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gareth

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Production Manager

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  1. Amazed that almost a week has passed and there haven't been any replies to this post. Richard was very much one of the 'founding fathers' of theatre lighting as an industry in its own right, and is one of the very few practitioners of the art whose written works have influenced and informed such a huge number of people over the years. I wonder if it's something to do with the younger generation coming up through the business at the moment being sufficiently removed from that generation chronologically-speaking as to not have quite such an appreciation of the man and his legacy?
  2. I think you answered your own question!
  3. Used to be the standard way of doing it for many years on pretty much any console with illuminated buttons.
  4. Ah, thanks - I'd completely forgotten that this had been discussed before.
  5. Maybe one day there'll be enough of a system together in one place to enable it to be powered up. MMS was the very first memory console I ever got my teenage hands on - that particular system was ripped out of Theatr Clwyd in 1986 to be replaced by a Galaxy, but I encountered bits of it many years later in slightly unexpected circumstances... I was relighting a show at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend in October 1999, and one of the guys on the local crew mentioned that he was involved in a local amateur venue, the New Empire Theatre, which had two interesting lighting desks - an MMS, and another pretty impressive 'homebrew' desk which one of their members had built using, if I recall correctly, all manner of bits from other consoles (MMS and others) plus some of his own bespoke hardware. An invitation to pop across to have a look the next day was duly accepted. The MMS in their upstairs studio venue had come, in the main (desk furniture, crate and some modules) from one of the West End theatres, I believe - can't remember which one. But some modules had come from a variety of other sources - including one (maybe two) which were labelled "Mold Arts Centre" on the side of the frame (which would've been what Theatr Clwyd was referred to before they'd decided on a proper name for it!). That, at least, explained why a couple of the modules in the Clwyd desk when it was decommissioned were marked as "Rank Strand Service Department" - they must've been swapped out at some point, and rather than being swapped back the repaired mods were redeployed elsewhere with the service spares being left up in North Wales. A quick Google reveals that the amateur company were booted out of the venue in 2008, the building suffered very badly due to an arson attack in 2015 and was demolished completely in 2017. I wonder if any of the MMS bits from their venue survive? Maybe you even have some of them in your collection...
  6. I can't remember his BR username, but Andy Syposz is a member of this forum - he's a bit of a guru when it comes to Strand consoles, he may well be able to help.
  7. MMS! I remember you had some of the modules, and possibly even an electronics crate, at the event in the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley a few years back - is this now a working system?
  8. There isn't much that could tempt me to the PLASA show these days - but if I wasn't stuck behind a production desk I'd definitely come and have a nosey at this little lot!
  9. Buy cheap chairs, repent later! A control room is a place of work, in exactly the same way as an office space or a meeting room. If a theatre's marketing or admin staff were made to sit on sub-standard chairs for the duration of their working day just because management didn't want to spend enough money on ergonomically-appropriate furniture for them, there'd be uproar - the same consideration should be applied to any other working area where staff spend long periods of time sitting at a workstation. Exactly which chair is right depends on the layout of your room, consoles, etc. - but it's important to get the best one for the job. Spending a bit more money at the purchase stage will pay off over time when staff who spend hours each week in the control room don't have to call in sick because of bad backs, etc.!
  10. I took a tour out for a theatre company a couple of years ago. Mainly rental kit, but supplemented with some stock from the company's own inventory, including some freshly-tested (by a contractor) 15A extensions. Found one that didn't work, opened up to investigate, the live conductor in the socket wasn't even connected - just floating about in space, and the screw was only hanging on in the terminal by about half a turn. The cable had a 'passed' sticker on it from a few weeks before and had been sitting on a shelf in the store in the meantime. Reported it back to the company's production office - don't think they did anything about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the same cowboy outfit still do their testing for them.
  11. As per David's post - you can chain as many splitters as you want, as long as you're chaining from an isolated buffered output and not a DMX Thru. An opto-splitter regenerates the DMX signal, so your device count limit is effectively reset. Lots of cheaper kit uses 3-pin only, and dual 3- and 5-pin connectors are quite common - it works, but strictly speaking it's not compliant with the DMX standard. And the caveat about using the right kind of cable is important.
  12. The website also states that the Ultrasplit "(costs) significantly less than 8 x budget 1u buffers" at £899+VAT. It's perfectly possible to find a budget 8-way isolated buffer for under £100 inc VAT these days. It doesn't say whether it's RDM compatible. Also, there's nowhere to stick some labels on the front panel to mark up what each output is feeding - I like everything clearly labelled. Can anyone enlighten me as to what makes eight 8-output buffers in a big box "The worlds most advanced DMX distribution system"?
  13. I'll answer your question with another very simple question - has it got a plug on it, or is it hardwired? This one simple distinction will go a long way to determining the outcome.
  14. You should at least be giving them a clean once every year or so - why not PAT-test them then? You say they never get touched - but what about replacing the lamps? They don't last forever...
  15. I've just heard this awful news on the pyro grapevine. Gutted. What an enormous loss to the industry, and to the human race. Those of you who work in pyro/fireworks, or who've attended Linc's courses in the past, will no doubt be reflecting tonight that within a year JustFX, and FTF/Fully Fused Fireworks, have lost two of the best pyro techs, not to mention the loveliest people, one could ever hope to work alongside. Brian and Keith - see you on the other side, chaps.
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