ETC ion Xe faders and monitors

[Stuart R]

Hello all -

Getting ready to buy an ETC ion Xe and need to decide what to buy re faders and monitors.

Fader choices:
Ion Xe alone (no faders)
Ion Xe20 with 20 non-motorized faders built in
Ion Xe with separate Eos motorized 20-fader wing
Ion Xe with separate Eos 20 non-motorized fader wing

We're a school, and tend to either do full theatre productions or concerts with pre-programmed cues, or static events like lectures or meetings which are often set-and-forget using looks we've already set up. There is virtually no one doing lighting live, on the fly, to music or dance, whether in-house or visiting.

Another consideration: during performances, we need to move the console to a fairly small desk for running the show, so it would be good for the setup to not be too bulky.

Given our set-up and circumstances, which fader approach would you recommend, and why?

Monitor needs:
(2) touchscreen

I'd also love some recommendations re touchscreen monitors to use with the Ion Xe. Again, no room for giant monitors, but they should have a good picture and solid touch response.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Stu

 

[danTt]

I'd consider an @5 cost vs an xe with wing and additional monitors. It's a much better base package with much more expandability.

That being said, a lot will depend on how you use faders and if you have more than one console on the network. If you regularly use less than one page of faders controlled from one console, there's no reason for motors. As soon as you cross to page 2 motors become awesome, and if you run a foh and backstage console motors are also awesome.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

I'm mostly the A1 in our facility, but our primary L1 programs entirely on the keyboard; he can live with out the faders. (In fact, we think he's responsible for that bugfix in the 2.8 release train about "hitting the keys too fast" .

The other three of us can't. I lit the jukebox musical Beehive about 3 years ago, and I simply could not have gotten the looks I wanted without the wing (20x2), much less could I have run it -- the only time, I think, that we've put a PSD on a fader; I had two of them that I bumped through in a couple of numbers, at different speeds. Was
a fun show; almost 200 cues, I think. 98 through 2610 or something like that.

 

[almorton]

Dell touchscreens are very popular, if you can find them, as they're in short supply currently. We have some iiyama screens and the touch on them is iffy, so I can't personally recommend them, but they're about 5 years old, so maybe they've improved since.

 

[JChenault]

I would suggest that a touchscreen may not be indicated. We have touch screens and a mouse. I find I almost never reach our and use the touch screen, but use the mouse instead.

 

[Stuart R]

Thank you, everyone. I think we want to be able to teach our students "industry standard" ways of using the board, whether programming or running, so perhaps it's best to have a wing of faders for programming and then not use it for running if it's not needed for that.

re the mouse - is it because touching the screen entails standing up and stretching one's arm out? (not being sarcastic - I could see it being a bit inconvenient)

Do people ever set up magic sheet pages and then simply touch different groups to program? Example: SL cool wash - touch; Area I (front, R, top) - touch... Two screen touches and 9 instruments are on.

 

[NJLX]

I use touchscreens all the time, for moving lights and LEDs. Groups are easy enough to just remember numbers and use the keypad, but when you're trying to remember color palettes, focus palettes, beam palettes, etc. I find it easier to just tap them on the screen. The popular model seems to be the Dell P2418HT, we also have a bunch of Viewsonic TD2230 which work well. Not sure what's available right now, however the dealer you order your Ion from can probably recommend something.

Always want at least a few faders - I never use them for programming, but for a house sub, a work sub, a general stage wash for those events that don't need more than "lights up, lights down" faders are the way to go.

Also want faders if there are any non-cued shows. Much easier to change looks on the fly for a presenter, talent show, etc. if you have the ability to put areas on faders.

Personally I love the Gio @5, but if you want more than 5 faders it's probably worth doing either the XE20 or XE with a motorized wing.

Also of note - buy a UPS to go with your console. And only plug in the console/monitors/wing, nothing else on the battery backup side.

 

[RonHebbard]

I use touchscreens all the time, for moving lights and LEDs. Groups are easy enough to just remember numbers and use the keypad, but when you're trying to remember color palettes, focus palettes, beam palettes, etc. I find it easier to just tap them on the screen. The popular model seems to be the Dell P2418HT, we also have a bunch of Viewsonic TD2230 which work well. Not sure what's available right now, however the dealer you order your Ion from can probably recommend something.

Always want at least a few faders - I never use them for programming, but for a house sub, a work sub, a general stage wash for those events that don't need more than "lights up, lights down" faders are the way to go.

Also want faders if there are any non-cued shows. Much easier to change looks on the fly for a presenter, talent show, etc. if you have the ability to put areas on faders.

Personally I love the Gio @5, but if you want more than 5 faders it's probably worth doing either the XE20 or XE with a motorized wing.

Also of note - buy a UPS to go with your console, and only plug in the console/monitors/wing, nothing else on the battery backup side.

@NJLX Once you've a UPS in your booth you might consider using it to power your Clear-Com (or similar). In case of a power outage mid performance, it's always nice to be in touch with stage management and FOH for crowd control & communication.
Possibly consider a larger UPS and power your God mic system and power amp as well.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[danTt]

@NJLX Once you've a UPS in your booth you might consider using it to power your Clear-Com (or similar). In case of a power outage mid performance, it's always nice to be in touch with stage management and FOH for crowd control & communication.
Possibly consider a larger UPS and power your God mic system and power amp as well.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

That sounds like a problem for audio.

 

[danTt]

Thank you, everyone. I think we want to be able to teach our students "industry standard" ways of using the board, whether programming or running, so perhaps it's best to have a wing of faders for programming and then not use it for running if it's not needed for that.

re the mouse - is it because touching the screen entails standing up and stretching one's arm out? (not being sarcastic - I could see it being a bit inconvenient)

Do people ever set up magic sheet pages and then simply touch different groups to program? Example: SL cool wash - touch; Area I (front, R, top) - touch... Two screen touches and 9 instruments are on.

It's going to depend a lot on how you see the process and interaction going. Industry standard for anything of scale is going to have a separate programmer and designer for the creative process, and in this case putting all sorts of stuff on faders is probably not that helpful for theatrical work. It can be handy if you're also designing the production and can just noodle around with faders until you like what's on stage, but that's only really helpful once--the second run through when you're editing cues the faders are not terribly helpful. Of course if you're busking live your priorities will be different.

I tend to use faders primarily for works, house, and inhibs while programming, and checkout and ml focus lists when in the run of a show.

As far as touch screens go, a lot will depend on your rig. If you're mostly conventional touch screens are less applicable, but as soon as you have devices with more than one parameter, direct selects with colors/focus/beam/macros/etc are way easier than remembering lots of palette numbers

 

[Jay Ashworth]

Well, kinda, yeah, sure.

One of our LDs was bored one day a few years back, and recreated our paper magic sheets in the console.

I'd tried, but couldn't figure what I was doing wrong. This includes all our rep hang, plus our 8 dance pipes. I note that it doesn't include our old movers (VLX-3 and -440's) much less our new ones (Chauvet Mavericks, and R2 Washes, IIRC).

 

[Dan Fischer]

The Magics Sheets are fantastic. Completely worth the time to set up at least your rep plot. I live off them when programming a show. I find it much easier to have a Magic Sheet in one window and my ML Control in another screen. Makes programming a breeze.

 

[blueeyesdesigns]

I've worked in a lot of schools and found that every single one of them has a fader or set of faders set up for when the non-theater people need to use the space for meetings or whatever. I would strongly recommend at least a small bank of non-motorized faders so that you can "idiot proof" turning on basic lights for them when technical staff aren't around. Otherwise what I see a lot is "1 thru 100 at full" left up for 8 hours because they can't figure out how or forget to turn them off and my gels and gobos are TOAST.

I agree with the other posters that for your use case, motorized faders are probably overkill and you could save a few bucks keeping it simpler. Makes me miss the "meter bridge" style fader bank that you could get for the old ION; clipped to the top and kept the console footprint small.