So we've had our
Ion now since May. I have gotten the functions down fairly well, I am still unsure on whether I like the "
tracking" or not. I mean, I've
cue'd several shows now and am always aware of channels that are
tracking..With that said, I still think back to the old 72/144 in which each
cue would be basically a fresh slate, and not have channels
track through from
cue to cue. How many of you like or dislike "
tracking" and do you use the board in or out of
tracking mode?
Thanks for any input, thoughts.
Dan
See this thread:
http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/question-about-tracking-vs-cue-only.33605/
I tend to work in
cue only, but mostly as the times I'm building up looks, it's frequently a visiting company that is quickly writing a lot of looks where the SM knows that
Cue 3 will also be Q7, Q15, Q19,
etc.... thus find I get into less trouble sitting in
cue only. But as Anne stated " Putting a
tracking desk into
Cue Only mode does not make it a
preset desk". I fully understand the differences and use the inherent
tracking ability of the
Ion all the time to not screw up all my attributes of the movers. This is one thing
tracking desks are really good at and their reason for being in most ways, it's really the only way you can deal with
LED's and movers and any gear that needs to not go home every time you want a new
cue. Some LD's are really good as well, at understanding exactly what the channels are supposed to be doing, what's needed in certain scenes, writing hard
block cues before and after scenes to avoid unwanted
tracking and tracing and then using
track and
trace to their advantage as modifiers and to avoid having to go forward and back
thru the cues to modify levels.
Eos OS is much better at this then
Express ever could be.
In practice and with events that have nothing but conventionals, there's really not a huge difference on the surface between how you record on the
Ion and on the
Express.
"Ch 1 full, record
cue 5, time 5.". On
Express you need to (sometimes) press the
channel button before recalling Ch 1 to Full, on the
Ion it's smarter and assumes you are talking channels unless you pressed the
Cue or Record buttons. That saves a
bit of time lost to having to press Enter a lot. You also save time on
Ion when it knows that "5" means "50" and when it auto loads the playback
fader, saving a "
Cue 5, Go A/B,
Release,
Release". Thus there's all kinds of functions that save you a ton of time on
Ion,
tracking and
trace only being two of them. Get to know the
desk and you will see for yourself.