Control/Dimming So... About the Congo light board...
- Thread starterHollyRawls
- Start date
If you run a search on the forums here, you'll find I've preached about Congo quite a bit. Personally, I love it. The programmers who I've taught use it also have enjoyed it quite a bit.
The learning curve can be a little steep though. It's a console that's best used by people who already have expectations of what a moving light console should be capable of. I find it to also be a great theatre console for conventionals, but that the use of the functions intended for moving lights is what streamlines the programming of conventionals.
The learning curve can be a little steep though. It's a console that's best used by people who already have expectations of what a moving light console should be capable of. I find it to also be a great theatre console for conventionals, but that the use of the functions intended for moving lights is what streamlines the programming of conventionals.
HollyRawls
Member
Thanks for the opinion! What are your feelings about the durability of the board (ie: any issues with its function over time, physical repairs, etc) and its popularity with designers other than yourself? Thx.
Hey. I saw this post and had to chime in. We are a large church in Southwest Florida that purchased the Congo KID about a year and a half ago. It replaced an aging ETC Expression console and we were getting more and more into moving fixtures. After tons of research, we decided on the Congo and could not be happier! It is a fantastic console. Yes, there is a slight learning curve, but as everyone esle said on the forums here: once you get it, it's easy! It is a famous console for touring and large theatrical installations: no. But, is it user friendly and well supported by ETC: YES! And, did it fit our price-point: YES! We have been very pleased with the console and it is doing everything we expected it to do.
The only physical problem we have had with it was due to an electrical storm shorting out the DMX outputs. However, that was a problem due to living in SW FL and also our DMX splitters didn't catch the brunt. (They blew too, but still let the charge go through the DMX lines to the console. Not cool!) Anyways, as always, ETC support was fantastic, sent us a loaner console, and had ours back in a few weeks. No problems at all!
So, in conclusion, you're going to get lots of opinions on the Congo line of consoles because of the RPN and learning curve. But, all my team members in the Media Ministry love it and are programming easily on it. It is VERY fast to program moving fixtures!
Please feel free to PM me with any further questions regarding the Congo console. It's fun!
JDSILVERM
The only physical problem we have had with it was due to an electrical storm shorting out the DMX outputs. However, that was a problem due to living in SW FL and also our DMX splitters didn't catch the brunt. (They blew too, but still let the charge go through the DMX lines to the console. Not cool!) Anyways, as always, ETC support was fantastic, sent us a loaner console, and had ours back in a few weeks. No problems at all!
So, in conclusion, you're going to get lots of opinions on the Congo line of consoles because of the RPN and learning curve. But, all my team members in the Media Ministry love it and are programming easily on it. It is VERY fast to program moving fixtures!
Please feel free to PM me with any further questions regarding the Congo console. It's fun!
JDSILVERM
There was a lot of criticism when it came out that it was too different from the standard ETC line and how Americans expect a console to work. It's a powerful console with ETC quality and service behind it. Because of the differences, it's never going to be embraced by rental houses, tours, or facilities that have tours moving through. However, all that said it's a great console for those who take the time to learn it.
FHardware-wise, the consoles are as well-built and well-supported as any other ETC console.
Software is another topic. The complexity and depth of what you can do with the console is both what makes it powerful and what makes it vulnerable. The Congo software is more prone to bugs because it is incredibly difficult to test all of the potential ways in which different users will use the consoles. The software may be fine for 99% of users, but then there may be that one programmer who's using their console differently than everyone else and runs into a bug that nobody else has seen.
In my experience, phone support for Congo is hit or miss. During the daytime, there's always someone around who can talk you through a Congo-specific problem. During the nighttime and on weekends, sometimes the Tech Services person who takes the 24/7 pager is a Congo expert and other times it's someone with a more basic understanding of the console. Last I heard, ETC was working to remedy this, though I cannot speak to whether or not that has happened or if it is sufficient. I just know that when I have had to call in the past, sometimes I've gotten someone who was able to help and other times I've been lead down a rabbit hole.
Somehow, someway, we've ended up with a bubble of Congo consoles locally. When the venue I work with got one in 2008, nobody in our region had a Congo but us. Since then, nearby there are at least two additional schools and a roadhouse running Congo-series consoles. Experience varies. The schools know enough to turn channels on and record presets, though more than once they've called me panicked looking for an experienced programmer.
The venue I work with doubles as a roadhouse and as a school facility. The touring groups needing to use our console haven't seemed to mind. We almost always supply a programmer, and when we don't, we throw whatever the group needs on the masters and they run their show manually. I had one LD who loved that approach. He told me "Make it act like a Hog" and I set the masters up like a Hog and he was ecstatic.
We did have one LD recently who, despite our supplied programmer(a high school student I trained), insisted on bringing in an Ion. Aside from that he unnecessarily billed his show for that console rental and infuriated the director, he was slower programming on his Ion than the high schooler would've been on the Congo. A fact that became more and more painfully apparent each additional night of tech rehearsals that week.
Something I hear a lot of complaints from people about is the RPN syntax. My response is that if you're using the console in its most efficient manner, you should be manually keying in as little as is possible. Direct selects and master keys are your friend. Also the Next/Last/Highlight functions. Anyone who can't get past the RPN is doing it wrong (IMO). Having seen and been subject to them several times, I think a lot of demos and training sessions that could've sold Congo consoles didn't because they emphasized syntax over the other salient features of the console. If the syntax is the only thing you learn, you'll have a miserable experience on that console. If you learn about the more streamlined programming techniques (some of which you have to discover for yourself as to what works best for you), the syntax will become irrelevant to you.
Say what you want to about the learning curve, the syntax, or the complexity of the console, an experienced Congo programmer is a force to be reckoned with.
Software is another topic. The complexity and depth of what you can do with the console is both what makes it powerful and what makes it vulnerable. The Congo software is more prone to bugs because it is incredibly difficult to test all of the potential ways in which different users will use the consoles. The software may be fine for 99% of users, but then there may be that one programmer who's using their console differently than everyone else and runs into a bug that nobody else has seen.
In my experience, phone support for Congo is hit or miss. During the daytime, there's always someone around who can talk you through a Congo-specific problem. During the nighttime and on weekends, sometimes the Tech Services person who takes the 24/7 pager is a Congo expert and other times it's someone with a more basic understanding of the console. Last I heard, ETC was working to remedy this, though I cannot speak to whether or not that has happened or if it is sufficient. I just know that when I have had to call in the past, sometimes I've gotten someone who was able to help and other times I've been lead down a rabbit hole.
Somehow, someway, we've ended up with a bubble of Congo consoles locally. When the venue I work with got one in 2008, nobody in our region had a Congo but us. Since then, nearby there are at least two additional schools and a roadhouse running Congo-series consoles. Experience varies. The schools know enough to turn channels on and record presets, though more than once they've called me panicked looking for an experienced programmer.
The venue I work with doubles as a roadhouse and as a school facility. The touring groups needing to use our console haven't seemed to mind. We almost always supply a programmer, and when we don't, we throw whatever the group needs on the masters and they run their show manually. I had one LD who loved that approach. He told me "Make it act like a Hog" and I set the masters up like a Hog and he was ecstatic.
We did have one LD recently who, despite our supplied programmer(a high school student I trained), insisted on bringing in an Ion. Aside from that he unnecessarily billed his show for that console rental and infuriated the director, he was slower programming on his Ion than the high schooler would've been on the Congo. A fact that became more and more painfully apparent each additional night of tech rehearsals that week.
Something I hear a lot of complaints from people about is the RPN syntax. My response is that if you're using the console in its most efficient manner, you should be manually keying in as little as is possible. Direct selects and master keys are your friend. Also the Next/Last/Highlight functions. Anyone who can't get past the RPN is doing it wrong (IMO). Having seen and been subject to them several times, I think a lot of demos and training sessions that could've sold Congo consoles didn't because they emphasized syntax over the other salient features of the console. If the syntax is the only thing you learn, you'll have a miserable experience on that console. If you learn about the more streamlined programming techniques (some of which you have to discover for yourself as to what works best for you), the syntax will become irrelevant to you.
Say what you want to about the learning curve, the syntax, or the complexity of the console, an experienced Congo programmer is a force to be reckoned with.
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