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Backup lighting desks


Judge

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These days every show it seems has at least two desks on it. Look at the show reports in TPi mag and all the big shows are running (usually) 2 full size Grand MA2 or a pair of Sapphires or Hogs.

Now I know that my anecdotal evidence isnt worth a jot, but I have never had a desk fail on me during a show. A couple of times during programming, yes, but even then it wasn't something that a reboot and a slap upside the head wouldnt fix.

 

I just came back from the Cirque Nouveau Festival in Wolfsburg and they actually insist that two desks are deployed and want to see the backup in action. So at FOH they had a pair of MA2 and I had brought in a Sapphire and a Quartz as backup, plus we had another MA backstage plus my Titan Mobile. Desks everywhere.

 

Our production manager had pointed out that he would always insist on a backup because if the event is cancelled or curtailed due to an equipment failure on our side, then we have failed to fulfill our contractual obligations and can forfeit the fee.

So yeah, okay. But how many times do you see a backup sound board at FOH? Are they really more reliable? If anything, I would have thought that for instance, an SD9 would be more complex than an MA2 internally.

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At a festival event of any great size or repute, multiple sound desk deployment at both ends of the multi has been standard for more than a decade. I cannot think of any festival I have been to with bands in the last 5 years where there hasn't been at least two desks, front and back, on a stage with a capacity in excess of 3000 audience members.

Smaller than that, it's still common to only see one desk in place and I haven't done a theatre show yet where the PM has insisted on a backup desk in place - multiple bl00dy Mac's for QLab certainly, but never a backup desk.

 

Are sound desks more reliable than LX desks? I wouldn't have thought so, with regards to the build quality and circuitry; but I can't think of the last time a desk crashed on me since the early days of digital, and I've never had an LX desk go down as far as I can recall.

 

As for complexity, they're pretty much all a Windows computer under the hood these days, so the difference in circuitry and processing between audio & lighting is minimal I would think.

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I don't think there is anything more reliable about audio consoles. They rely on software written by people just the same, although there are some differences in the way some separate out control surface/processing and the basic pre-amp/analogue-digital conversion meaning they can often still pass audio albeit without control. Perhaps this is enough but on the whole I think it's a mistake to not have a backup and only recently I was chatting with an audio engineer with significant experience in the development side who agreed.

 

While I have never had a real-world failure either and would love to think they are infallable the console is critical. Without this everything else is useless. Restaring software or power-cycling might seem insignificant when programming but during a show a few seconds can feel like an eternity and it's not so easy to diagnose and make decisions. And it is not necessarily going to be a software failure - it could be hardware, possibly a member of the public throws a pint all over it - this isn't going to be fixed by a restart. In the analogue days the hardware might be more tolerant and still work, albeit with fewer channels. But now it's all or nothing. Of course the risk and consequence will vary and for sure I wouldn't bother with a backup for smaller shows but usually these things scale and at the point where they are required the additional hire cost is usually easy to absorb. Probably the biggest issue is FOH real-estate, particularly if there are two consoles for both audio and lighting (likely also another one or two for support bands these days).

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... But now it's all or nothing. Of course the risk and consequence will vary and for sure I wouldn't bother with a backup for smaller shows but usually these things scale and at the point where they are required the additional hire cost is usually easy to absorb. Probably the biggest issue is FOH real-estate....

Yup, I wont argue with the principle at all. There is a lot to be said for a smaller desk as backup though.

 

http://ice9.me.uk/lx/avos.jpg

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Yup, I wont argue with the principle at all. There is a lot to be said for a smaller desk as backup though.

 

I've never had to do this (yet) but do you program differently when you have a smaller backup desk? If you have to swap, suddenly a lot of your playback faders won't be there any more...

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In my early days there would simply not have been room for any back up. That being said the only time I had a lighting control fail on me was a terrible Berkey numerical call up programmable monstrosity in 1990 the model of which I have mercifully forgotten. Once I had a decent memory board I still wrote down all the cues and kept a simple two preset board to hand in case of emergency. I never had to use it. Back in those days though you could busk the average show if all else failed. The world is very different now both in terms of capital cost - which would have been prohibitive in the seventies - and the complexity we demand making insistence on a back-up understandable. I'd personally doubt power reliability first but hey....
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I've never had to do this (yet) but do you program differently when you have a smaller backup desk? If you have to swap, suddenly a lot of your playback faders won't be there any more...

 

Yes, there is that. If you use all the controls on a larger control surface - you'll need those replicated. But possibly as shows get larger they run more on cuestacks and timecode than lots of playback masters.

Here would be a good place to praise the TitanNet system. Its the first time I have used it and it is excellent and easier than I thought. In this case both boards were outputting on 4 5-pin DMX lines which went into a switcher, then a DMX to MAnet switch and from there to the stage network via network.

The two desks were also connected into the system on network and the Quartz set to backup. So even if you are outputting your universes on the ordinary DMX lines you can still link the desks with a switch and take advantage of this facility.

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Regarding different size control surfaces in Titan you can have unlimited layouts within a show via 'Handle Worlds'. So you can have the main console set to one layout and the backup set to another. Obviously this isn't going to compensate for there being less faders/buttons but it helps. Also, if you use Art-Net (or sACN) the outputs will switch automatically so no need for a separate switch.
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Coming from a theatre background, I will always insist on a backup surface though don't always get due to budget but it is explained why and its down to the producers if they won't pay for it.

 

I myself have had a couple of occasions of failure not necessarily the desk itself but control system but its as always insurance. The tour Im about to take out will consist of a Full Size EOS and an RPU Backup although the RPU will be the master on stage and EOS will be in backup mode.

 

Also worth thinking is production insurance, I have seen in insurance clauses that backups must be in place and as said above, if a technical failure i.e. the desk has fallen over and no backup was in place, you can loose the insurance claim for loss of performance so many reasons.

 

I myself will always insist on a backup of some kind for peace of mind!

 

Also from what I remember for a DiGiCo SD10, even if the surface fails i.e. monitor or faders don't respond, the desk still processes audio and you can get a small 10fader wing from DiGiCo that will still go through scenes and run on that. But I have also toured shows were a spare SD10 was toured but never put out.

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Also from what I remember for a DiGiCo SD10, even if the surface fails i.e. monitor or faders don't respond, the desk still processes audio and you can get a small 10fader wing from DiGiCo that will still go through scenes and run on that. But I have also toured shows were a spare SD10 was toured but never put out.

 

Continuation of audio has always been a feature Digico have pushed, I remember them demoing a restart of the desk at Plasa when they showed their first desk there. On the other hand if you have a PSU failure or something it won't carry on through that.

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On my current job we do have backup of everything. Two desks and duplicate remote DMX/buffer arrangements.

 

Both desks are kept synced with the backup ready to jump in immediately if the main desk locks up or fails.

 

Even if the backup never gets used, it is good insurance for a job where the loss of the lighting control could adversely affect the show. However, in this case it HAS been used and DID save the day.

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Yeah, I wondered about the switcher unit. Maybe MA desks do not automatically switch which is why it was there. I was just using the house infrastructure.

Nope MA consoles automatically switch over to which ever console you specify when the "Main" console falls over for outputting network protocols instantaneously.

 

But how many times do you see a backup sound board at FOH?

One other thing to note about some Digico Consoles (SD7 etc.) is that they actually have 2 engines inside them. So it's almost like having two completely separate sound consoles, so if one crashes you press a button and it'll switch to the other. This means that the only thing you're not covered against is hardware failure, which is less likely during a show and having a backup console doesn't necessarily help with this either. (If someone throws a beer or water over your lighting console, there's a change it'll get both!)

 

Some tours will have a completely separate backup sound console setup backstage somewhere and then if either monitors/FOH falls over, it can be brought online to get by.

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