richard_cooper

I managed to buy 12 back in May, but I was only able to do that from multiple suppliers and buy a mixture of slight variations (pack only/with headset/with lav) so I suspect I got some of the last. Back then Line6 were telling suppliers there would be more stock in September but I'm guessing that's not happened. I've also drawn a blank on some Trantec lines.

Whilst we don't currently use Sumup, I'm looking at it as the costs of our "traditional" card solution are just too high as more and more sales move online. We've one machine that some months doesn't take enough to cover its leasing cost. I'm also interested in anyone's experience. One of our customers uses Sumup for programme sales donations etc. and they say they've been very happy with it. Personally I'd go with the self contained machines that have direct wifi/GSM connections rather than relying on another device for connectivity, but obviously cost more. Whilst I don't use these newer style of payment processors for in person sales, even our old school system has had more problems recently, including an outage that required them to send out new simm cards for all the terminals, and so lasted 3 days.

Connevans are still around, definitely worth a call on this sort of subject. Dealt with them over the last year, ultimately unsuccessfully due to supply chain issues with TOA kit, but nice people.

Ah the memories... I bought a Congo Jnr to replace a 520i that had a spectacular PSU failure (and collateral damage) the evening before it was announced that the original Strand had gone under (2005?). At the time IIRC the options were ETC Express, known to be end of life, Congo Jnr, GrandMA Ultra Light, which was way over budget, and Zero88 had something, Illusion500? I think the Ion was rumoured, but not available.

I'm going to raise my hand and shyly admit I was one of those that did.... I found it got a bad reputation as there were a lot in venues that had simply not learnt it well at all. When I had one in a venue that did a fair amount of one night small scale theatre tours, I'd frequently have companies come in groaning that we had a Congo. I lost count of the times that we'd end up having a conversation along the lines of "wait I thought Congo couldn't do x" or "every time we used a Congo before this bit took forever to program, so how come that took 30s". I forget what those things were, but some were extremely basic, and I'll agree some things were in no way intuitively obvious! Having said all that, do I want a Congo snr in my life now? No.

The 133 is still listed by BSS and is in stock at Thomann/Bax/DV247(others) and backordered until July at a few others. +1 also on the Orchid boxes, I've not used the dual micro but have some of the classics and have used the single micro and muting DI plenty, good stuff.

I've got a Raspberry Pi that does this function using Node-RED although I think its for an very early version of Hue, but there looks to be nodes available for newer bridges. Strangely enough, looking at, it my flow also monitors a twitter feed to flash some lights on particular keywords. I can't for the life of me remember why.

I have used both, and settled on Protonmail, but there is very little in it if you're only interested in the email side. There are other extras like Proton have a VPN and secure cloud storage options. Weirdly Proton have no native client for their calendar on iOS, Tutanota do. Both have free and paid tiers, I believe Tutanota's tiers are generally cheaper. It's important to realise that even with these services most emails will be sent unencrypted. To send encrypted you either need to have your addressee's public PGP key (Proton), or you can send them a password by other means and they get a link to the message by email (Both). Most emails you receive will also be unencrypted whilst in transit, unless the sender has well set up PGP (proton) or uses the same service. There is no real standard from what I can work out. Protonmail is based on PGP so can communicate with others using PGP, Tutanota is a proprietary system so is only seamlessly encrypted with other Tutanota users (I think but happy to be corrected!). Sending encrypted emails with passwords and links just doesn't work in the real world for anything other than very specific sensitive messages where the hassle is worth it. My reason for using these services is not so much the encrypted email in transit, but the encrypted nature of the mailbox and wanting to get away from everything being indexed by Google and the like.

There's no specific announcement, but some support articles for element Ion and @5 such as "Updating Software on a Gio @5" now reference consoles running 7 or 10 as opposed to XP. I'm sure I read it somewhere else as well but can't find it now so it's possible I'm adding 2&2 and getting 5.

I notice on ETC's website that the "older" consoles have also had a change and now feature Wi-Fi and Bluetooth along with USB-C connections. I may have missed this update, but also seems they're now windows 10. A bit like the Ion classic, I wonder how long software support for the Win7 Element, Ion, Gio, and EOS Ti will continue.

although the price and availability seem to shift all the time. This is not just merch, LTT have designers/engineers on staff and develop stuff, expected to be "not cheap"

I use encrypted email from tutanota.com which has a calendar and apps for all the usual platforms, plus Linux and web. I've not used the Android client, but the iOS, windows, and Mac clients work well for me. There's free and paid tiers, and it possible to import a calendar file. I've not tried the import function so YMMV.

There's also a video guide on the ETC Tech Serv Underground youtube channel.

I once helped trouble shoot a music venue where the lighting rig had been in place untouched for many years, but everything failed when they tried to add a couple more fixtures. All the cables between fixture were made to fit using cat5 of some description, replacing any single cable with something a different length caused the whole rig to behave erratically. Once we mapped out the maze of DMX cable we realised there must be a split hidden somewhere (it was in some trunking). It seemed that the original setup was literally the exact one situation which worked and they got lucky, as people have said until they ran out of luck.

I used a M300 once and it was OK, one weird thing was that there is no built in networking, but there is a USB Wi-Fi dongle. As there is only one USB port it meant you couldn't use the remote app and playback/recorder or save shows to disk at the same time. The venue said using a hub doesn't work, but no idea if that was true. I don't remember anything particular good or bad about the experience. I don't think there is any way to get it on a Dante network however.

Wow! The last I heard for Yamaha was Dec22, bad, but 2023..? I think at this point it's going to be wait or make do with what you can get. No idea of current pricing, but look into a DLive C1500 + smallest mixrack? Almost certainly out of budget but I know there are iLive dante cards in stock that can be used.

M32/M32R? I've an SQ6 which I like. What features that matter for this use are missing vs QL1, and what about the TF is restrictive? Might make it easier to think of an alternative. I think most A&H are fairly heavily back ordered as well, as are most things Dante.

And remember that blanks have been involved in deaths on set before. Branon Lee's death on the set of The Crow

Interesting option, I've ordered one to look at, as I've a temporary project these could be the solution to. Most places I've seen using the security flood as houselights, never ran them anywhere near 100% in actual use, so might be an option for OP? With a claimed beam angle of 38° more maybe needed for coverage. I'll report back when I get a chance......

I'm currently doing just that with the pitch shifter in an old Yamaha SPX990 with a bit of extra weight added from a sub-harmonic syth (Hyper-bass effect on an Allen and Heath SQ). Works well, definitely an effect rather than realistic though. SPX990s are often available used on ebay for £100-150ish

We use YoDeck running on Raspberry Pi's which has worked well for us, although there is a cost depending on how many screens you have. It allows you to push content to all the screens at once or manage them individually.

I've got a couple of the B-Hype 8s for use in childrens' theatre workshops. They're super light, sound reasonable with pre recorded music and have been, so far, reliable in circumstances where they are often pushed way into limit by inexperienced users. Super cheap too. Don't know that Achat box, but in a previous job had the 108CXA which I really liked, especially in this package for small presentation use.

Me too... Not as low cost but very convenient there is the SmartShow PIXIE if you've not spotted it.

Interestingly I used to work in a newly built theatre that had a fluorescent dimmable house light system that claimed to dim to 1%. The ballasts claimed 1% capability but the snap off/on was still really pronounced. We did use to get a surprising number of comments about it, especially the jarring snap back on. Fortunately for those of us that cared the ballasts were seriously unreliable and within a couple of years became nearly impossible to get hold of so the whole system was changed.

Going through some old stuff, I've come across my old USB Key for xConnect that I'm extremely unlikely to ever use again if anybody would like it?