The
ion seems like it might be a
bit small, i meen its definatly a good idea but it seems more like a
cue only type board and i dont know if
fader wings will be possible .
I can't say I've ever heard of anyone making a choice based on the
console being too small. Too big, yes, but not too small.
Here's some thoughts and rationalizations as to why I went to an
Ion instead of an
Eos.
- The
Eos was actually too big for my position. I knew I needed faders and a lot of them and that became a determination - real estate, as in where to put the
Ion plus 2 -3 40
fader wings. In reality, a lot of the size of the
Eos comes from the built in touch screens, as well as the 10 motorized faders. I knew I didn't need 10 motorized faders and gambled that 2 touch screens for the
Ion would make the
system flexible enough. It did. One of the things I never expected to be doing was adding and striking wings as needed for the event. Some shows are simple and use one
wing, some none as I only need the
desk on-line to do a focus, then the event gets run on a show
desk (and I now have room to make it fit - something I couldn't do if I had an
Eos, I'd have to
strike the
desk). Other times I have all 3 wings use. Total flexibility.
- You trade in some buttons when going down to the
Ion from the
Eos (as well as 4 to 2 screens). If you want to know which buttons, run the Off-Line Editor between the
Ion and
Eos versions to see the
layout. Some of those buttons can be useful, but in truth,
ETC did a pretty good job figuring out which buttons could become softkeys or double tap on the
Ion to allow the
Ion to do what it needs to do. About the only thing I've missed is the + and - percent keys that allow +/- 10 percent
channel levels to be found easily. That and maybe a
Level key. I do not miss having dedicated pan/tilt encoders as you can replicate that with a trackball and I generally just use the existing encoders, which means I have to remember to press the Position key. Not an issue.
- I don't run events that would max out the
current capacity of my
Ion, which is 1024 addresses. I can always pay for more if needed. And it's not only 2 universes. If used with a Net2/3
system, it's 1024 addresses across 32 universes, so a lot of flexibility.
- I tend to run shows either as 1) On a few subs with some or no movers. 2) Or a lot of subs with 10 movers as well as
LED's, 3) Cued. With cued shows, the 2 screens show
channel levels on one
screen,
cue structure on the other. With busy events on a lot of subs as well as
LED's and movers, I'm not cuing, so have no need to see the
cue list. I generally don't even need to see
channel levels as I'm looking at the
stage and can see what's happening. I don't need at that
point to see that the Blue
Bax are at 47% vs. 53%, as example. Thus for the non-cued shows I set up the screens for a lot of Direct Selects so I have one
button access to Fix groups, colors, focus, beam
etc.... as well as presets. Between the Direct Selects and the encoders, I can busk a show very easily. As well, the
console allows Snapshots of the
screen layouts, so it's really easy to do a cued show using a snapshot for direct selects to
cue with, then run it with
channel levels and
cue sheet displayed on a 2nd snapshot. Ditto adding in the
Color Picker, make it snapshot 3,
etc....
- I've said I use a lot of faders. I end up having to run stuff as
one-off's with no cuing. Some stuff cannot be done using the keypad to access channels. One of the things that has always puzzled me is how many houses that use an
Eos never purchased any supplemental
fader wings. Possibly because of the huge cost difference between
Ion and
Eos, but I hear many stories of folks working in a
house with an
Eos where they have to run the whole show on 10 faders and a lot of paging. I actually got a
call from a LD buddy who wanted to borrow a
wing for a local
house with an
Eos. I didn't have one free and he told me later the
console operator had never hooked one up and wouldn't have known how too.
- Which of which is why I have always felt that the
Ion, which
IMO can do 80% or more of the
Eos's function at 1/2 the cost, is the best bang for the buck.