Searching for Free/Cheap Software

[musictom]

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

 

[chausman]

Is renting an option? You could rent a working board and download the OLE to write your cues before hand. Then you only need the board for the shows themselves.

 

[musictom]

Is renting an option? You could rent a working board and download the OLE to write your cues before hand. Then you only need the board for the shows themselves.

That's certainly a possibility, although I was hoping to avoid it. At this point, any costs are coming out of my pocket, so I'm looking for best bang for the buck. Also, we are three weeks out until opening night, and it would be great to have some lighting cues in place before the last week, so the kids get used to it.

I even have an Elation SceneSetter 48 at my disposal, but it doesn't do cue lists, (at least, not that I can see), so won't really help me out, except for possibly ease of programming.

Thanks!

 

[Clifford]

Renting is probably the best option available, if you want to be absolutely sure you have something on time and supported. That being said:

• Is you school in a district? It may be possible to borrow from another campus for the run of your show.
  
• Do you a) need independent control of each dimmer/circuit for the show, or could some be combined onto one channel* and b) does miniStageConsole allow for software patching? If you can combine multiple circuits under the control of one channel, you may be able to get the plot down to 24 channels.
• The school more than likely has a laptop running a Windows OS somewhere. If you ask nicely they might allow you to borrow it to run StageConsole for your show.

*A channel is the address within a DMX universe that you manipulate on the lightboard. The dimmer is the physical piece of equipment that controls the intensity of the light and the circuit is where the light is plugged into, essentially.

 

[musictom]

Renting is probably the best option available, if you want to be absolutely sure you have something on time and supported. That being said:

• Is you school in a district? It may be possible to borrow from another campus for the run of your show.
  
• Do you a) need independent control of each dimmer/circuit for the show, or could some be combined onto one channel* and b) does miniStageConsole allow for software patching? If you can combine multiple circuits under the control of one channel, you may be able to get the plot down to 24 channels.
• The school more than likely has a laptop running a Windows OS somewhere. If you ask nicely they might allow you to borrow it to run StageConsole for your show.

*A channel is the address within a DMX universe that you manipulate on the lightboard. The dimmer is the physical piece of equipment that controls the intensity of the light and the circuit is where the light is plugged into, essentially.

I hadn't thought about asking around within the district. I'll definitely have my wife do that!

miniStageConsole is a simple 1:1 program. No combining of channels, although that's a good thought. We could easily assign several dimmers to one channel. I'll check that while evaluating other software.

I did notice that Chameleon allows you also to "rent" their software, for about $7.50 per week. A couple of years ago I played with this s/w, and it seemed pretty stable. I may go that route.

Thanks again!
Tom

 

[Clifford]

DO you know what type of dimmers are being used?

 

[Pie4Weebl]

I would suggest going the chamsys route, just switch it over to the "simple" mode.

 

[jonliles]

+1 Chamsys Simple mode... you'll need some sort of interface...not sure if it would make it form the UK in time, but you get a limited* use dongle for about 25 USD. *After 5 hours of use, you would need to shutdown program and unplug dongle. You or may not need to restart the computer, but at that price point...

The simple mode gives you 48 handles to use plus you can program cue stacks.

Also "Lights Up!" is another free (pc) software that you can use, but you will need a USB to DMX converted like the Enttec (80) / Enttec Pro (150).

Where are you geographically? We may be able to recommend vendors to rent/buy from.

 

[musictom]

DO you know what type of dimmers are being used?

Never checked the brand, but they're 1K dimmers. 8 sets of 4 dimmers. Circa 1985 or so. Definitely DMX, though.

 

[musictom]

+1 Chamsys Simple mode... you'll need some sort of interface...not sure if it would make it form the UK in time, but you get a limited* use dongle for about 25 USD. *After 5 hours of use, you would need to shutdown program and unplug dongle. You or may not need to restart the computer, but at that price point...

The simple mode gives you 48 handles to use plus you can program cue stacks.

Also "Lights Up!" is another free (pc) software that you can use, but you will need a USB to DMX converted like the Enttec (80) / Enttec Pro (150).

Where are you geographically? We may be able to recommend vendors to rent/buy from.

"I would suggest going the chamsys route, just switch it over to the "simple" mode."

Thanks, guys. I'll definitely give Chamsys another look. I wasn't aware it had a "simple" mode.

I'm in Central California. I've already got a vendor/installer I'm really happy with (Rick Franke of lightingips.com).

Thanks again. I'll give Chamsys another look.

Tom

 

[musictom]

Followup

Just thought I'd give you all a followup as to the decision/direction we're going.

Long story short: we're going with Chameleon. I was having trouble with my Enttec USB PRO DMX interface —*it would only send DMX through the Pro Utility, but no other software. Ben, the developer of Chameleon, spent nearly 24 hours with me via email, troubleshooting my system until we finally got things running. It was definitely a problem on my end with my particular interface, but he was quite patient with me, and stuck with it until it was working.

After all that, he even sent me a code to let me run it free for a number of weeks, although I feel I should end up purchasing the S/W. Out of all the solutions I looked at (MagicQ, Q Light Controller, Dlight, StageConsole, etc.) for me personally, Chameleon was the most intuitive.

Now I just have to climb the theatre's rickety ladder, replace about 6 par can lamps and 3 or 4 Lekos, and we can begin programming!!

Thanks again all, for the suggestions! Most appreciated.

Tom