "Element."

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- Chris

Not any more. They do run the same software, the USB key that identifies the consoles channel counts, skins the software for the specific console. There are some features that are not accessible on an Element, but that gap between Ion and Element is narrowing.

 

[tyler.martin]

Speaking from experience with the ADJ wireless products, once you start using multiple universes and transmitters, things can get squirrelly real quick. I've also noticed delays when you need to start transmitting massive amounts of data.

I think you'll do fine with either an Ion or an Element. Sure - having the encoders for movers is nice, but not necessary for anything less than 6 moving lights, especially when they aren't often changing positions, and you aren't using them for flash and trash.

Also - 50K is not going to be enough money to do your entire rig.

Just a tip - If you are looking at Elation fixtures, make sure you are going to buy fixtures that use the same emitter arrays. It's quite a chore to match color temperature and fixture look with lights that are 7 Color LED, 3 Color LED and 4 Color LED. I recently did a system install with Colorsource Lekos, Elation Fuze 175 and ColorForce 2 Cycs. Balancing that rig to make the white points somewhat similar was a nightmare.

 

[Christopher Dix]

Hi all!

Thank you all for the useful advice, and sorry for the delay in posting something here -- other events caused us to take a hiatus in purchasing the new board.

After talking to a sales representative from one of the school's approved vendors, my adviser now wants to purchase the ChamSys MagicQ 60. It looks to be an okay console overall, but I have two main issues with it:

1. Ease of Use: After looking at the product pages and watching some tutorial videos, the software (in my opinion) seems to be less intuitive than ETC's Eos. Here's the way I view it: Any teacher at the school or new lighting crew member would want to go to the console and get the lights running with a minimal learning curve. In my opinion, the easiest way to use the console is by seeing a physical layout of the lights (in other words, a magic sheet on Eos), selecting the ones I want on a touchscreen (or by tapping an onscreen button to select a group), and then using a physical wheel or encoder to control it. The ChamSys MagicQ 60 only supports this "plot"-style operation through the use of an external computer networked to the console -- and the learning curve would be increased if everyone who wants to access the system would have to boot up the board, get a networked PC working, and know how to navigate to the right screen in the ChamSys software. The fact that the "magic sheet" or "plot" is not natively in the console was a deal-breaker for me being in support of this console. (However, my opinion carries little weight -- I am a senior at the school and will graduate in six months, so we ideally need something that less-experienced members and our crew adviser, who doesn't have much experience in lighting, can easily operate.)
2. Practicality of Learning: As I mentioned in my original post, if the school is investing in a board that would last at least ten years, it should be something that represents what's actually found in the industry. From what I understand, ETC and Eos seem to be the industry-standard line of consoles, whereas ChamSys is one of the less-popular brands. I just feel that it would be a waste to train future students on a ChamSys board, and then have them move onto college or the industry only to have to learn a completely different system.

The main reasons why my adviser liked the board:

• Besides what was listed above, the console seems to meet all of our other needs.
• The $6,500 price tag of the ChamSys console is significantly less than the $10,500 cost of an Ion (which is what I recommended to him). When trying to order, it would be much easier to get a $6,500 order approved than one that is over $10,000. (My response to this would be to recommend an ETC Element 2, since that board is about the same price as the ChamSys. I would also argue that "if this board is supposed to last us at least ten years, it's worth the extra $3,000 upfront to get the Ion since it gives us room to expand (due to the encoders and DMX outputs).")

So, before we end up purchasing something, I have a couple questions for you all:

• What are your thoughts on the MagicQ 60 versus one of ETC's models (whether it be the Element or the Ion)?
• From what I've been reading, the main advantage of the MagicQ over Eos seems to be easier busking. Easy busking is important, since most of our shows throughout the year aren't necessarily "theatrical" (we do have some pre-programmed plays and musicals, but most events just need to quickly have lights running). In my mind, busking is just as easy on ETC's side after some magic sheets are initially set up (which I can do before I graduate) -- what do you guys think?
• If any of you have experience using the MagicQ line: How well do you think it would meet my school's needs?

Thank you all again -- Your opinions and input are greatly appreciated!

- Chris