More about our LOVELY Status.

[shiben]

Okay, as far as having a hard fader for every single dimmer is useless how often do you need ex. 100 different lights coming on at the same time at completely different levels, and secondly how do you get that many hands on a desk?
Next, not using a cue list makes it very hard, if not impossible, to make looks or transitions work exactly the same for seven shows. Not to mention, when or if you go into professional theater's 20-1000 shows? Would it not be better to get a desk with 20-30 physical faders then teach them how to set up cues?
Personally, I think whoever taught you or how you taught yourself will cause you more headache in the future with how most if not all theaters are setup. Until this year we never had any physical faders in our main theater it was all on the computer and in cues. we learned both the computer functions and the hard fader only methods.
Also just because you have to work with an auditorium that is not setup IDEALLY doesn't mean that you shouldn't find ways to make it work instead of just complaining to either the higher ups or trying to find a way to make it work. We have many problems in our theater including a sound setup issue which we are getting resolved because of looking on our own, asking for help, and learning through resources at our disposal.
So instead of looking for an overkill board with as many physical faders as you have dimmers look for something that will be easy to teach and also a more common dimmer board.

If its worth anything, try and make your experience at a sub par venue as high quality as possible. Strive for good shows every time, work on getting nice lighting looks. Once you can do it in a sub par venue with not a lot of gear, it will be much easier to meet the limits when they are higher, moving into the professional world where I have seen shows with over a universe of dimmers just hooked up to Source 4 ERS instruments. Remember, that even the biggest show in Las Vegas (with some notable exceptions) has some serious limitations (budget being the main one), and if you grow up not having any limits, designing anywhere other than the Cirque is just going to be unbearable. Also, when I started lighting work, I used submasters and channel faders constantly. Try cuing once. It might seem like more work in tech. You will sit there and people will complain about the level, and youll need to do some fiddling and hit some more buttons than normal. Then come opening night, I am sure you will find out why pros use cues for this type of thing. You can literally (though its not reccomended in any way, shape or form) read a book and with the SM callig cues, flawlessly execute a show. In fact, if your good, you dont even need to look down at the board/up from the book. Obviously you want to pay attention, but its is so much simpler. Also, recording cues is super easy on any console I have tried out, once you find out the syntax (IE, read the manual). Try it out, youll be happy you did (also, you wont look like a dumbass when you get to college and dont know how to write a cue).

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Derek,

As the poster after you said. That command will not bring dimmers 1 +15 > 20 to 60 percent. It will bring Channels 1, 15 >20 to 60 percent. The Status is NOT like every other consoles.

Les,
Yes! Someone that has used a Status. Les has explained the problems with the Status greatly.

Everyone-
The reason I do not use cues is because of what les said about Cues on a Status, you need to slide both faders up to execute it, no back button, and no way to speed it up. And I do not use the channel faders to run a show... I use the subs.

Venue,
There is no external storage device in the unit. No floppy or anything. All saved on the Ram which is powered with a small round battery when the console is off.

Venue again,
We have replaced the battery say..30 times in four months. Then realized it wasn't the battery..

Duck,
Please read what I have said about how the Status works, there is only 1 way to get a light to light up. And that is to softpatch it into a channel under 48. You CANNOT capture a dimmer using the board. You need to soft patch every fixture above 48 to a channel under 48 to use it. Also, we do not have more than 50 fixtures and a somewhat small stage. So we need to be able to control each fixture individually to create a desired look and something on the fly. And so, using a Status it is physicly impossible to use more than 48 fixtures, on seperate channels that is.

Shiben, same as Duck.





If the Status could capture a dimmer from the keypad I dont think I would ever use the channel faders to be honost. But that is the only way to bring up a light. To have it on a physical channel on the board.

 

[DuckJordan]

... You CANNOT capture a dimmer using the board. You need to soft patch every fixture above 48 to a channel under 48 to use it. Also, we do not have more than 50 fixtures and a somewhat small stage. So we need to be able to control each fixture individually to create a desired look and something on the fly. And so, using a Status it is physicly impossible to use more than 48 fixtures, on seperate channels that is.

Shiben, same as Duck.


If the Status could capture a dimmer from the keypad I dont think I would ever use the channel faders to be honost. But that is the only way to bring up a light. To have it on a physical channel on the board.

CHECK OUT PAGE 27 on the levitons website for the status

Multi-scene Operation of the status console allows the user to record channel levels for many lighting looks (cues) into memory for later recall. Each cue has a number and a fade time associated with it. To create a lighting look, channel faders and/or Submasters can be moved up to set levels as desired. ALSO THE CONTROL KEYPAD CAN BE USED TO SET LEVELS WITH COMMANDS. A TYPICAL LEVEL SETTING COMMAND MIGHT BE: 1+5>12 AT 65 ENTER. This is all done when in stage display.

Once the lighting levels are as desired, record them into a cue in memory with a command like: REC CUE 2 TIME 10 ENTER. This Particular command would record the ighting look into cue two with a 10-second fade time.

...

so when you say you cannot do so on the status, YOU HAVE NOT READ THE MANUAL!

heres a direct link read before you say something else completely stupid

P.S. I found that in under 5 minutes so don't tell me you couldn't find it in the manual.

 

[Les]

Venue,
There is no external storage device in the unit. No floppy or anything. All saved on the Ram which is powered with a small round battery when the console is off.

Venue again,
We have replaced the battery say..30 times in four months. Then realized it wasn't the battery..

Sounds like a chip is fried. That would definitely drain a battery. You do have cartridge reader on the right side of the console for storing show/patch information.

Please read what I have said about how the Status works, there is only 1 way to get a light to light up. And that is to softpatch it into a channel under 48. You CANNOT capture a dimmer using the board. You need to soft patch every fixture above 48 to a channel under 48 to use it. Also, we do not have more than 50 fixtures and a somewhat small stage. So we need to be able to control each fixture individually to create a desired look and something on the fly. And so, using a Status it is physicly impossible to use more than 48 fixtures, on seperate channels that is.

Shiben, same as Duck.





If the Status could capture a dimmer from the keypad I dont think I would ever use the channel faders to be honost. But that is the only way to bring up a light. To have it on a physical channel on the board.

This is correct. Even if a dimmer is patched to a channel, you can't bring it up using the keypad. It has to be brought up using one of the 48 faders. If a dimmer is not patched to a channel, the board can't control it.

CHECK OUT PAGE 27 on the levitons website for the status
so when you say you cannot do so on the status, YOU HAVE NOT READ THE MANUAL!

heres a direct link read before you say something else completely stupid

P.S. I found that in under 5 minutes so don't tell me you couldn't find it in the manual.

Believe me -- it is easier to simply set the faders rather than use their keypad with the multi-function keys. The only time we used these command prompts were for editing cues and had no other choice. Note that many of their function buttons require 2 keystrokes (and/thru, etc). Also, there is no except button (unless it doubles as another function key which isn't unlikely) and very little visual feedback.

I'm not going to take any sides, but I will say that while it is easy to use once you wrap your mind around it - it still isn't a joy to use. You really just have to program a show with it to appreciate its 'uniqueness'.

EDIT: I myself have also stated a few times that you can't use the keypad to set levels. In my experience this was the case, however it was also years ago. Maybe there was a software update included with the Leviton takeover. Who knows.

MillburyAuditorium, here's an idea. Try the keystrokes cited above and document the results with a video. I'm curious...

 

[DuckJordan]

according to what leviton's manual says it doesn't have to be brought on a fader just use the command that the manual states.

 

[Les]

according to what leviton's manual says it doesn't have to be brought on a fader just use the command that the manual states.

On the Status, faders are easier. On an ETC board it might be 5 or 7 keystrokes. On the Status it is likely twice that, as you have to hit many of the keys twice to get the function you desire. And if you hit a key once instead of twice by mistake (and tell the board 'and' instead of 'thru') you are hosed, because it is very hard to backtrack on this console.

Another gripe I have with this board is that it uses symbols rather than words on both the console and the (tiny) screen. [+/-, <,>,<<,>>]. It really is as if the martians wrote the software for it.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Thank you very much Les.
Yeah thats what we were thinking, probably when the school was having power issues.
cartridge reader? 0_0 The only thing on the side of the board is a thin metal cover that looks like I could rip it off, but I didn't want to break anything.
And ours is a new model, there is no new updates though. Ours actually says Leviton on it and on the manual. It also seems that our board and manual is a little different from the old one. A picture online shows the Status with two AMX dimmer outputs, yet ours only has one normal one.
Not to sure on the software version we are running, Ill check next time I am there though. Wow, I think our manual is missing a few chapters 0_0 I did not even know that there were so many settings. Dumb tiny screen Didn't know you could adjust the screen angel, yay, no more leaning to read the screen. And also didn't know you could lock the board. Maybe because you have to press Setup 9 times to get to it And the floppy drive in the manual picture is right were there is a thin metal plate. If there is a drive under that and I have been resetting the board manually every time I'm going to be mad xD


Duck. You are just not understanding what the manual is saying.. So before you insult me again why don't you look more than 5 minutes. I have worked with this console for 7 years I know the freaking thing inside and out. I have read and reread the manual and 4 other Levi on lighting booklets time after time I could practicably recite it. If you want me to take a video to prove to you that you cannot control a dimmer without it being on a physical fared I will.
Page 23 of the manual is only telling you that you can use the faders OR the keypad to control the FADERS. "..also the Control keypad can be used to set levels with commands..."
Typing in 1 + 15 > 20 @ 65 will NOT bring dimmers 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 to 65 percent. It will bring channels 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 to 65 percent. And what happens if you have soft patched those dimmers to a different channel? Because we have more than 48 fixtures, so we need to move things around and add multiple fixtures to one channel to use them.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

It really is as if the martians wrote the software for it.

Hahaha, You might be onto something. Ever get the error screen with fish, hearts, spades and hieroglyphics? Someone I am teaching how to tame this beast came running to me after school once nearly crying screaming "I dont know what I did..!"

 

[icewolf08]

I think that one source of confusion in this thread is the difference between channels and dimmers. Millbury keeps talking about "capturing dimmers" which is not a normal operation for most of us. Generally one patches dimmers into channels and then sets levels using the channels. I don't know anything about the Status, but it sounds like this is what you have to do, which makes sense, and it also sounds like you are limited to 48 control channels. This type of limit is not unusual in that you have less control channels available than dimmers/outputs, many modern consoles have such restrictions including but not limited to: Express(ion), Element, Strand 300/500, etc.

Now, once you have patched your dimmers to channels you should be able to bring up each channel or a group thereof by using the keypad. From reading this theatre I am led to understand that learning the proper keystrokes for some things on this particular console is not easy, but every console has a learning curve, every console is different, some (remaining nameless) require you to stand on your head to get the syntax out correctly.

It was mentioned that running cues on the Status can be a PITA because you can't change them on the fly. However, aside from having a stop/hold button, many consoles don't make it easy to take over a running cue. On a Strand 500/300 and on Obsession II you have to hit at least one button before you can assume manual control of a cue. In any event, I have found it very rare that I have needed to do this or skip around cues during a show. In tech/rehearsals, that is another story.

Now, all of this is not to say that you should change how you run shows. If you are comfortable running in a preset manner, that is fine. If you find that method easier due to the funkiness of your console, fine. However, if you are looking for a new console, you should think outside of what you know. Most of the modern consoles will be a lot easier to work with and will work in a more logical manner. You truly no longer need to have handles for every channel, and once you get used to it, keying in levels will be a lot faster and more effective. Also, working from a programmed cue stack will simplify life.

 

[DuckJordan]

then disregard my post, It sounds to me that what you have is an extremely outdated board as far as capabilities even our 20 year old board (before it died) could have 512 actual dimmers in and only 20 soft patch but still control all of them using the key commands. The manual i guess didn't make it clear that they have to be soft patched.

I am sorry for the blow up, I have been going through some issue with both my director and an ex of my girlfriend doing some stupid stuff... so i apologize for my rudeness.

I guess i didn't realize how older systems didn't expect to have to control more than 48 or so lights. this is why i like our system. which as long as you have space on our computer we can add more dimmers up to a total of 1024.

 

[icewolf08]

Page 23 of the manual is only telling you that you can use the faders OR the keypad to control the FADERS. "..also the Control keypad can be used to set levels with commands..."
Typing in 1 + 15 > 20 @ 65 will NOT bring dimmers 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 to 65 percent. It will bring channels 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 to 65 percent. And what happens if you have soft patched those dimmers to a different channel? Because we have more than 48 fixtures, so we need to move things around and add multiple fixtures to one channel to use them.

As I said in my previous post, this is what one would expect to happen. I would never expect to be keying something in on the keypad and have dimmers come up unless I was calling a dimmer. Consoles think in channels, channels control dimmers/outputs. You are "softpatching" when you assign dimmers to channels, and this is a normal thing to do. I have 380 dimmers in my theatre, but often times many of those dimmer get patched into the same channel even though my console can support 600 channels. This is normal, most people have more dimmers/outputs in a show than channels.

 

[Les]

As I said in my previous post, this is what one would expect to happen. I would never expect to be keying something in on the keypad and have dimmers come up unless I was calling a dimmer. Consoles think in channels, channels control dimmers/outputs. You are "softpatching" when you assign dimmers to channels, and this is a normal thing to do. I have 380 dimmers in my theatre, but often times many of those dimmer get patched into the same channel even though my console can support 600 channels. This is normal, most people have more dimmers/outputs in a show than channels.

I'm a fan of softpatching personally. My only complaint with it on this console is that you're limited to 48 channels of control. Most shows get along fine with this, but for more complicated shows with lots of specials, areas, etc there are a lot of compromises that have to be made.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Ice, I have never used any other console before, so you say that new consoles can control a dimmer (I am sorry for wrong terminology, I just don't want any confusion.) without it behind soft patched into a channel? If this is true then by all mesns we will get whatever board seems best.

Duck, It's alright. Yeah the manual is a little vague. Like Ice said I don't think they were intending to use more than 48 lights. Our maybe they were intending to be used with a different dimmer pack like the manual states.

Ice again, Yeah, I have been running shows on the fly with sub masters forever, but that is the only way I can do it right now since the cue system doesn't even work because it refuses to remember cues..And maybe it is better to do it that way for high school shows, especially with the Status. Since you cannot speed up a running cue, you can however stop it and make it slower, and make the new effect come in faster or slower then the old one. But anyways, people saying the wrong line and everything else, I just think it would be chaos.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Ice,

Well, I have no problem soft patching. But the thing is, we simply cant have more then one fixture on a channel because the sheer size of our stage and the coverage of each light etc.

And just to clear it up, because some people might see the button labled Dimmer and be like "Umm..."
This is what the Dimmer button on the board does.
Basically, a command could be..
[DIMMER] [27] [@] [23] [ENTER] This would take Dimmer 27 and patch it to fader/channel 23.

Also I think I like having a slider for each light is because it is a little easier to comprehend. I assume this is like it at all venues, but, if your looking at the stage from BOH where the board is, there is an FOH Bar with 16 outlets for our 16 spotlights. Then above the stage, up stage there is a lighting bar numbered left to right 17 - 37 and down stage there is a lighting bar numbered 38 - 52. Then, there not labled, but the proscenium houselights are 53, then in numerical order all the way to the back of the house are rows of houselights 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 59, 60, 61, 62, 64 (We have absolutely no clue what dimmer 63 is wired to and we really want to know...) 65. And then the lights on the stairs to the stage are 64. And the rest of the rack is spacers and the computer.

 

[icewolf08]

Ice, I have never used any other console before, so you say that new consoles can control a dimmer (I am sorry for wrong terminology, I just don't want any confusion.) without it behind soft patched into a channel? If this is true then by all mesns we will get whatever board seems best.

More on how consoles work. Yes, you can call a dimmer alone on most modern consoles. However, this feature is of little use during a show as you generally can't do it in time in a cue. However, almost all current consoles support far more than 48 control channels so patching all your dimmers into their own channels wouldn't be an issue. By the same token, most current consoles support more channels than they have faders because you can key in levels for channels.

Recording and playing back cues is easier on newer consoles than it sounds like it is on the Status, although taking manual control of a cue can require just as many steps.

You just have to think of things like this (and I realize that you may know most of this, but others may not):
• A dimmer/output is controlled by a channel. A dimmer can only be controlled by one channel, but one channel can control multiple dimmers.

• A channel is the "name" that the LD and board op use to work with a fixture or group of fixtures. An LD doesn't care what dimmer you happened to plug any given fixture into, he only cares that when he calls for channel one, the light that he specified to be in channel one comes on. So even if you physically plugged that light into dimmer 23, you patch it to channel 1.

• A dimmer provides power to a circuit. Most modern systems have one circuit connected to each dimmer. Many older systems had a hard patch where you had more circuits that dimmers and you could connect each circuit to a dimmer or multiple circuits to a dimmer.

• A circuit is the run of wire between the dimmer and the lighting fixture. A circuit can have more than one lighting fixture plugged into it, generally by using a twofer.

Now, we also tend to hear people talk about DMX as having channels, and these channels are not to be confused with control channels on your console. ON some consoles DMX channels are known as dimmers, addresses, outputs, etc. Before moving lights and other DMX controlled accessories DMX was only used to control dimmers, so older consoles like the ETC Express(ion) refer to DMX channels as dimmers. Outputs or addresses are probably the more accurate term now that we have all kinds of DMX "toys."

I could keep going, but I don't think that it really will help with your issues.

If you are actually on the market for a new console, I would suggest that you take a good look at ETC's Element. It will probably give you the most bang for your buck. While a Smartfade can control all of the dimmers you have, it won't leave you any room to grow in the future. While an Element may seem like overkill now, it will give you the flexibility to try MLs or DMX "toys" at some point and grow and expand over time. You may not get physical handle for every channel, but you will be able to work with cues very easily and you will get more handles for subs and such. Also, you will be learning what is becoming an industry standard lighting control operating system, and when you go out into the world later in life, it will be easier to transition to Ion or Eos, and probably whatever comes next.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Thanks Ice, Well, if all gos as planned, we will get a Express or an Element. If not..then I will tell which board we get : ) But any how, nothing can be as bad as what we have now : ) I hope..

Watch them through out what I tell them and get something crazy? See a Congo or something in a 300 seat venue with 50 conventional fixtures? xD

And like you said about expansion, we will probably be looking to get a moving head or two in the coming years with the auditoriums minisquel budget and most of the dramas budget
This year we will most likely be getting the new light board, and if not this year, next year we will get a new sound system (Hoorah!) And also next year out of the maintenance budget, a new rear traveler, just the curtain. It has a HUGE rip up the side, and has alot of rips on the bottum fringe, good thing noone sees it. Caused by set moving and whatnot. And the rear legs also have some rips in the bottom but not enough to warrant new ones yet. And so, after next year with a brand new sound system and new light board. There really anything else we need. But then things we want Maybe even get a followspot, or some fancy DMX lights, well, the baord would need to universes right? Not sure how you connect DMX fixtures to a board? From what I understand the baord would need a second universe, then run a DMX cable out of Universe 2, to the first light, then out of the first one to the second one and so on? Or is it not like that. That would be really hard to do thinking about it..Especially if the lights are on the light bars.. Would need to run the cable through the ceiling, then have a lot of slack to wrap around the already existing coil of slack of power cabling so the flys can be lowered without stretching or breaking any wiring. Hmm..

 

[derekleffew]

Millbury, maybe reading this thread will help: 1:1 patch: Do you use it?

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Derek,

1:1 Won that poll.
We would love a 1:1 patch, but we cannot because our Status only has 48 channel faders, and we have more fixtures than that.
And if not a 1:1, then at least a keypad that can capture individual dimmers without having them assigned to a channel.

 

[icewolf08]

Derek,

1:1 Won that poll.
We would love a 1:1 patch, but we cannot because our Status only has 48 channel faders, and we have more fixtures than that.
And if not a 1:1, then at least a keypad that can capture individual dimmers without having them assigned to a channel.

I think I have figured out the main communication gap you are having. Your console (the Status) only supports 48 control channels. Those 48 channels correspond to 48 faders. A console like Express (and most newer consoles) support more control channels than they have physical faders. So you can patch a dimmer into a channel that doesn't have a fader and then call that channel with the keypad. Call dimmers alone is possible, but you can't write them into cues or subs without first patching them into a channel.

 

[venuetech]

Replacing the $3.00 battery should be the first thing you do next week.
it is a BR2325 lithium, the manual recommends yearly replacement.
instructions for replacment are in the manual appendices section.
Status > Discontinued Products > Entertainment Lighting Controls > Commercial Lighting > All Leviton Products from Leviton Electrical and Electronic Products
save the receipt and turn it in to the building sectary for reimbursement.

as i recall there is no on board hard disk so all of your cues and patch are stored in Random Access Memory the battery is there to power that memory when the board is off and during any power bumps.

there is no guarantee that a battery will solve anything but it could help.


also check the wiki page about channel hookup