[Sony]

I live and work in the USA (No dumb American jokes please, I'm not your typical American, Thanks.) but this so far is the only decent theatre tech forum I've come across.

Anyways, I'm Assistant Manager for the Martha's Vineyard Performing Arts Center.

Recently we decided to replace our Push-Button architectural controls since it's been completely broken for the last 5 or 6 years. It was an ETC Digital Address System, dunno if any of you have ever heard of it but.....it's horrible. It failed after only about 2 years, then ETC came a fixed it...it worked for a day and broke again. It's been busted ever since and we've never bothered to replace it. Instead we have used our ETC Express 125 to control the house lights. It has worked fine so far, however, it's a pain in the you know where when you have to come in in the morning through the stage doors and walk 75ft (It's an 800 Seat PAC, pretty big) through dark isles to turn the house lights on.

Now that the backstory is done, we want to replace the whole system with a Unison ER4 External Processing Rack and Push-Button system.

Does anyone have any experience with this system? Is it reliable? Does it work well? Does anyone know approximately how much it would cost? We would be getting the ER4 Rack and 6 10 Button stations plus an LCD Station. We'll have to run about 1000ft of Belden #8471.

We would be patching it via DMX into our 2 main Strand CD80 96 Channel Supervisors (192 Dimmers total for the stage circuits) and our 1 ETC Sensor 12 Rack (24 Dimmers for the House lights.)

I can get pictures of the entire system later but unfortunately Photobucket is blocked at work. The PAC is part of the local High School so they block a lot of random stuff.

Thanks!

This post has been edited by Sony: 07 August 2008 - 03:49 PM

[woody74]

It does work well; not knowing your workflow, I would ask why you would need all your wall stations to be 10 button? If it's just "...to turn the house lights on.", I'd personally spend less and only install (1) 10 button (SM control panel?) and (5) 2-button panels and put extra money toward a second portable LCD station (one for the floor, one for the booth).

Not my place to question, but just one man's opinion.

-w

EDIT: As far as cost, it is a system that is usually installed by an ETC technician due to needing to bind the wall stations and LCDs to the software. So they would quote it for you.

This post has been edited by woody74: 07 August 2008 - 06:28 PM

[Beachhouse13]

My church in Oklahoma has this system. It works well, but we have had some issues. We have 2 LCD touch panels, one in the sound booth, and one in the light booth, and 5 five button panels throughout the sanctuary. The problem has come up twice in just over 3 years. The system will be set to off, and the 5 button panels will be locked out from the LCD panel in the light booth, but not the sound booth. The lights will go off, but the 5 button panels will still function. Not a good thing to have an usher lean against the panel and accidentally turn on lights during the service. This is easily fixed by reloading the software into the system.





Overall this is a nice system to use, and I would advise buying it.



Sorry I don’t know anything about the cost. It was installed years before I got there.

[woody74]

Beachhouse13, on 7 Aug 2008, 11:20 AM, said:

This is easily fixed by reloading the software into the system.

It also sounds like an issue with the way it's programmed in LightManager; you can email ETC your config file and tell them what the problem is and they will fix it and email it back. I can't speak to the cost or time frame of this, but it is possible. In theory, you should only have to reload the original programming if you've made changes to Unison that you want to remove en masse.

-w

This post has been edited by woody74: 07 August 2008 - 06:28 PM

[darkwarior]

Sony,

I work at a theatre in Derry, NH that we had a Unison system installed when the building was build 6 years ago. I can't speak to cost as I was not around then, however, the system works mostly fine. We have 4 4 button stations (each audience entrance on the main floor, and stage left position), an LCD touch screen (in the booth), and a 4 slider /w 4 button station (stage right, SM position). The unit is linked to our 2x 96 channel Sensor Racks, so a single DMX cable controls house and stage lights, and lets the positions control the stage lights too.

99% of the time all the units are simply used for on/off function, however, some functions that don't want to pay for a tech simply used the predefined FOH wash for simple stage functions.

The only issues I've really noticed with the units are that 1) despite two mount positions for the LCD screen, it only works in one -- so it has never moved. 2) (This is mainly a management issue) People will sometimes accidently (or not) press buttons, thus turning on the lights during a show. The LCD screen is at the lighting position so the op can easily turn them back off. There is an override/lockout control that is accessable, but our management won't let it be used because of incase of emergency situations.

If you manage to get your hands on the software (my first boss at this facility managed to get it), the software is super simple and easy, with only a slight learning curve.

Hope this helps.

[Sony]

Thanks guys for the responses so far, I really appreciate it!

woody74, on 7 Aug 2008, 1:45 PM, said:

It does work well; not knowing your workflow, I would ask why you would need all your wall stations to be 10 button? If it's just "...to turn the house lights on.", I'd personally spend less and only install (1) 10 button (SM control panel?) and (5) 2-button panels and put extra money toward a second portable LCD station (one for the floor, one for the booth).

Not my place to question, but just one man's opinion.

-w

EDIT: As far as cost, it is a system that is usually installed by an ETC technician due to needing to bind the wall stations and LCDs to the software. So they would quote it for you.

Sorry, I forgot to mention other stuff, MY main use of the system would be for turning the lights on and off in the morning. However, the PAC is used for school functions sometimes when I"m not around and we would like an easy system to run some basic looks with for the less theatrically adept. My boss (The PAC Manager) wants at least 6 or 7 preset looks such as House Full, House 3/4, House 1/2, House 1/4, House HID's as well as stage lights such as General Wash, General Wash w/ Podium and of course OFF...etc

We also never use our booth, it's suspended in the catwalk and you can't really hear or see anything well from up there so we use the House Mix Position for everything.

Now that I'm home I can provide you all with pictures of the space for a better idea.

The house with the HID's turned on




House Mix Position


Sensor 12 Rack on the right and DAS System (what we are replacing) in the middle


Strand CD80 Supervisors

This post has been edited by Sony: 08 August 2008 - 03:58 AM

[Sony]

No one else has any info/experiences with this system?

[Tomo]

I've commissioned many of them - so I obviously have some bias.

Unison is an extremely reliable system, but it's so incredibly configurable that it's entirely possible for someone to create a configuration that doesn't work too well for the venue.

This extreme flexibility is why the systems must always be commissioned by an ETC authorised service engineer - while the configuration software *looks* simple, it actually isn't.
You need extensive training and a fair amount of experience before you can create complex and stable systems. Of the few configurations made by untrained personnel I've seen, they've usually had subtle flaws that caused strange effects.

I note that a couple of posters above mention that they occasionally get strange effects - this is almost certainly because the original configuration didn't take into account one particular possible sequence of events, which then get the system into a state where none of the buttons get you back to the 'basic' state, whatever that was designed to be.

- The (non) portable LCD is a case in point. Give your local ETC tech support a call and this can almost certainly be fixed.
There's only a few possible causes for this issue - some of these can be sorted over the phone.

If you have requests for changes to the system, then please get in touch with your local ETC dealer who will be happy to arrange for an engineer to visit and re-configure.

There are many Unison systems that have been running trouble-free for over ten years, and we fully expect them to run for another ten to twenty years without major trouble.
- Obviously there will occasionally be a need for maintenance (fan bearings don't last forever!)

I suspect the main reason for the lack of comments is that almost all the time, Unison just works.
Most users just have all those "light switches" that they press to make the lights change - they neither know nor care that a Unison processor or two is making that happen.

[Sony]

Thanks, we don't want anything overly complex here...we just want lights up (6 or 7 different looks) and crossfade between looks I.e. house from full to half and then off and lights off...no crazy effects or anything. I don't see how that could be hard to program...and if it is then ETC REALLY needs to work on their UI, because it seriously shouldn't be harder then programming cues into an ETC Express. I mean I understand it's nice to have the option there but there should be a point where ETC says..."okay, this is really going to limit our market to the high end guys if we make this so complex that the smaller guys who can't afford to have us come out every time they want to change something can't use it because it's overly complex." There really should be a simpler solution...like different software levels with different prices for the small guys vs. the big guys.

Thats one thing I hate about ETC is their extreme pleasure in forcing you to completely rely on them for basically everything...simple OR complex. Personally it pisses me off to no end. I completely understand them having to come out and inspect the wiring and connections to make sure it was installed properly. However to do that on a simple software level...thats just ridiculous.

This post has been edited by Sony: 10 August 2008 - 04:14 PM

[Tomo]

Sony, on 10 Aug 2008, 4:11 PM, said:

I don't see how that could be hard to program...and if it is then ETC REALLY needs to work on their UI, because it seriously shouldn't be harder then programming cues into an ETC Express.

Actually, programming an architectural lighting control system is much more like writing the software that runs inside the Express.
The Unison configuration software is in fact considerably more user friendly than many other similar systems - when training ASCs I've had quite a few comments along those lines.

Creating looks and playing them back is (and should be) easy - but remember that you're also writing the user interface for the venue by building how every single one of those buttons should react.
They don't have to play a 'look' - they could completely reconfigure part (or all of) of the system.

I've had to pick up the pieces of several apparently simple systems that were very badly implemented, and hence caused great annoyance to the staff in the venue.
- The faults ranged from the very simple (eg Serial port DB9 pinouts) to the rather obscure (endless sequence loops with no escape).
ETC only give the config software to trained dealers in an attempt to avoid this sort of inconvenience to end users - admittedly it doesn't always work, but that's the basic reasoning.

Sony, on 10 Aug 2008, 4:11 PM, said:

Thanks, we don't want anything overly complex here...we just want lights up (6 or 7 different looks) and crossfade between looks I.e. house from full to half and then off and lights off...no crazy effects or anything.

It sounds like you might want SmartLink rather than Unison.
SmartLink is an expansion board for Enhanced SmartPack/SmartSwitch and Sensor+ systems.
- The downside is that SmartLink only supports button stations and preset playback, and not the LCD you mention.
As you've already got a Sensor rack, you could look at installing this - programming of SmartLink is explained in the CEM+ 2.0 manual, and is perfect for the sort of system you describe.

Unfortunately I can't tell if you've got Sensor (Red/Green beacon) or Sensor+ (Blue beacon) rack from your pictures. (The beacon is the glowing section top-left)
If you have Sensor+, the addition of SmartLink is very easy and considerably cheaper than Unison.

However if you've got the original Sensor, you'll need to upgrade the processor to Sensor+ first. Unfortunately that's more expensive and is a job for your dealer as it involves partially dismantling the rack and re-creating the rack configuration in the new processor.
- I couldn't tell you how the price of such an upgrade compares to simply adding a Unison CMEi in an ER4 rack.

This post has been edited by Tomo: 11 August 2008 - 11:55 AM

[Sony]

We have an old Sensor Rack with a Red Beacon. The CEM Module is as old as the rack is and has a VERY customized profile with the dimmers inside in a non-standard order (I.e. not 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.....) it's something weird like 9-13, 1-8, 14-16, 20, 19....something like that. The biggest thing is we need the Unison system to control our Stand CD80 Supervisor racks too, thats the main reason we want the ER4 because it outputs just straight DMX it can easily be plugged into the CD80's then looped through to the Sensor House Rack.

This post has been edited by Sony: 11 August 2008 - 12:40 PM

[woody74]

Sony, on 11 Aug 2008, 5:39 AM, said:

with the dimmers inside in a non-standard order (I.e. not 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.....) it's something weird like 9-13, 1-8, 14-16, 20, 19....something like that.

A little OT, but what you describe is the way all Sensors are laid out (1,2,7,8,13,14...). It keeps the power balanced between the three legs so that if someone just decided to use dimmers 1-10, and the desk was 1-1, it would pull power from all legs, not just one.

-w

[Sony]

woody74, on 11 Aug 2008, 11:39 AM, said:

A little OT, but what you describe is the way all Sensors are laid out (1,2,7,8,13,14...). It keeps the power balanced between the three legs so that if someone just decided to use dimmers 1-10, and the desk was 1-1, it would pull power from all legs, not just one.

-w

Thats not how it's laid out with any other rack I've used, including other Sensors and Unisons. Our CD80 Supervisors are 1-192 in order and the Unison DR24's at my college were 1-72 in order, The ETC Sensor+ Touring Rack we brought in last year was 1-96 in order and ..the ETC Sensor 12 Portable up at The Yard is 1-24 in order. I've never heard of it being in such a weird order like that, they are all three phase too, this is the first and only rack I've used so far where the dimmers were out of order. I totally understand your concept of load balancing and it makes sense...but I've never seen it done this way anywhere else, ever.

[Tomo]

At the risk of going off-topic:

Sensor and Sensor+ can both be configured to put the dimmers in any order you like, controlled by any DMX (and EDMX/sACN) address you want.

When originally installed, they are set up in a way that makes sense for the venue. It's actually pretty rare for a Sensor rack to be configured 'straight through' - they usually bounce around a bit.
It tends to be to do with socket numbering, phase balancing and the dimmers they are replacing (if it's not a new build)

Some interesting ideas I remember are putting all the Odd numbers in one rack with all the Evens in a different rack, and numbering by 'bar' - 101 thru 148 on LX1, 201 thru 248 on LX2 etc

Portable racks are the exception, as it's so much easier to deal with a portable rack if it just starts at X and goes straight through!

Anyway, I hope you've got some things to talk to your dealer about.

Remember that you can always call ETC - phone support don't bite!

[woody74]

Sony, on 11 Aug 2008, 8:55 AM, said:

Thats not how it's laid out with any other rack I've used, including other Sensors and Unisons...I've never heard of it being in such a weird order like that...I totally understand your concept of load balancing and it makes sense...but I've never seen it done this way anywhere else, ever.

If you understand load balancing, then it should not be weird at all. It's a pretty narrow perspective to assume that, just because you've never seen it that way, it makes it "weird".

But, back to Unison (which now it appears you have used before, despite the OP): the UI in Unison is very easy to navigate, albeit very Windows 3.0 looking. The part that requires an ETC rep is the binding of the wall stations, LCDs and other attachments to the system. Making changes is very easy, both in the UI and on the fly with the Portable LCDs. The idea that ETC is "forcing you to completely rely on them for basically everything" is a completely knee-jerk reaction that makes me believe that you have had a bad experience with them in the past (?).

-w