Control/Dimming Issues with ETC Congo Kid Programming

[Golani]

He guys,
I was working on programming some basic cues (or sequences as they're called in Cobalt software) for my upcoming musical, Chicago. The director wants some lighting effects of just a general buildup of brightness through a dance number ending in essentially a RemDim of some red back lighting.

While I was running the sequences today I was having issues with getting the response time up to something that would have a decent visual effect. I tested to see if it was simply that I'm using old fixtures and their cooling time is long on the lamps, but it isn't. I did this by assigning the channels to master sliders on the attached fader wing and just manually moving the sliders.

Of course this means that I could just manually control the effect with the faders, although I would much prefer to have the effect run through the sequences if possible. I did try writing, editing, and completely rewriting the sequences with overriding the in/out times to 0 and it still was significantly slower than using the faders.

Any suggestions?
Thanks!

 

[MNicolai]

How are you constructing your effect? Is it just a sequence of presets with the channels doing their thing or is it through something like a Dynamic Effect?

 

[Golani]

I'm just running it as just a sequence of recorded presets -- channels x, y, and z at 70% for step 1 then step 2 those out and the back lighting at full essentially.

 

[Amiers]

https://www.etcconnect.com/Products/Consoles/Cobalt-Family/Congo-Kid/Support-Training.aspx

This has the basics of setting up effects in programming. Which type of effect are you loading? Each one will do something different.

Honestly I would just make a long fade cue. Ending with the red back lighting at whatever level you want.

 

[Golani]

I think I'm miscommunicating...
I'm not actually loading any effects in the sense of the Cobalt software. The director has just asked me to have some specific lighting cues and the trouble lies in the cues not executing as fast I'd like them to. Although the issue isn't in the lighting fixtures having a slow response time because when I tried doing the cues by manually assigning the channels to faders and just using the faders it worked perfectly.

The cues are running slower than I'd like them to even when setting the in/out time to 0. Not entirely sure if there's anything to do about it or if I just have to do that part of the design by just manually moving the faders.

The issue with doing a long fade cue is that it has a very specific visual GO from the actor. The specific cue I'm referring to is when Hunyak hangs herself. The actor will be doing some dance on hung silks and there will be a rimshot from the pit and she "falls" and at the very beginning of the fall there is supposed to be a black out of front lighting leaving only the red back lighting. But again the issue is that there still seems to be a longer than I'd like fade time between the two cues despite having the fade time set to 0 (it's pretty much the same fade time as having it set to 1 second -- may be just the board isn't set up to execute cues that quickly)

 

[Amiers]

Ah I see what your saying.

Well I'm surprised that it can't do a fast 0 in the cueing. Maybe set a macro to clear the faders and bring up the backlight cue at the push of a button then set that to a cue. I'm not familiar with Congo line so I'm not sure if you can attach a macro to a cue but if not atleast it is 1 button to push instead of putting them on faders and busking it.

Worth a try.

 

[MNicolai]

Congo doesn't support a time of "0". When you type [0] [Time], it clears out whatever custom timing you may have for the step and reverts to your Default Go Time. Think the default on that is usually 3s or 5s -- it's whatever the console is set up as in the main settings. In absence of a custom fade time for a step, a step fades out/in at the pace of the Default Go Time.

In order to get a lickity split "as if it was 0s" fade, you need to set the step time to .01 seconds by typing [.][0][1][Time].

In my example below, the presets with times lists for Out and In will fade at those timings, including the .01's. However, any step without any time set at all will play back at 3 seconds. Why 3 seconds? Because in my Play Settings, my Default Go Time happens to be 3 seconds.

So technically according to my example below, the "Dross Presents NC" step has redundant timing. It will play at 3 seconds because that's what I've set it to, but if I typed [0][Time] it'll blank that 3 out and still play back at my Default Go Time of 3 seconds.

 

[Amiers]

New consoles have expanded so much. It makes My love for the expression 3 that much more as simple task such as a 0 B/O that much more.

 

[sclausenETC]

If you set the default times as follows:
Default GO time = (nothing - use 0 or clear MODIFY to clear this cell)
Default In time = 5
Default Out time = 5

You will have exactly what the Expression does. 0 TIME in this case will give you a snap time. Any other times you enter will give you the times you expect.
These timing options are shown on the Let's Begin dialog when you make a new show, or you can store and start from a Default play that contains these (and any other) settings right from the start.

Hope this helps -

Sarah

 

[Golani]

I tried doing a [.][1][time] but it just blanked the same as if I had reset it to 0. I figured that if I typed in 0 it just defaulted to the board default time for in/out. Today I will try to get to the board and try the [.][0][1][time]!
Since I am rather new to this board and I am kind of training myself on it based on my somewhat decent knowledge of the Ion, if I just put the ".01" in to the GO Time while recording the sequence it should be able to have it go at that speed, correct? Or do I also have to change the In/Out times?

Thank you all so much for your help. This new board was thrown at me when my old NSI MC 7532 died and instead of purchasing the Ion I recommended they purchased this and I really would be up a river without a paddle without all of your help!

 

[Ric]

Hi Golani,
The above "[.][1][time]" format assumes that you have the desk in RPN mode, which is the default operating mode.
The desk has an option to go to AT mode, which is similar to the Strand and Eos command line; if the command to change time isn't working it may be that your desk is set in that mode.
Info on AT mode and where to check it is in the video below.

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P.S. there are lots of great tutorials on Cobalt on Youtube that will help you learn more about the features & power of the desk!

 

[sclausenETC]

Time commands are not affected by At Mode, only channel selection and level setting. I also recommend looking at the ETC Video Library channel on YouTube for the Cobalt tutorials. Your knowledge of the Ion in this case will likely only cause you frustration as the Cobalt and Eos families are completely unrelated, software-wise. We are also ready and willing to help you over on the ETC Community Forums as well.

Here to help -

Sarah

 

[Golani]

Thank you all so much for your help!
I was able to fix the cue execution time by changing the board general settings for GO Times to .01!