Light board woes

laurie johnson said:
Would someone take me through the steps of using software to control lighting? This is a technology I am intrigued by, but no nothing of.
Click to expand...

Sure, I'll be happy to do my best! So in truth, using software to control lighting isn't much different than using an actual console. In fact, many of the light boards you buy today are really just a PC on the inside with a fancy keyboard. My ETC Congo Kid runs Windows 7 Embedded, though you'd never even know it! As far as the steps go, step one is to choose the software you'd like to use and download/install it on your local computer. As others have already mentioned, this should be a dedicated computer and not one that likes to magically install updates...cough cough Windows 10...

Once you get your software installed you'll need to attached your DMX interface or "dongle". This is usually just a USB-DMX cable or box that takes the relevant instructions from the software via USB and outputs the industry-standard DMX protocol that your lighting equipment is able to understand. In lieu of the USB-DMX box, most software can support other networking protocols sent via ethernet and converted to DMX at a "node", but for now we'll just stick with USB :)

One quick edit here - let's talk about patching. This would be covered in the programming portion below, but since you asked how to integrate this to your existing auditorium system I figured it's worth a go-back to explain. So all of your equipment takes instruction from the DMX protocol mentioned above. Each "device", be it a dimmer, LED Par, Moving Head, etc., will occupy a number of DMX channels. A dimmer will usually be a 1:1 match for DMX channels used versus actual circuits being controlled. More complex lights can occupy dozens of channels for things like pan, tilt, color, gobo, etc. The job of "patching" your board into the system is lining up your light board to match the existing addresses of your system. Once that's done, everything should behave the way you're used to. The manual of any software you choose will have a section on patching, so I'd suggest reading that as one of the first things you study up on when getting started.

That's pretty much it to get you up and running! Everything else such as the actual "programming" takes place in the software, and the steps you follow will be highly dependent on the software you chose. For instance, should you decide to run ETC's Nomad product, the keystrokes and programming syntax will be identical to using a full-size Eos or Cobalt desk, depending on your preference. You just won't have the specialty keys and faders without a wing, so it'll take a little time to adjust to keyboard/mouse-only control. So anyways, you build your scenes/memories/cue stacks/sequences just like you would on a physical desk - it's just in a slightly different form factor.

Does that help at all?
 
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I have two video tutorials on my website that may help you. They explain a lot of the functions. Please go to the 'Lighting' page. If you have questions, feel free to send me a personal message. You may also download the trial and read the Help file.
 
As an educator, you qualify for student pricing on ETC's nomad / Gadget II kit. Might not be a bad way to go.
 
It's 512 outputs distributable across 2 universes or more. The USB-to-DMX Gadget can be configured as 2 universes, or as a splitter feeding the same universe both ports. Through sACN or Art-Net, some ludicrous number of universes can be patched, but the maximum number of outputs is capped at 512.
 
Got it. The house where I'm apprenticing has 192 dimmers (with, like, 135 or so wired), and then a bunch of movers in U2. So it'll still work for me, even though it's "really" only a 1u box, though I might have to rewrite the patching, I guess, unless it doesn't actually care about the channel *numbers* either, just their count. (They have an Ion, but I can't take that home with me, obviously)
 
You ought to be able to take the show file from the Ion and use it as-is. All channels that fit in the 512 available outputs will work unchanged. Any channels that consume addresses beyond the available 512 outputs will be disabled. You can squeeze a lot of fixtures into a single universe if you don't need independent control of the fixtures by reusing addresses. The console can't tell if there is one fixture or a dozen at address 11, for example.
 
sk8rsdad said:
You ought to be able to take the show file from the Ion and use it as-is. All channels that fit in the 512 available outputs will work unchanged. Any channels that consume addresses beyond the available 512 outputs will be disabled. You can squeeze a lot of fixtures into a single universe if you don't need independent control of the fixtures by reusing addresses. The console can't tell if there is one fixture or a dozen at address 11, for example.
Click to expand...

Well, repatching the house will be outside my scope of authority.

But as I say, with only 192 dimmers in the rack, and only 8 movers, I have enough headroom, and that's the most complicated room I'll be working in at the moment.

But having the ability to pull that show off onto my own board, play with it, and then just plug in the board to try it out lets me not mess with the house board any more than necessary, while I'm still learning how not to set it on fire.

Do you know how formal their "apprenticeship" has to be?

My boss there is the theatre manager, and a 40 year LD, but he's not an instructor; he's just instructing *me*. :) (That may not be quite true, I think he does do one course, but he's carried as staff on the rolls.)
 
Thanks so much for all the input. My director found we do have a company that does sell lighting controls and such. Who'da thought. Anyway, in a meeting with the vocal music dept about enhancing the sound reproduction of our auditorium, lighting company was also able to put in its two cents regarding the Leviton. And our principal was in attendance for this meeting, so he heard it all. Lighting company presented the software controlled program as being a very good choice. I am coming to this august body of professionals to ask for recommendations beyond the Martin M-Play program. Always good to go to a seller with ideas. I look forward to learning even more than I have learned so far about lighting controls. :)
 
Hi Laurie and y'all. I use Chamsys MagicQ with an Enttec DMXPro box. I use this on an all-in-one touchscreen PC as my community theatre's main/only lighting desk, and on my personal laptop as my personal desk for paying gigs.

Most of the "mainstream" PC-based lighting softwares are very good. Most of them are either emulations of a lighting desk, or a version of the actual lighting desk software. So there may be a reason to select a particular version eg if your local area has predominantly ETC desks, you might choose Nomad to get your students used to the system they are most likely to use. But if this is not a big deal, I think you can't beat MagicQ for price vs quality. The software is entirely free for up to 64 universes, so all you need is an interface. It also includes a visualiser so you can see a virtual representation of your lighting, a media server so you can use it to play out video in sync with the lights, and a pixel mapper so you can hire thousands of lights and make yourself a giant TV screen :).

MagicQ has a bit of a learning curve compared with a manual desk, but this is true of all PC-based systems (and indeed, all desks). And being free, one possible option is that you could get all your students to install it onto their personal laptops and do trial programming at home - show files transfer easily between machines, desks and etc. And if you want to upgrade, they make both wings (control surfaces which work with your PC) and full desks - which run the same software.

And it's free, so there is little risk, and some competitors are quite expensive or require proprietary interfaces which are quite expensive. And judging by the comments, it seems widely used in the US (I'm in New Zealand) so support won't be far away, in this forum at least.

Hope this helps!
 
> I use this on an all-in-one touchscreen PC as my community theatre's main/only lighting desk

I just grabbed a Lenovo M90z for that service last week, only to find out that, reviews at release notwithstanding, *most* of the remaining units in that line don't have the touchscreen. :-}
 
Wanted to say Thank you to those who chimed with comments about the Leviton Innovator light board at my school. The comments about the software light controllers were met with great excitement and interest by our drama director. He took the information I provided him from you all and found out a local company that swears by the computer controlled software . Our principal is now completely on board and has influenced principals from the other schools (there are only 4) in our district to consider changing their light control systems. We are on the way to truly being part of the 21st century! Thanks again!!!!!
 
Welcome. Glad you convinced your principal, my school's drama department had to buy it ourselves separate from the school. The 21st century is nice to be in.

Now if only I can figure out why the middle school I am doing a production in doesn't have a network or DMX port for a console, it's a sadder situation there.
 
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