Dragonfire
Member
I'm still mostly stuck in the realm of DJ & small stage lighting, but I'm trying to figure out what consoles to consider as a longer term goal to set my sights on. Even though I'm having trouble deciphering the functional differences of the typical brands like MA, Hog, Avo, etc., I find myself asking the same question over and over again: Why do professional consoles for electronic music festivals and rock concerts have so many faders and yet so few buttons?
The way I'm used to doing lighting is to have some faders for the dimmers of different groupings of lights, some knobs for different parameters, and then a lot of midi buttons that are mapped to different cues, scenes, & builds, as well as pages that can be shifted to apply only to specific groupings. So I'll have a page that is just solid colors/palettes & movements/static positions for my spots, then a page with the same things for my washes, and another identical menu for uplighting. Because of this I can flick through the pages and play my lights almost like a musical instrument, fine tuning things here and there as well as flash & trashing when appropriate. Having buttons feels intuitively proper, and yet most of the big name show consoles have large banks of faders and few buttons besides menu commands. I get it for theatrical productions or churches, but festivals and concerts that have a lot of showy & busy lighting? I know I must be missing some knowledge about how the programming works but my efforts to figure it out have been unsuccessful thus far.
Can someone help shed some light on this and help me understand what I'm missing?
The way I'm used to doing lighting is to have some faders for the dimmers of different groupings of lights, some knobs for different parameters, and then a lot of midi buttons that are mapped to different cues, scenes, & builds, as well as pages that can be shifted to apply only to specific groupings. So I'll have a page that is just solid colors/palettes & movements/static positions for my spots, then a page with the same things for my washes, and another identical menu for uplighting. Because of this I can flick through the pages and play my lights almost like a musical instrument, fine tuning things here and there as well as flash & trashing when appropriate. Having buttons feels intuitively proper, and yet most of the big name show consoles have large banks of faders and few buttons besides menu commands. I get it for theatrical productions or churches, but festivals and concerts that have a lot of showy & busy lighting? I know I must be missing some knowledge about how the programming works but my efforts to figure it out have been unsuccessful thus far.
Can someone help shed some light on this and help me understand what I'm missing?