Using Fat Frog after Sirius 48 .....

[scoobster]

Just wondered if anyone can advise on the use of the fat frog desk as apposed to the old sirius 48 channel desk. Our lighting bod is from the old school of lighting and knows his way backwards round the sirius desk but is a bit concerned about using the fat frog . We are going to be using 4 moving head lights for the first time and as we hire all our equipment we will only have minimal time to set up and get used to the fat frog. Is the frog similar to the old sirius ? Another quick Q , is it possible to match light colour from moving lights to say gelled par cans by using lee filter numbers or do you have to pick colour manually ?

 

Cheers

[Dmills]

Just wondered if anyone can advise on the use of the fat frog desk as apposed to the old sirius 48 channel desk. Our lighting bod is from the old school of lighting and knows his way backwards round the sirius desk but is a bit concerned about using the fat frog . We are going to be using 4 moving head lights for the first time and as we hire all our equipment we will only have minimal time to set up and get used to the fat frog. Is the frog similar to the old sirius ? Another quick Q , is it possible to match light colour from moving lights to say gelled par cans by using lee filter numbers or do you have to pick colour manually ?

 

Cheers

 

Never having used a 'frog and hating the sirius, I will leave that part of the question to someone else!

 

On the subject of colour matching, note that there are a few problems....

 

Firstly even the open white colour of a discharge source will normally tend to the blue end of the spectrum when compared to a tungsten source (and thats before you dim the TH source (which gets very yellow as the power is reduced - the moving light dimmers will retain constant colour)), you can partially correct with with a 'CT orange' filter if the mover has a colour temperature correction filter or by adding a "CT blue" to the gel on the parcans (both at the cost of some loss of light output).

 

Now colour matching, no the lee numbers don't help, there was an attempt (ESTA?) to come up with a way to define a gel colour by a number but it was abandoned at something like 9 digits and there were still visible differences between different gels with the same number!

 

Part of the problem is that the moving lights are typically using some variant on CMY mixing which while it visually gives a reasonable gamut, the real gels have a far more subtle transfer curve then one that can be modelled in the general case with a set of 3 variable filters. When you combine this with sources with >1000K differences in CT and painted sets the effective transfer functions become "interesting".

 

Then there is the issue that some moving light bubble technologies change colour severely as they age.....

 

That said, there ARE tables floating around to give a starting point for some common movers, but these are only starting points and typically only contain some gels.

 

HTH.

 

Regards, Dan.

[DSA]

Being an old sirius 24 user, and having now used the Fat Frog, I would say that the transfer should be fairly smooth as the two consoles are from the same manufacturer (and as such the thinking behind them is very similar). As such, generic use is very similar indeed with only a few changes that are just extensions of functionality. Watch out for cue timings though, as I believe these are handled differently.

 

The use of moving lights on the desk is fairly intuitive. A quick scan of the manual will answer most questions, and as long as you have a grasp of the LTP concept, and that of palettes, then you should save yourself a lot of time, and you should be up and running in a fairly short timescale.

 

I suggest you take a look at the extensive Zero88 support forums for advice, and ask any complicated questions you may have over there, as you are more likely to receive a quicker and more thorough response.

 

David

[AndyJones]

good luck with the swap. I "grew up" on the Sirius 24 therefore never realised it has a wierd way of handling timings, from what I remember (may be wrong)

 

the timing stack on the sirius edits the cue BEFORE the one you are in, were as on the frog you are editing the one you are in. - I think!

 

movers are easy, very sensitive though, need to be gentle. As has already been said, learn the pallettes and you make your life easier.

 

hope this helps

 

Andy

[peter]

Just to reitterate what has already been said. The logic behind the use of the Sirius follows through very easily into the Frog range. Cue timings on the Sirius were a little backwards - the Frog range uses the industry accepted standard where you set the timings for the transition into the selected cue. The up time affects channels which are coming up into that cue, and the down time affects channels going down in that cue. The third timing option on the Frog range is the LTP fade, which affects moving light attributes. Each group of attributes (Position, Colour, Beamshape) can individually be set to snap or fade.

 

If you have any questions with regards the Frog range, please don't hestiate to get in touch. You may also like to try the Phantom Frog offline software, available from our website. This allows you to emulate the functionality of all the Frog range on your PC.

 

Good luck with the show.

 

 

 

Peter Kirkup

Zero88 Product Support

[WiLL]

I used a sirius for 5 years at my last place of work, then got my new job and forked out for a fat frog. I'd say it takes about an hour of 'playtime' on the desk with the manual to learn the differences, the main one is indeed that the timings aren't split across the cues like in the sirius. Don't worry about the moving lights, the manual explicitly tells you how to set them up on the desk and the user interface for programming them is very user-friendly. I'd never programmed movers before getting the frog and I found it straightforward. Main thing to remember when programming movers for the first time is learn to balance when to shutter and when to dim, you may need to allow an hour or so after each tech session for the lx tech to plot in many marking cues for the movers to make sure each transition is smooth. Butby the end of the first show they'll have a complete handle on them.

 

Oh... and get a monitor and keyboard for the frog, no two ways about it, if you try and program it without, it will take five times as long and send you blind as the lcd screen is weeeny, and some functions are only realistically doable with a keyboard, such as jumping to specific cue numbers when plotting and naming cues.

Good luck :blink:

 

I can also recommend the zero88 website with it's pdf manuals and helpful support forums.

 

zero88 support

[Nicktaylor]

Okay full answers already given. I find the Frog better for quick programming because as long as you set the default fade up and downs then that part of each cue change is done each time, instead of having to set the fades on each cue.

Personally I love the Frog range and as time goes by get to use more and more of the facilities. Does anyone out there want a second hand Sirius 48 ? :blink:

[scoobster]

Thanks guys for all that advice , its reassured me somewhat..... ! :D The guys from viking lighting in norwich have been great and there gonna let us have the desk a week earlier FOC to try and get to grips with it. Where do I find more info on the PALLETTE you keep refering to ? is it a printable document ? or just learning which colours when mixed make which colour ???

 

This show may turn into LITTLE SHOP OF LIGHTING HORRORS if were not carefull hehe !!! :( . Only kidding, im sure it'll be fine . Thanks again for all your help and advice

 

Cheers

 

The Scoobster

[DSA]

No, a palette is a very useful programming tool whereby a preselected group of fixtures can be quickly focussed on a particular location/colour/gobo/"look" etc. In short, if you create your looks on palettes first, and then programme the show referencing them, then it should be a fairly quick task to get a show going.

 

Clearly, that is a large simplification and you are certainly not forced to use them! One major advantage is that if you later decide that the red is "a bit red" (for example), then you only need to update the palette (and not each memory in turn). Using the same principle, a touring show can program looks in one venue, and just update the position palettes in the next venue - and the show will run a charm, saving perhaps hours of reprogramming.

 

I recommend digging out the manual, and looking palettes up.

 

David

[scoobster]

Now reading the manual !!! thanx

 

Gonna be a long night me thinks

 

Scoobster

[Potassium Neuf]

As mentioned above, if you have any questions on the operation of the desk or want to know how to achieve a particular effect etc. then have a look at the Zero 88 Support Forum :D