Control/Dimming GrandMA2 Questions

[barak181]

I'm an ETC programmer. I grew up with ETC. I like to say that I speak ETC natively. Not surprising being that I come from a theatre background. But I work enough outside of theatre to know how predominant the GrandMA is outside of the theatre.

What I hear all the time is that the MA handles moving fixtures better. What I've never really had explained to me is *why* it's so much better than the Eos with moving lights. I've done shows on an Eos that are all moving heads and LED fixtures quickly and easily. (Granted, I wouldn't want to do it without external touchscreens.) Would an MA2 really make my life that much easier?

What really got me thinking is that I just booked a pretty big programming gig that was originally spec'd on a GrandMA2 and by my request is being changed to an Eos. Thinking ahead to the future, does my experience and comfort level with the Eos preclude any advantage a MA may give me on these type of gigs or should I really try to find the time to teach myself a new console that says things like "please" and "oops"?

 

[Amiers]

It’s good the broaden you horizon for sure. It’s awesome that they swapped consoles for ya just don’t let them down.

I have found that outside our home everything in the wild is just that. One day it will be a jands next a hog and next an MA. It’s not so much the quality of the console for fixtures but how well you can manipulate them to do what you want with what you are given.

The best you can do is have the internet handy for those opps moments and just look back to a training video. Even listening to it will cue you fingers.

If people expect us to know every single console thru and thru a lot of people would be out of work.

GL with that gig.

 

[TimMc]

It’s good the broaden you horizon for sure. It’s awesome that they swapped consoles for ya just don’t let them down.

I have found that outside our home everything in the wild is just that. One day it will be a jands next a hog and next an MA. It’s not so much the quality of the console for fixtures but how well you can manipulate them to do what you want with what you are given.

The best you can do is have the internet handy for those opps moments and just look back to a training video. Even listening to it will cue you fingers.

If people expect us to know every single console thru and thru a lot of people would be out of work.

GL with that gig.

It's expected in audio. An operator/show mixer would not get the job if he wasn't sufficiently fluent in the brands and models chosen by the designer. If you want a mixing gig you'd better know your way around *all* of the popular professional offerings.

 

[Amiers]

I agree totally with audio. Those digital boards have 1000 ways to screw you in a heart beat.

Luckily lighting is a bit more forgiving.

 

[Dionysus]

Honestly I find MA to be designed more inclined towards "busking" moving lights than ETC's EOS. EOS can busk quite well, when you are familiar enough with it and set it up in certain ways, especially with magic sheets, etc.
I've run into a lot of people who think its not possible to properly "busk" moving lights on EOS, however it most certainly is possible.

MA is still considered the gold standard for busking moving lights.

 

[OscarMelectrified]

I also ask this question to people I come across. I've only used ETC, Martin consoles and have little-to-zero knowledge on MA. But from talking to a lot of users that are familiar with Eos say Playback is much more flexible on MA. Where I work we will possibly upgrade our ETC console to a GrandMA 2 Light in the near future. So we're all about to start learning a completely new world of control, which is exciting but also a bit scary. Knowing though we will have the industry standard for Lighting Designers worldwide. I'll have a better scope of *why* after getting experience.

 

[cbrandt]

The Eos software has progressed by a giant margin when it comes to busking quickly and efficiently. It does take a marginal amount more of setup, and I'd argue that it requires a better programmer/operator to setup and busk a show on the Eos. However, the difference is closer than it used to be. I had a summer festival last year doing EDM busking on an Ion, and it wasn't a problem at all.

That being said, I'd much rather take one of the concert oriented boards for busking. A good operator/programmer is the key part, but a hog or MA does just make life a little bit easier when you're working on the fly.

Most lighting programmers can work on 2 different platforms. It is much harder to find them competent at more than that. Taken with the grain of salt that I am very much not an audio guy, the workflow might be a bit different from audio console to console, but you are essentially performing the same action and function no matter when you're on. There are similarities between lighting consoles, but the thought process behind how you make a light point somewhere and do something cool is completely different on every platform.

 

[TimMc]

Taken with the grain of salt that I am very much not an audio guy, the workflow might be a bit different from audio console to console, but you are essentially performing the same action and function no matter when you're on. There are similarities between lighting consoles, but the thought process behind how you make a light point somewhere and do something cool is completely different on every platform.

As an audio guy I'd say that pretty much every lighting desk in the same class does the same things, too. It's all how you get there (the UI).

Ditto for digital audio mixers - there are feature differences (some of which are actually meaningful), robustness, and perceived "sound quality" - but pretty much they do the same thing. Getting there may or may not be half the fun . Some brands and models are so customizable that you have to program them in order to use them, others work pretty much right out of the box, some bury access to functions and features in menu layers while others "have a button for that".

It's mostly a matter of what desk provides the needed features and functions that is friendliest to the operator's desired work flow.

 

[coldnorth57]

do ya speaka my langage ...... I have programed and ran Strand, Horizion -Marquee, M-series, Hog4 and what I have found was they all do the same thing make DMX . But what langage do you want to speak and how easy is it to get there