Obsession II light board

Good Morning fellow CB members.

I am the Volunteer Tech Dir for a small theater if MA. We recently obtained a new light board, well new to us and a major upgrade from what we had before.

The new board is an Obsession II 1500 light board with dual processors. We are in the process of setting it up.

Does anyone know of any training video that might exist on using and programming this board?

Also, is there an offline programming application for this board?

I have the manual and it makes sense, but just thought I would ask the guys in the know.

Thank you in advance for all you help.

Jim
 
I'm not aware of anything so modern. But I do know that ETC supports their old stuff very well. You can hit them up for specific issues.
 
You won't find any videos that ETC has made... that console pre-dates you-tube by 10-15 years. I want to say there was an offline editor but ETC does not have it on their site anymore... I also want to say it was a DOS only program. Odds are it would be next to useless these days. The OBII is a nice console but it is a lot of console if your not ready for it.
 
Hello!

Obsession II Off-line is available for download on the etcconnect.com website. I believe the latest version is 5.2.3. Sadly you have to be really specific when you search on this site through the Search bar at the top and say "Obsession II Off-Line" or you will not get the correct results.

I don't know of any training videos for this console that still exist.

Sasha
 
Thanks everyone for there suggestions.

Sasha I will look for the off-line software..

Kyle I am an old dos guy from way back, so using dos is not an issue for me, I programmed in Assembly Language for a while.

I have already sent am email off to ETC's tech support dept, to see if they can point me in a direction for any type of training videos. I guess I am going to just have to sit in front of the console with the manual and work through it.

Thanks again
Jim
 
I doubt you're going to find training videos for a 20 year old console. If they exist at all, they'd be on VHS tape. AFAIK, ETC never produced any but there might be some third-party training site somewhere.
 
A question for the Obsession experts: Express is its successor, would Express videos be of value?

Express was not the successor, both lines were out at the same time and retired at the same time. The Obsession line was ETC's first crack at a tracking console. It was a nearly identical copy of the very popular and market leader Strand Lightpallet software. This was the console that was supposed to get ETC in the booth at Broadway houses. It did that to a degree... but this was also the time when you routinely saw these driving conventional fixtures and tied it to a Hog2 to drive movers.

I doubt you will even find any videos on VHS. If you did it would be of some trainer at a university doing a training session w/ a new console. That would be pretty useless really. These console did not really get that much traction due to their VERY high cost at the time. This was the EOS TI of its day. Very few people actually every touched them.

Start with the manual and just work your way through. I would also really make sure the thing still works right... they had dual CPU's for a reason.
 
I loved our Ob 2, it is a weird console but once you get used to it, it's like any other console. It does operate somewhat similar to the express/ion line but has its own quirks. You will get used to it the more you work it.

Finding videos will be difficult that's is really a question for ETC.
 
Thanks Brandon - I couldn't find anything either. Just thought someone might have something lying around.

I am looking forward to starting to play with the board.

Jim
 
... It does operate somewhat similar to the express/ion line but has its own quirks. ...
I was going to say, and still am, if you're used to an Express/Expression, forgot just about everything you know. The Obsession series traces its roots to the original 1979 Light Palette. It's a true tracking, move-fade desk. Bring a channel up, it stays where you left it until it's told to do something else. There's no "Captured Channels"; there's no "Release" key ("Goto Q <anything else> [Enter]" to undo what you've manually done). It's a command line desk--you must hit [Enter] after every command or nothing will happen.

For many users, it's a much easier desk to wrap one's head around, provided they haven't been tainted by "preset" "state" desks like Expression.

From http://www.etcconnect.com/uploadedF...apers/White_Paper_Control_Philosophy_revA.pdf (A really good read if you're into control console DNA.) :
ETC Obsession
Obsession is a TRACKING – MOVE FADELTP conventional lighting console
at its core. It has one cue list with multiple playback faders to accommodate
fade-within-fade operation. Each new cue gets executed in a new fader
with its own timing intact. Because the console differentiates between move
instructions and tracked values, each new move runs in its own timing without
affecting other long-running fades. Obsession has 8 playback faders on the
face panel and 118 virtual faders to allow for many fade-within-fade operations
to simultaneously occur on stage.
Using the keypad to enter levels does not capture any of those values; they
are simply manual. The interaction between the keypad and faders follows
move fade/LTP rules. A manual value will stay manual until a cue is executed
that provides that channel a new move instruction. Again, it is important here
to notice the difference between a move instruction and a tracked value.
Obsession’s command syntax creates a sentence that is similar to the way a
lighting designer speaks. This is a strict command line that expects a certain
order of commands every time. While a user’s first experiences with this style
of syntax may be somewhat trying (since the console will stop your data entry
with a “syntax error” when nonsensical commands are entered) it does make it
very clear what kind of commands the console expects to see. Once learned,
this syntax becomes very clear and can be used to make intricate changes in
one command line.
Obsession’s tracking style and single cue list make it an excellent choice for
productions with a clear beginning, middle and end – in other words, a linear
production like theatre. The fact that it has a single cue list - allowing only one
resultant look on stage at a time makes it less suited for more random playback
scenarios. It is worth noting that all tracking systems long ago overcame
problems running cues out of sequence. There is a misconception that running
a cue out of sequence on this style of desk would not give you the same
results as fading to that cue in sequence. This is not the case at all.
 
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I said somewhat.
 
I am finally at the point that I am learning the Obsession II board. We had a busy January and February which prevented me from installing the new board.

I have a sixty day window to do the upgrade and have already installed the new board.

Does anyone have any suggestions on training materials, cheat sheets, etc. I have been learning how to control channels, program submasters. My next step, this weekend is to learn to create cues and put them in the stack.

We are located in Southeast MA, near the Rhode Island border, is there anyone in the area that has programmed one of these boards who might be available at some point to give me some pointers.

Thanks in advance for all your help, you guys are an amazing resource.

Jim
 
If you contact ETC and ask for training materials, they can probably see you something. They are kinda like pack rats over there. There is a good chance that they can send you PDFs of the packets and such that they would have used when training people on the O2.
 
Jim,

I programmed an Obsession 1500 for years. It was serial number 066 and was retired in 2008. It had a great run. The Obsession 2 added moving light functions but operated the same. It was rendered obsolete by better moving light consoles but ran many Broadway shows in it's day. It's really designed for theater but it can be made to do just about anything. I did a Bad Boys of Comedy and VH1 Storytellers on an Obsession 2.

I don't know of any official training videos out there. They would have been helpful to many of us. If you have specific programming questions I'd be happy to answer them. My venue sees many different types of shows and designers and I was asked to do just about everything on the console.

John
 

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