Strand 520i

[MARTYL200UK]

I was wondering if anyone can help me. I am lighting an amatuer show in Feb 2007, the theatre have a strand 520i desk. I am just learnng to use WYSIWYG 10 perform software.

What I am after is a way to plot the lighting for the show at home on the PC and then transfer to the 520i once in the theatre to hekp try and save time once in the theatre.

 

Can anyone recommend any offline editors for the Strand 520i, or can I export out of WYSIWYG some how.

 

I look forward to you replies.

 

Martin

[SimonW]

I'm not sure if you will be able to get this to work. Strand don't make an Offline Editor as such, and what most people use is a copy of the console software running on a Virtual Machine such as Qemu (do a Google search for more details of this solution). However, getting this console to access the network can be tricky.

 

Even if you do get network access for the offline editor going, my understanding is that one of the things that is explicitly disabled in the Offline Editor is the ability to output any kind of control protocol (otherwise no one would actually buy a desk!).

 

Are there moving lights in your show, or is it a rig of conventionals? If you aren't using moving lights, I'd question the benefits of pre-cueing with Wysiwyg in any case. Instead, draw up a clear list of the cues you require, timings of those cues, and the looks (and units) that you are thinking of for those cues - going into the plotting session with this kind of information will speed it up considerably.

 

Simon.

[MARTYL200UK]

Simon,

 

Thank you for your reply. We are looking at using between 4 and 6 Mac 500's in the show.

 

I think teh best way forward for me is to visual what Ia m after in WYSIWYG and then just make some detailed notes of which channels I use for each scene and the internsities used.

 

Regards

 

martin

[Ynot]

I was wondering if anyone can help me. I am lighting an amatuer show in Feb 2007, the theatre have a strand 520i desk. I am just learnng to use WYSIWYG 10 perform software.

Martin, hi, and welcome to the Blue Room.

I may be wrong, but you don't sound too experienced on the desk. What exp have you with moving lights also? You also appear to have no OLE exp, esp with this desk.

 

If you are indeed a novice on both, then I suspect that trying to visualise the cues away from the venue will possibly cost you a LOT more time than simply plotting on site.

 

I personally would question the motives behind trying to advance-plot in this case, and suggest you might want to assess what gains you'll achieve. If, once you have plotted at home, you still have to copy everything and adjust it when you get on site, this is where you'll possibly find the time slipping away quicker than expected.

 

Of course, if you ARE proficient on the desk/movers/OLE in any way, some or all of my assumptions may be ignored!!

 

:blink:

[paulears]

With a small number of movers, I've always found programming them in the venue live to take less time, than doing it before, then redoing things. The snags are mainly to do with focus positions, and with small numbers of movers you are really talking about spot positions and often specific moves, reather than lots of complex multiple looks that just need a tweak and they work. Strand desks aren't slow programming movers unless you start to design in very complex moves - so I'd wait. Learning a new piece of software just to do it in advance is hardly likely to be quick. I'm still a wysi novice and always find it is me that is the problem, I just aren't very quick -but I can programme and plot much faster in real time. Doing loads of clever cues and having to tweak each one when you see it is a pain!

[MarcT]

You should probably have a read of this topic:

 

Strand 500 series OLE, Fixed!

 

In summary:

 

I have produced a bootable CD containing the Strand console software, which can run as an OLE. PM me for a copy.

Mac Calder (IIRC) has a QEMU virtual machine image, in which you can run the OLE. There is a download link in the above topic somewhere.

 

Neither support networking. Neither will output into your visualiser. Mine takes over the whole PC, Mac's will run in a window (I think), or at least you can probably switch tasks with other applications. Both should allow you to save your show to a floppy disk.

 

If you're not familiar with the 500 series console - either will be useful to get some hands-on experience recording & editing cues, and patching - especially moving lights & the shape generator. You could pre-patch & pre-plot some of your cues which may save time in the venue.

 

If you set up "preset focus groups" for your movers, all you'll need to do in the venue is actually point them at the target and update the groups. Once this is done, cues which use the groups will be correct. You can set up groups for position, colour, focus, gobo, etc...

 

Have fun! - Regards,

Marc

[AndrewE]

I have produced a bootable CD containing the Strand console software, which can run as an OLE. PM me for a copy.

Mac Calder (IIRC) has a QEMU virtual machine image, in which you can run the OLE. There is a download link in the above topic somewhere.

 

I have used the OLE to pre-plot a show where I knew that time would be limited. We had a morning and afternoon to rig, focus, plot, tech and dress at Birmingham Hippodrome before a 7:30 show, and I knew that if we could save time on plotting, we would stand a much better chance of getting it all done in time.

 

We assigned channel numbers to our lighting plan and plotted using those, and then a few days before the get-in sent the saved show disk and our plan to the theatre so they could soft-patch their rig to our channel numbers. Then on the day, once the rig was in the air and focussed, we simply ran through each cue and made slight adjustments to the brightness.

 

With movers, and if you're not very familiar with the desk, it's possible you could wind up confusing yourself, so any hands-on experience you can get before attempting this would be very valuable.

 

Good luck!

[tanko]

G'day

 

Would deffo recomend mac.calder's strand OLE. I used it to pre-program all the cues in a production of godspell back in may whilst I was in production rehersals. Got to the venue with limited time and only really had to tweek intensities during the tech.

 

From Personal experience I would usually avoid plotting a theatre show on wyg first, its great for rock and roll, where you can do you pallets, groups, focus posistions, and great for banging stuff that you 'might' need when you act does a song not on the set list, but for theatre I think you'll find that wyg isn't acurate enough.

 

The main thing (assuming your not familiar with the 520I) is get your hands on the OLE (so you can learn the interface and what screen is what) and maybe even the console (as the venue when they are dark) and just get used to where the buttons are, what they do etc. Make sure you production manager schedules in a plotting session (always avoid plotting during the tech) make sure you have 90% of things in the desk you need, then just add and take away during the tech...jobs a good un!!

 

Ta

Tank