Greetings, all.
I'm sure the answer is on this forum, however I feel like after 60 minutes of searching/reading, my head is swimming with more information than I'm able to process!!
Here's the situation:
My wife is a HS theatre teacher, and they're putting on a musical at the end of this month. She ordered a new board (Lightronics 2448) and was supposed to get it in plenty of time. Well, for those of you who work for/with school districts, you have a new appreciation of the word SLOW. Long story short, it's not going to get here in time.
She has NO intelligent lighting, and 32 channels of conventional dimmers, so our needs are fairly simple. I just want to be able to create a cue list, hand a tech script to a student or volunteer, and have them press "GO". (I know all about getting students involved in the process, but at this point, we're at crunch time, so we have to go this route).
So, as the husband/rehearsal pianist/conductor/set builder/etc., I'm now on a quest to provide lighting for her show, as her current board is nearly dead. Here's what I have in personal inventory:
Latest generation Macbook PRO
ENTTEC USB DMX PRO interface
Decent knowledge of LightFactory.
My original thought was to install Boot Camp on my Mac (was hoping not to, but that's another thread!) and install LightFactory. LF can be "rented" in blocks of 12 hours, so I can rent 24 hours of the software for $49.00.
A second option is to purchase the 50 channel version of LightFactory for $199, but honestly, I don't know when I'll ever use it again.
I'm wondering if there are any other feasible options out there that would allow me to accomplish what I need. Here's what I've checked out:
Chamsys MagicQ —*I've only given it about an hour or so, but I can't wrap my head around the interface (especially given that we're not dealing with any intelligent lights in this theatre)
miniStageConsole —*I actually used this a couple of years ago to control some LEDs I brought in for another show. Interfaced great with Qlab, but it's only 24 channels.
Chameleon — looks ok, but didn't really want to spend $150.00
StageConsole — looks promising, but I don't currently have access to a Windows machine to play with it. Anybody here use this SW?
I'm open to any and all other suggestions! Thanks so much!
Tom
I'm sure the answer is on this forum, however I feel like after 60 minutes of searching/reading, my head is swimming with more information than I'm able to process!!
Here's the situation:
My wife is a HS theatre teacher, and they're putting on a musical at the end of this month. She ordered a new board (Lightronics 2448) and was supposed to get it in plenty of time. Well, for those of you who work for/with school districts, you have a new appreciation of the word SLOW. Long story short, it's not going to get here in time.
She has NO intelligent lighting, and 32 channels of conventional dimmers, so our needs are fairly simple. I just want to be able to create a cue list, hand a tech script to a student or volunteer, and have them press "GO". (I know all about getting students involved in the process, but at this point, we're at crunch time, so we have to go this route).
So, as the husband/rehearsal pianist/conductor/set builder/etc., I'm now on a quest to provide lighting for her show, as her current board is nearly dead. Here's what I have in personal inventory:
Latest generation Macbook PRO
ENTTEC USB DMX PRO interface
Decent knowledge of LightFactory.
My original thought was to install Boot Camp on my Mac (was hoping not to, but that's another thread!) and install LightFactory. LF can be "rented" in blocks of 12 hours, so I can rent 24 hours of the software for $49.00.
A second option is to purchase the 50 channel version of LightFactory for $199, but honestly, I don't know when I'll ever use it again.
I'm wondering if there are any other feasible options out there that would allow me to accomplish what I need. Here's what I've checked out:
Chamsys MagicQ —*I've only given it about an hour or so, but I can't wrap my head around the interface (especially given that we're not dealing with any intelligent lights in this theatre)
miniStageConsole —*I actually used this a couple of years ago to control some LEDs I brought in for another show. Interfaced great with Qlab, but it's only 24 channels.
Chameleon — looks ok, but didn't really want to spend $150.00
StageConsole — looks promising, but I don't currently have access to a Windows machine to play with it. Anybody here use this SW?
I'm open to any and all other suggestions! Thanks so much!
Tom