IMHO, you should ALWAYS use Macros on your XKeys instead of hard
button presses. This lets you set it up once and never worry about it ever again. If halfway though a tech you realize that you're not using one of your buttons, but there's another one you could really use (happens ALL THE TIME for me), it's super easy to edit your Macros to change the function rather than need to go back and reconfigure your XKeys. Yes, it means you need to import your macros, but I have trouble imagining that anyone programming at a higher
level isn't importing at least a handful of Macros/CPs/BPs/what have you. I use
Macro 721 as my first XKey just to stay out of the way of whatever might be already in the board, and my
stock BPs/CPs/Snapshots mostly start in the 1000s. This isn't really an issue though, as I have XKeys that run Macros that run Snapshots that
call up my Direct Selects already opened to those high numbers.
A few of my buttons tend to change based on the show I'm doing, so looking at my stick right now I have a couple buttons with
gaff labels over my nicely printed ones. But here's what the keys currently look like from the show I just programmed:
1: Snapshot 51 - I
call this Main View, but its really just a get me back home
macro for when I'm swimming in other windows
2-4: Snaps 52-54 - I usually make these new per show, depending on where I'm finding myself working
5-6: User 1/User 2 -
Switch user. Useful to do some cleanup when the designer doesn't want to see you working
7:
Toggle Preserve
Blind
8:
Toggle Ref Labels - the last show had an ML tracker who constantly wanted to know what
Preset numbers we were using, but the designer was also calling moments back to me ("put it in that
preset you had back in Act I for the woman in the chair"), so I had to constantly
toggle back and forth to satisfy both of us. I usually don't keep this on my keys.
9:
Intensity Block
10: All NPs - post to commandline
11: Update Color
Palette - does it by-type and locks it
12: New Color
Palette - same
13: Update
Preset - just takes Focus and Beam and makes them Abs
14: New
Preset - same
15:
Mark Manual - used this a lot on my last show because the designer wanted a bunch of fly-ins with the MLs. IIRC, the
macro would put the
fixture at 0.1% in the previous
cue and
mark it there so that it could
fade up and move live without triggering my Live Move flags
16:
Mark Last Part 20
I also sometimes toss in
Shutter macros, Beam
Palette Rec/Update,
Mark Early, and some others depending on the show. I have my second
page set up with
shutter commands and specific parameters (
Intensity 2 on a TW1 comes to mind), but I very rarely find myself there. I keep a 50 bank of macros on my upper right touchscreen where I
throw a lot of other less-used but still important macros, so using two hands to get to my second
page is usually a waste of time/fingers for me.
A buddy of mine uses an XKeys 24 for tons of
shutter commands. He has buttons to post each
shutter individually to the commandline, as well as 1&3, 2&4, All, Rotation, or whatever, and buttons for +5 and -5, so he can very quickly run in shutters like that. I do the same thing from my upper right touchscreen because another XKeys on an
Eos is a little much, but he loves the 24 on an
Ion.