Control/Dimming So..... What are your Favorite Macros/ Cheats?

[Ric]

My simple one on the Congo is to have it restore my Screens to a stored Show Screen Setup, i.e how I have my screen views and also to set my Master pages to my show operating pages, giving all my my Effects, Presets, & Sequences in the right places for on the fly additions.
I usually use this macro in my 0.4 cue which is Curtain Warmers with worklight behind, i.e. as audience enter.

I do have a couple of fun macros:
One is to input a Sequence into each of the 40 Masters, one at a time... it turns the Red LED on for each Master, and is a really simple LED chaser.
The other is to change the function of the in built Trackball on the desk rapidly many times. If you've not seen a Congo ( Fullsize/Senior) it has a glowing Trackball. Changing the function changes the colour from red to blue to green. My macro turns it into a disco ball for a short time :-D It's a must to show this macro off to people who've not seen the desk before!!!

Unfortunately on the Congo there is no command line editing of macros, it's based on recording exact button pushes, so any errors mean you start again from scratch.

 

[JWilsonLX]

on an EOS, to make the most of the flexi view "show channels", you have to get rid of channels that have a value of 0% in a cue but no other value. because the EOS is a tracking desk, 0 and "nothing" is not the same. i have a macro that looks for all those 0% in channels that never actually get switched on and removes them.
i use it usually after dress rehearsals or before the opening to clean up and update the paperwork for our rep shows so we don't focus lights that never get turned on.

felix

I'd love to see how you accomplished this one(I think it could help me on the way to the Dark Move Clean-up macro I've been wanting for so long...)

The problem I always have with writing macros is that I always want to be able to employ an if/else statement like one would in computer programming, but I'm yet to find that function in a desk I've used.

 

[rochem]

I'd love to see how you accomplished this one...

Agreed! I thought I had posted this earlier, but would you mind posting the keystrokes?

 

[ScottT]

The problem I always have with writing macros is that I always want to be able to employ an if/else statement like one would in computer programming, but I'm yet to find that function in a desk I've used.

I've never seen or heard of a desk that has that. I too wish that the Eos (and the Ion) did.

 

[Syphilis]

I'll bump this for a question to Michael about his excellent shutter control macro:

I've programmed the whole shabang, and have added macros for +10 and -10 which link to the +% and -% hard keys, but my designer needs more minute control (so, of 5 % and 1% increments). The encoders on our Eos are all kinds of jankety, so macros are the best solution for this, but I can't figure out the syntax the +% hardkeys are using or how to manipulate them to bump or subtract shutters/shutter angles by 5 or 1 %. Any suggestions?

 

[rochem]

I'll bump this for a question to Michael about his excellent shutter control macro:

I've programmed the whole shabang, and have added macros for +10 and -10 which link to the +% and -% hard keys, but my designer needs more minute control (so, of 5 % and 1% increments). The encoders on our Eos are all kinds of jankety, so macros are the best solution for this, but I can't figure out the syntax the +% hardkeys are using or how to manipulate them to bump or subtract shutters/shutter angles by 5 or 1 %. Any suggestions?

Hey Christopher,

Well, first of all, I always change my +% and -% to change at intervals of 5 instead of 10, because as you said, 10% is a pretty big change. I've never needed to go less than that using a +/- key. Looking at the software, it looks like the +%/-% just links to the key itself and not to any specific value, and since I don't see anything in the Macro Editor, I'd assume that this is not possible in the current build. However, I may mention it to ETC this week at USITT, as it does seem like something that could be valuable.

That said, there are a couple things you can do. To be honest, at that point it probably makes more sense to just throw it onto the encoders. While I will use the graphical shutter macros, they're more intended as a visual aid (I also have the numbers sketched out on a piece of gaff tape on the console) and I end up using the encoders quite a bit. I feel like for such small changes as that, the encoders would actually be better - but that's just me. You can also attempt to write a macro that changes the +% and -% values between 1 and 5 - basically like "Percent Coarse" and "Percent Fine" functions. I've never done this, but I do have macros to change many other settings (like Pres Blind) and they all work fine. You just have to remember which mode you're in.

Hope that helps.

 

[chausman]

The encoders on our Eos are all kinds of jankety,

Have you tried using the Fine mode on the encoders? Just press the encoders to switch to it.

The touchscreen also indicates when the respective encoders are in coarse or fine mode, which you can toggle between by pressing the encoder. Press it again to return to the original mode.

http://www.etcconnect.com/docs/docs_downloads/manuals/Eos_v1.7_Operations_Manual_RevA.pdf


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Syphilis]

Sorry guys, by jankety I mean completely nonfunctional. Michael, I like the update function macro concept, I'll definitely give it a go. Thanks!

 

[chausman]

Sorry guys, by jankety I mean completely nonfunctional. Michael, I like the update function macro concept, I'll definitely give it a go. Thanks!

Ok, have you tried contacting ETC to see if they can help you get a functional console, either by repairing this one or replacing it?

 

[JWilsonLX]

I'll bump this for a question to Michael about his excellent shutter control macro:

I've programmed the whole shabang, and have added macros for +10 and -10 which link to the +% and -% hard keys, but my designer needs more minute control (so, of 5 % and 1% increments). The encoders on our Eos are all kinds of jankety, so macros are the best solution for this, but I can't figure out the syntax the +% hardkeys are using or how to manipulate them to bump or subtract shutters/shutter angles by 5 or 1 %. Any suggestions?

I'm probably missing something, but why not just make +/-5 and +/-1 macros?

[Channel Selection][Frame In 1][-][1][Enter] seems to do what I think you're trying to do, but again, I'm probably missing something.

 

[Syphilis]

It accomplishes the goal, certainly, and before I got off on this macro programmin' binge I had pretty much what you're talking about. The issue was that I wanted to be able to control Frame 1, Frame 2, Frame 3, Frame 4, Frame 1 & 3, Frame 2 & 4, and Frame 1&2&3&4 and Frame Angle 1, Frame Angle 2, Frame Angle 3, Frame Angle 4, Frame Angles 1 & 3, Frame Angles 2 & 4, and Frame Angles 1&2&3&4 (the last three of both sets for when I'm centered on a square object and want to cut to it quickly). And I wanted to be able to control each of these at 1, 5, and 10 point increments. As you can imagine, it filled the screen. 44 macros in all, including the 2 to select the movers I use most often in this particular rig. And if I take your suggestion and make all those channel specific for each mover, it'd get into the hundreds so fast.

So that's why I'm trying to optimize. I've got these update macros working perfectly now (they even re-label my + and - buttons so I know what increment I'm in), and I'm down to just 16 macros with the same functionality (with a similar layout to the screenshot above).

And chausman: If you know how to get ETC to repair alpha series hardware for free, for goodness sake share your secret with me.

 

[lj274mvp]

Make Mark P20 - probably my most used Macro - creates a Part 20, Marks it, and labels it Mark - I could just mark in the base cue, but marking in a discrete part lets me quickly see where my marks are when I'm in Blind, and it cleans up my timing on the PSD so it's easy to tell when I've made a mistake

How do I do this? What keystrokes are used in recording this macro?

 

[JWilsonLX]

I have a macro(in background mode) that does this with the following keystrokes:

[Blind][Cue][Part][2][0][Enter]
[Enter]
[Mark][Enter]
[Live]

It then fires a macro that labels the part "Mark." As an aside, labeling through macros is a huge pain. The best way I've found is:

[Label] "M" {Macro Wait}
[Label] "a" {Macro Wait}
[Label] "a" {Macro Wait}
[Label] "k" {Macro Wait}

Anyone know a better way?

 

[EBB]

I have a guilty macro that I saw someone make... But I don't feel bad in the slightest. Plus there was a backup of the file. But on an ETC Emphasis rig, I made a macro labeled "Do Not Press". Because throughout the day we had nothing but pretty annoying and pissy "lighting guys" coming in and trying to just stir the attitude pot. So I made M1 erase the patch. So while they were at the board and I was babysitting them, I would see them look at it and mid show the house and stage would go black after pressing it. I of course would push them aside and load up the backup show.

I might have been slightly bothered by this if it was for something larger than 150 crowd. But with the amount of people who declared themselves as better than someone else- including myself, knocking them down a peg or two was almost worth it just to prove a point. And at the end of the night I asked the person who wrote it not to do it again. ...in all seriousness though, if it says Do Not Press... Why on earth would you press it in the middle of show?!

I think the macro simply went
[Patch] [1] [Thru] [2] [0] [4] [8] [At] [0] [Enter] [Stage]

 

[essentials]

labeling through macros is a huge pain... Anyone know a better way?

[Label] "Mark" [Enter]

works for me... Is the pain you mentioned caused by that macro leaves quotation marks and spaces between every letter for no apparent reason?

 

[jglodeklights]

My macros vary on what console I'm using and what the rig looks like. Here in RI, I have 38 scrollers to check the calibration and operational status of, and occasionally need to bring up different colors from my iRFR during photocell. As such, my first 24 macros recall the colors in my scrolls, and 25 allows me to enter it manually. I don't have any other macros as I don't need them with this rig (as I have an assistant I don't have a calibrate macro as it is easier to just have one of us on deck and the other on console). On an Express series, I will program macros for update and sneak so I don't have to worry about what softkeys page I'm on. As I don't work with ML's that often, I don't have any macros I use for them. Much more important for me is groups that allow me access to channels quickly. As such, Group 999 allows me to grab all my scrollers. Useful in conjunction with Macros 1-24, and when needing to recall color information after copying cues.

 

[JWilsonLX]

[Label] "Mark" [Enter]

works for me... Is the pain you mentioned caused by that macro leaves quotation marks and spaces between every letter for no apparent reason?

That is what I meant. Perhaps "huge pain" was an overstatement...

 

[danTt]

That is what I meant. Perhaps "huge pain" was an overstatement...

One trick that you can use is to not use quotes in this case. pressing label and the mark hard key/soft key will do the same thing as typing in "Mark". This works for all buttons. It doesn't fix the general issue of putting quotes around each letter in custom typed words, but it does prevent it in this case