Control/Dimming Lighting Control with a Laptop

Our theater has used a PC without a wing for over 12 years without issue. As someone mentioned before, we don't have a need to do live fades and can program the whole show ahead of time. With the dramas and musicals we do, the worst case has been replaying or going back a cue, which is easily done. I can see that for a rock concert or improv, having faders would be useful, but not so much for theatrics.
 
Drool, drool, drool. I want one of those! I didn't even know that was out there.

I've had Luminair for a couple of years now and have run many simple music events using only that as a console. The touch (multi-touch) on an iPad is superb. I can do a two-fader cross fade or drag a few faders down at once. Once I "grab" a fader with my finger, I can slide it up and down without staying on the track. As long as my finger moves up or down it takes the channel up or down until I lift my finger even if the finger wanders away from that fader. I find the cue buttons to be difficult. If you are bouncing between two cues to the beat and accidentally hit the same cue twice, it goes to black. No movers in my kit FYI.

My favorite thing is my Art-Net toolbox. I bought a cheap plastic toolbox and put an Apple Airport Express, small 4-channel ethernet hub and the Enttec ODE (Art-Net to DMX) box into the toolbox. If I am only using Luminair, I plug in power and a DMX cable and I'm ready to go. If I bring a PC with ChamSys, I patch an ethernet cable between the PC and the ethernet hub.

I've been learning ChamSys for a few months now and saving up to buy a PC Wing. It's easy to get up and running on the ChamSys (choose head/dimmer, patch it, record cues and stacks, do show) but there is much to learn to get its full potential after that. I bought a 21" touch screen to go with my PC (mini-ITX case), but honestly, I don't use the touch that much, just mouse. The PC/ChamSys touch is not as good as iPad/Luminair. Touch fields are too small and no multi-touch. Once I get a PC Wing, I should be able to go into touch mode that makes the touch fields bigger. Even though I have a nice multi-touch monitor, it seems to recognize only one finger at a time. The Windows paint program recognizes all ten at once so I know it's not a hardware issue.

Hope that helps. I love Luminair. Sadly separate programs for iPad and iPhone. iPad is great for a simple show. iPhone is great on a ladder for remote focus. I understand that the ChamSys MagicQ Remote app will work after I purchase a PC Wing. I'm looking forward to that.

All things considered, it's a very exciting time for software-based lighting control and wifi touch control surfaces. I'd love to discuss more of my experience as I get the hang of it.

Rob
 

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