what lighting desk to go for?

[tivoliproduction]

my venue currently has a fat frog lighting desk, we are adding more circuits and dimmers to our rig this year and need to find another desk that is "user friendly" and similar kind of size to the fat frog but can run more generic channels, also budget plays an important part of this due to other items needing to be purchased. anyone got any ideas/suggestions of what to look at? preferably something with faders and not hundreds of buttons. :unsure:

[strandgsx]

why not go for the zero88 illusion 500, we have some in hire stock and I used one recently and I have to say they are very very good.

 

You are welcome to hire one for a few days if you wish.

 

Mark

[si_cole]

Do you have moving lights, intelligent fixtures, auxillaries? If so, what about a simple upgrade to a bull frog or something like that. Less of a learning curve in my view.

 

As has been said many times, depends what you want it for!

 

Si

 

POST EDIT - Illusion 500 all very well and good but doesn't provide direct access to individual channels i.e. moving a fader up and down.

[tivoliproduction]

The thing I forgot to mention is the control area is not the biggest in the world, the fat frog fits in here perfectly! otherwise I would go for the bullfrog straight away, we occasionally have some moving heads in but this is only a couple of times a year. :unsure:

[Frog Genius]

Z88 make great desks, perhaps a Frog2?

Here is the link!

Also hwy not just get another FatFrog, unless you will only have one operator!Here is the distibuter list aswell!

Or a Lightcommander

Here?

 

Hopefully this will help you make up your mind!

[tivoliproduction]

I would prefer to use a desk that still has faders!! rather than tapping a dozen buttons to put a source 4 on at 50%!! :unsure:

[James]

Strand 300?

[Bryson]

You realise that above a certain threshold - I would say 48, or perhaps 72 ways of dimming - that a "button" based desk becomes easier to use than a fader-based desk. If you need idiot-proofing, you can always record some subs.

 

With that in mind, I'd look at a Strand 300, an ETC Express or one of the Compulite desks - a Photon or a Spark. (I'm not too familiar with the Compulite Options, but they are very compact, if that is what you need.)

 

What I would certainly not recommend is getting more than one desk as suggested above. I've run a (much larger) system with two desks, and to be honest it was just a pain in the a$$.

[Ben Langfeld]

Your other option is to go for something "button based" if you will, and get that out when the expertise is available and the requirement for something more complex is there. Otherwise, leave the FatFrog in place for the people who require "newbie friendly" operation and leave them to it. Also saves having people who don't know what they're doing getting their mucky fingers all over your new desk :unsure:

[sam.henderson]

If you do end up having to go down the button based root (i.e. a desk which uses a syntax not faders) which I suspect you will have to then have a look at my recent thread about small desks with syntax commands.

 

Here are some of my views on the said desks:

Strand 300: Good desk, it can be as easy or comlex as you like. Also loads of people know the strand way of programming. Learning curve for just basic programming and playback isn't too steap. Realetivly compact however its quite pricey.

 

Illusion 500: Small footprint, easy to use and a simple desk. I think it's fair to say though they never really massivly 'took off' and although it would be easy to grasp for any experianced programmer they may prefer something a little more mainstream.

 

Frog II: Overkill for your situation if you ask me, you say you don't use movers much so probably not the thing for you unless you invisage further expansion soon.

 

Compulite Dlite: Good desk which although may be slightly overspeced for what you what will allow for adequete expansion. From the limited time I've had on it it seemed like a good enough desk with some good features behind it. Also you can have 72 faders if required. Not a bad price either listing at £5059 with 72 faders and 3544 without. No doubt the stagetec guys will pop up and add more details if you require!

 

HTH,

 

Sam

 

PS- It's been said before andd I'll say it again - Demo them and see what you like the feel of! Its the only true/ proper way of finding out.

[smeggie]

hi

 

for what its worth, here's my tuppence..

 

strand 300 - nice desk for generics with occasional movers (I know its doable, but I've just found that using the mouse isnt quite as nice as the trackball on the 5x0's.)

suitably small footprint, also folds up even smaller.

easy to learn, and is good for when going out into the big wide world [dont start on the 'why train on the strand when more n more are.....] as most places will use a desk that has some elements of the 300's interface in it.

 

Illusion 500 - very nice little beast when it works [ I last used it when it was a highly tempramental late beta testing unit]

has a great interface, very fast to learn and use on movers, I like it a lot. also a tiddly footprint.

 

Frog 2 - Its a hog 2 with some froggy bits mixed in. I liked it when I played with it, but I cant speak for it in anger just yet. looks to be good to use. probably too many bells n whistles for your needs though [but that's mainly because it looks to be made for movers with occasional generics]

 

compulite, - not used in anger, yet, so will keep sthum untill I have.

 

all the best

 

andrew

[ricklds]

I think the Compulite Dlite would fit in quite well with your current system due to the fact that it is very versatile - 2 DMX Universes, 24/48 or 36/72 versions and the board is like a MA combined with a Hog. The programming is alos quite fast, quick and easy for users at any level of experiences. Overall quite a good console with a good price

[Nicktaylor]

Do you actually use more than 48 ways regularly? Otherwise I would look into soft patching the faders to your dimming channels as required. ie still using your present desk

[Modge]

This in many respects 2nd's what bryson says about buttons being the way to go over a certain threshold, but softpatching 72 ways of dimming (some with 2 lanterns on a channel) down to 48 faders (sirus 48 in my case) is very bad for your mental health. Even if you have an outbreak "doing it properly" and work it out with a piece of paper in advance, rather than trying to do it in your head on the fly it's still not fun. If your actaully going to use that much dimming all the time then it must be worst at least thinking about soemthing with syntax and the like.

[Stu]

strand 300 - nice desk for generics with occasional movers (I know its doable, but I've just found that using the mouse isnt quite as nice as the trackball on the 5x0's.)

You could always get an external trackball mouse to get round this problem.

 

When you use your moving lights, is it for touring shows or in house efforts? If it's the latter, then once you'd take the time to do a decent pallettes disk (if you use the same moving light rig each time I suppose) on the Strand 300 series you'd only have to update positions (and the odd other bits and bobs) which would give you quite a good base to start on.

 

However if it's always different and you don't have much time to do it in then I don't think the Strand 300 series would be the way forward...

 

Stu