Here's my two pennies.
PC based control:
I own
Martin Light Jockey 2. I don't use it much in a live situation unless I have to. It doesn't have enough handles for anything with more than a few moving lights. I do really like the way it programs set cues, for some things but even that has its great limitations. LJ manager is great for being able to schedule events and using the matrix controller to control
LED walls. Over all personally I would not use LJ in your situation without doing a lot of pre-programming of looks (more than some others I'll mention later). It does have the ability to be controlled by external sources, so you could still do your
cue triggers with a keyboard.
Martin M2PC is brand new product in the M2 product
line. It is a control
wing that connects to the PC. You can save big money by providing your own computer hardware and using the
wing compared to the M2GO. I have not used one but after looking at some training videos it looks workable. I think I'd rather go this route than LJ because of the handles on the control interface.
GrandMA2 onPC is also a relatively new
wing control module for computer. It comes with a GMA2
logo so it is automatically in the high end of the price range as far as pc based control wings goes but it also does come with a far superior software package. Price is going to come out around an
ETC Element and for live control I'd have to go with the
Element.
Consoles:
I've not personally run a hog
system but I got a demo on a
Road Hog during a concert I was working recently. It looks pretty versatile for live operation. A used one would be an option in my opinion.
I do all of my large show programming on
ETC consoles. First off, if you're using an
ETC console for live operation you WILL want some faders. Also, sure you can use an
express console for intelligent fixtures, but honestly save yourself the headache and go with a modern
console.
One
venue has an
Element console. It works quite well for what we use it for. I've run up to 13 moving lights on it, running effects on each. With the built in 60 submasters it is a great
console and if setup right it would work wonderfully for you live.
Ion, it gets you some more features but not too likely any that you will find you use too much. The most useful for you probably being the "Fan" feature which allows you to specify a range of values over a range of fixtures and distributes the range evenly. An example would be say you wanted fixtures 1 to 10 to have an
intensity starting at 10% at
fixture 1 to 100% at
fixture 10. Fan will do the math and apply the
pattern quickly and very easily.
Element also does not have discrete timing (individual
fade time for
intensity, focus, beam, and color). However, by the time you add a 2x20
wing to get a good amount of submasters for live operation you're looking at a lot of extra money over an
Element, it's tough to swallow the cost difference for the features on a small rig. Edit:
Ion does give you the
encoder wheels which do make some operations easier, but I only use them while setting up a show, I don't use them when running live.
All in all, speaking for myself, I'd be looking at the M2PC or the
Element in your case. In the end you need to sit down and really see how each
console programs. With the exception of
Martin LJ (because of it's lack of physical handles) the biggest thing that is going to make you love or hate whatever
console you get is the software that the
console runs.
Martin,
ETC, MA lighting, and Avolites all have several tutorial videos on youtube that will show you how to do basic programming and will give you good insight into how you have to think to run the
console. They all have their similarities and they all have their outstanding differences.
