Stuart91

My lot have specifically said they struggled with count-ins, it's the down-beat at the start of a piece that is the biggest challenge. (Slow pieces seem to need more precision than faster ones, interestingly)

Funnily enough, I was asked yesterday about something similar. We've got a choir on stage, with a conductor standing on a small riser on the auditorium floor. The band surround the conductor on the floor, choir and soloists are on the stage which is approx 4ft high. The problem is that the choir can't all see the conductor, only the first few rows. One potential solution is to add risers for the choir, but that'll involve quite a lot of hardware and expense for a show that's already tight for budget. Raising the conductor might help, too, but much higher and they'll block sightlines for the audience. Some video relay seems like the obvious option, but they've experimented with modern digital kit without success - there's just too much latency. I've been asked about possibilities. I know composite / analog is the way to go. I'm not sure though if, for example, running a composite signal into a modern flatscreen TV will still be latency-free, or if there's inherent processing / upscaling involved. The choir are large enough that we'd need some decent sized screens and alas my 32" CRTs went into a skip some years ago...

I'm afraid I've had horrible service from Ampman recently. Still waiting on an amp module that we ordered (and paid for) in October and were promised within weeks. They were able to deliver half the order when threatened with a credit card chargeback. We're still waiting on the remainder. The parts themselves are in stock with the manufacturer, who won't sell direct to end users. Ampman seemingly can't be bothered organising it, but are quite content to sit on my money in the meantime.

If all four RJ45 output ports are in use, chances are that the display is configured as four rows. That makes for a simpler layout.

You need to configure the controller, telling it how many receiver cards are connected to each physical ethernet port. If you can get behind the display you'll see that it's made up of tiles, with link cables (power and RJ45) between each. Each tile has a receiver card which translates the signal to drive the actual pixels. The order of the tiles also has to be correct or you can get some interesting results.

AliExpress are adding VAT automatically these days, so £20 magically becomes £24 at checkout for non-VAT registered people. I've seen a very similar design with a (budget) brand name attached to it and they seemed fine.

I was quite impressed when I got a demo of some fixtures with Lime emitters included. Bringing the lime up and down essentially shifts the white colour temp. This obviously depends on the quality of the other emitters, but for a mid-range brand it was really quite effective. (Was an ADJ moving light so not directly applicable OP's requirements here)

My suspicion is that your "shutters" would be in the wrong part of the optical path, so you're not going to get a sharp edge. I'd be more worried about tape giving way, especially with the heat of the beam. (And would anything strong enough to hold come off cleanly, without leaving residue?) Hippy's suggestion of gobos makes more sense to me.

Fabory delivered on the Monday, and have actually taken the time to follow up on what would probably be a pretty small order for them. Overall I'm very impressed. The wing-screws themselves look identical to the ones I bought from Zoro previously, even down to the labels and packaging.

LEDs are most effective (compared to conventionals) when producing saturated colours. And the nature of optics + LED sources means that wash fixtures are cheaper than profiles or fresnels. Depending on what kind of shows/bookings you are getting, it may make sense to use LED for your colour wash and keep the conventionals for face light and specials. (I'm thinking things like dance shows or panto where a lot of colour is required - covering the whole stage with a blue wash can tie up an awful lot of fresnels)

Whilst I don't disagree with this at all, some mixers are sticky about the particular flavour of cable. (Shielded vs unshielded is the most common, but who know what'll come up in future) Many touring engineers won't trust in-house lines for this reason. Whilst installed lines will be great for your own use, it's helpful to have an easy route for cable runs. Things like hooks above doors can save a lot of time and gaff tape. (Whilst being safer in the event of a fire)

An update - 4 months on. I bought another batch of deck last week, which came with a load of joiners that have the stock knurled Allen-head bolts. Went to buy from Zoro again, and the price for the length required has gone up 8x compared to my previous order. They were looking for £13.99 per piece. Emailed to query if the "new" price was a glitch on their website, but no, apparently their supply price has increased by a similar proportion. Meanwhile 60mm or 80mm are the same price as before. So for this next batch I've gone to Fabory, who despite being based on the continent seem to be confident that they'll get the shipment to me by Monday or Tuesday next week. We will see... Their price was approx £1.30 per piece so far closer to what I was expecting to pay.

X32 definitely makes sense for bands etc. but maybe factor in a smaller/simpler analogue mixer for events with basic requirements.

I ended up running a school Christmas show from a ui16 (with some trepidation) and was quite impressed. No obvious glitches or dropouts and I managed to do everything I wanted with it. However other people are clearly having issues with it, and Soundcraft have been gutted by their corporate overlords. Behringer's support isn't exactly legendary either, but they have a far larger user base and look like they will continue to release new products going forwards. HTML5 was an interesting way of handling the control. I found it OK, but realistically it's not that much of a problem to install an app, and in a church situation may prevent random people accessing the console (unless you keep tight control of logins) A relatively inexpensive (refurb?) tablet dedicated to running the app is probably the way to go. Tying up a laptop for desk control seems like overkill, and touch control makes the task much easier.

I am perhaps showing my ignorance here, but would it be a possibility to use heatshield along with the acetate? (E.g. Lee 269) I appreciate it might soften the focus, I've only ever seen it used on wash lights.