your Pearl

[AndyJones]

Hello Guys,

 

using one of the most beaten up Pearls you will ever see, I am using a few LED cans and a couple of MAC 250's and the question I have for you is this-

 

how do you like to lay your desk out? do you set up each song on the roller? do you use movements or whole chases?

 

The pearl I'm using has 3 faders on EVERY page of the wheel not working and 6 preset swaps that are broken :D

 

Cheers

 

Andy

[niclights]

If PB faders are not working on any page then they are either dead or there is fault in the ribbon connector to the analogue board (bottom of desk, nearest front). Replacing faders is quite easy and, certainly with the older desks, quite necessary from time-to-time. Use System/Diagnostics to check quality of faders & to determine which to replace.

 

There are so many ways to layout the Pearl depending on what you want to achieve.

 

If I were doing a tour then I would probably program one song per page in a standardised layout with cols/gobos etc contained in PB's, possibly even using 'shapes in chases' capability.

 

But most of my time I am busking, so I layout some PB's as generic wash, some specials/chases/LED's etc. depending on type of show and then some sort of mover control - usually a master, shutter chase and a P/T shape (without P/T position and with fader set to mode 2 w/size & speed timed). Intelligent cols, gobos, positions etc always from palettes preferably on Fixt Page 0 and only one attribute/fixture type per palette. Recall using Quick Palettes and attribute set to 'dimmer' then only ever needs one button press (or two if timed). This also means you can safely hit [clear] whenever necessary without worrying about fixture selection.

Whatever I decide to program and whatever I decide to have available on palettes, I will make a point of keeping them separate. It is asking for trouble to program things that you will also be recalling as palettes (ie. P/T positions, colours etc.)

Across pages I might vary things like Generic wash & chases, but always keep the same type of thing on the same fader and keep variations to a minimum. This I think is generally always a good way to approach the programming layout.

 

Regarding patch I try to keep as much as possible on Fix Page 0, with things I might want to view LED's as mimics (useful for chase speed) and possibly want to flash/swap on the bottom preset (hopefully soon this will be irrelevant :D ) and other things on the top preset.

 

HTH

[Ken Coker]

If I know the set/band/show : one facet per song, chases at one end and cues at the other

If I'm busking: I'll have a slow facet and a fast facet, a happy facet and a sad facet - (it sounds stupid, but you know what I mean).

 

Patch wise: as much as possible on Page 0; generics on the top faders, movers on the bottom set for access.

 

I also plot from palettes, ( as the good book says), so running in Takeover gives me any number of options.

 

Hope this is of some use.

 

 

Ken

[Rowan]

We used to have a couple of the very first pearls, and it was almost a daily chore to replace faders.

 

as regards the layout, we used to have a fairly standard rig for doing club events. we used to program using all the pages of one playback for an attribute, i.e. playback 5 had a different colour for the movers on each page, pb 6 was colour chases, likewise gobo's were on the next two and movements on the next, it sounds complicated, but it worked very well when you had no idea what songs or styles you needed. once plotted, it was quicker than doing it in takeover mode. On the first four faders we had generics, with a few pages of static looks and a few of chases that went well, ie if on the first page you had pb 1 as a red wash, on the next page, pb2 was a chase that worked well with the red.

 

excuse me if I've got the terminology a bit wrong, but I haven't used a pearl in 5 years

[johnhuson]

When I'm busking on a Pearl (pretty much what I do most of the time) I tend to lay my console out like this. First few PB faders have complete 'looks' i.e. a static look including generics and intell's recorded as record by fixture. These looks will all have something in common so that you can flick between them. Then I will have three or four faders of colour effects, recorded as record by channel, that work with the looks on the first faders. Next three of four faders have beam effects (could be a gobo chase or iris chase etc) which again works well with the complete looks on the first few faders. Then two or threee faders with movements either using shape generator or chases again recorded as record by channel. Then the final faders I will have dimmer info one each for hard edge & wash and then finally dimmer/shutter chases again one each for hard edge and wash fixtures.

 

I will then alternate on the roller facets between fast and slow (much like Rowans style). What I have done in the past when I have plenty of programming time is to have all all slow looks/chases on Page 1 of the roller, then identical looks on Page 2 (Photocopy is your friend for this!) but with faster times in them.

 

Laying the desk out like this for example allows me to fade up the generics at the start of the song, then as it builds bring in the wash fixtures. Then when the chorus hits whack in the hard edge fixtures, come the instrumental can whack on a beam look etc. etc. You get the idea, welll hopefully you do!

[24seven]

to add my 2 Pence

 

when I am running a show on an Avo if it is a touring environment as most people have already said I have a song per page .

 

And for busking a show - each page has a start static state then the rest of the faders are filled up with movements /patterns and then I use the shape pallets to add a bias to the movement and colour and so on . then if I have space a few special moments on movers or generics I might want to have quick access (blinders -strobes). then finally a few nice movements to finish a song off with.

 

By the way I feel your pain having the worlds worst pearl a few moths ago in the usa on a tour I had to use the spare desk we were touring after a mishap with low flying drink - the pearl was so old all the labelling had warn off the faders worked ok but the rollaque would never go to the same page twice this would progressively get worse and worse until during the gig until the second to last song the whole thing fell out and rolled of into the desk - panic and shear terror spring to mind - I got through it but never want to go there again for a while -- funny I look back at it now and smile - how time fades the memory.

 

Mark W-E