A new Control Desk for a school

[jude]

In school we have a zero 88 frog and a fairly elderly strand LX (I think) and that has been great for everything we've been doing so far, but recently the Strand LX has been doing strange things (like randomly bringing lights of when you put any pressure on it in some places.) We appealed to the school bursar and have been given a £2000 budget of which some is to go towards a new desk, we have 7 Zero88 betapacks (of which we currently use 4) so something that played nicely with them would be great! but I really have no idea what I'm looking for, Most of our control is done by students, manually although we do program the odd thing, and at the moment we have no moving lights. So something simple and not too expensive would be good.

Thanks

[mac.calder]

Have a look at the LSC consoles - their MINIM looks to do exactly what you want, however if you want more than 12/24, or want some more advanced programming features look at the maXim.

[Sim]

more advanced programming features look at the maXim.

 

I recommend the maxim. Its a great simple easy to use desk. Think about growth aswell, if you have the money to budget, why not get the extra features that you could use later on. Also with the maxims u can get a thing called a patpad. lets you control movers.

[gareth]

Will you only ever run dimmers from the desk? Or is there a chance that the school might sometimes hire 'toys' like scrollers or moving lights for major productions? That has a bearing on the sort of desk you should be looking at.

 

If you're only going to run dimmers from it, have a look at a Strand 200 24/48. An excellent small desk, with plenty of facilities, and cheap as well. Or perhaps a Zero88 Jester or ETC Smartfade - I don't really have much experience of either of those, but most people seem to speak very highly of them.

 

If you're ever going to want to run moving lights or such, think about a Zero88 Fat Frog. Within your budget (especially if you go for one of the many second-hand examples that are floating about), and, while it's not exactly my favourite desk, it can do everything that a school should ever need. Or perhaps one of the Compulite D-Lite range.

[GazBar]

I Can highly reccomend the strand 200 if your only ever going to be using dimmers, We bought one in school and its a great little desk for our drama studio. If we could have found a little more money I would have gone for the Zero88 Jester.

[Guest mattladkinlx]

I would have to add my vote for a fat frog.

 

Far superior to a Strand 200 series which, whilst it is a good desk, does not offer cue stack or moving light support and if you have the budget go for a more upmarket desk!

 

Also the Fat Frog can run with submasters, cue stack and manaul preset(s) all together where as the strand can only be run in one mode at a time (it just means you have more flexibility). I.e you can have the main show programmed with cue stack, a number of spots on manual presets for hands on busking style control and all of the chase sequences fired from submasters.

 

It also has the option of adding "new technology" such as scrollers and moving lights.

[gareth]

Incidentally, Jude, can I suggest that you use the search function to look through the archives for the many other topics which exist on the subject of lighting desks for schools? This is a subject that's been discussed in great depth many times over in the past, and it seems a little pointless to go around the discussion yet again if you can find the advice you're looking for elsewhere on the BR.

 

If you find a topic that's relevant but have something else to ask that follows on from it, just add another post to the end of the topic. If you have a question that's not covered by any of the other topics, though, that's the time to start a new one.

 

 

I would have to add my vote for a fat frog.

 

Far superior to a Strand 200 series

But that's a bit like saying "A Hog 3 is better than a Fat Frog". Yes, it is - but the two desks are pitched at completely different markets and have very different feature sets. You can't draw a direct comparison between Fat Frog and Strand 200 - if you're going to compare like with like, the equivalent Zero88 product would be the Jester or the Elara/Alcora.

[Guest lightnix]

...can I suggest that you use the search function to look through the archives for the many other topics which exist on the subject of lighting desks for schools? This is a subject that's been discussed in great depth many times over in the past, and it seems a little pointless to go around the discussion yet again if you can find the advice you're looking for elsewhere on the BR.

Seconded, a quick search of the Technical forums for "school" revealed around twenty-one threads on the subject of buying lighting and sound equipment for schools and that's before we get into the ones about buying equipment for colleges, churches, village halls and other small venues / systems. There is already a large knowledge base on this subject - please make use of it and add any questions to existing threads, rather than just expect people to keep repeating the same advice over and over again.

[James S]

If you can source any more budget go for the LSC Maxim Range - superb desk for schools, great support and good functionality.

 

Get the base model then you have the facility to add the 'patpad' for future control of "toys".

 

However saying that it does have some flaws - shop around.

 

Maybe look at a Zero 88 jester or something along those lines

[Stu]

I can't fault the little Jester, we have one running in our small studio theare and I think it's extremely good given the price!

 

You can run a normal cue stack with proper fade times all running off a GO button, insert cues, run effects in the stack, have submasters in addition to the stack, video output as standard, ability to patch in extra channels as AUX channels (say strobes, smoke machines etc), saving showfiles to a bog standard USB memory stick - I could go on.

 

Like all desk it's not perfect, but given it's low price (12/24 about £700, 24/48 about £1,000) it's very nice.

 

HTH

Stu

[Tom R]

Another vote for the Maxim. The LSC guys are awesome as well, so you will have really good after sales from them. If you are around the South East I am sure they will let you have a look at their desk if you ask very nicely!

 

With the Maxim you can buy the simple desk with your current budget and then when you have more money (and want movers) you can get the pad installed at a later date. Seems like a really good idea for schools.

 

I would also ask do you really need a desk that controls movers? Because often if you only have a few shows a year using a desk with mover options, it can be cheaper in the long run to just hire in when you need it. But if you are using it for intelligent lighting on a frequent basis go for Maxim!

 

[edit]Just realised you never even mentioned movers - that was other people - but I still vote the Maxim so that you can buy it relatively cheap and then, in the future, add the pad :)[/edit]

[Guest lightnix]

...can I suggest that you use the search function to look through the archives...

Seconded, a quick search of the Technical forums for "school" revealed around twenty-one threads on the subject of buying lighting and sound equipment for schools and that's before we get into the ones about buying equipment for colleges, churches, village halls and other small venues / systems...

And on that note...

 

A list of forty-six threads (including this one) on various aspects of equipping schools, colleges, churches and other small venues has now been added to the Lighting FAQ. Please don't get all upset if future threads on this subject are closed.

 

:) :(