I had an
Ion 3 hr. demo at the
ETC NY office 2 weeks ago and to put it simply - I was blown away. I've also spent a lot of time with the
Eos off
line editor
Things I like that save time vs. an
Express syntax:
- It knows that 3 means 30, thus Ch 1 at 3 Enter brings Ch 1 to 30. @ 05 means 5%.
- With a touch
screen, or better yet, two - which is essential, you can touch channels on the touch
screen to grab channels. 1 and 2 and 5 and 15,
etc.. @ Full Enter. Or touch the Tombstone (the name for the
channel display section) at 1, then the
thru button, then Ch 15 and it knows 1
thru 15. This can be really fast,
IMO
- Once you hit Record 1 enter, time 5, the look is loaded on to the
fader (a feature that can be turned off). No more loading
Cue 1 GO,
release. It also knows that when you hit 1 @ again, it knows you are talking
Channel.
You can
call up multiple Addresses at the same time. Dimmers are now called Addresses, for lots of good reasons.
- It deals with assorted accessories and attributes as sub sections to the
Channel - which now deals with
level.
- It deals well with and separates
Intensity from Position, from Color, from Beam functions and you don't have to think ONLY.
- Encoders
- Direct Selects, especially with the touch screens
- Shortly, cues on playbacks
- Sometime in the future (we hope), + and - percentage on
channel levels.
And tons, tons more. Simply put, a vastly superior
console that will serve you well.
The negatives. They are still developing a lot of features. Currently there are issues related to how the
console reads playback wings that are not physically connected (end to end), but instead use a USB connections. I would suggest reading up on the
ETC Users Forum for more info.
They are currently at version 1.3. I'm guessing that by version 1.6 things will be further along where I'd like. That said, I could use the
Ion quite easily right now.
Steve B