Some recomendations

[dwh]

I wouldn't get moving heads for image; you need an op for them, or they just won't work well. Oh, and they have a tendancy of breaking. A hazer is a good idea though. Personally I think you're going about this in the wrong order; a couple of pars then upgrading to some effects lights makes more sense in my mind than some effects lights, then some pars... Oh, and remember, a desk takes a fair bit of space, and if you're "setting it and leaving it", you have to leave it somewhere that you'll trust... If any of you have laptops kicking about, a little USB-DMX dongle in that, dumped at the back of the stage may be easier to work with.

[mumbles]

any desks you lot recomend which could control all the stuff which I have been mentioning?

Before I got my Fat Frog, I was looking at this but have a look through Thomann's lighting section, or through terralec.

 

Again, the cheap stuff has to do me as I am on a tight budget.

I recently found an Antari H300 for £200. Not perfect, and a bit noisy, but gives a decent enough spread. The biggest issue is it isn't DMXed so needs to have a long lead for the remote.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Edit to fix quote

[Tomo]

As far as control is concerned, unless you really really want moving lights, a Zero88 Jester or an ETC Smartfade would suit you better than a Fat Frog or the dirt cheap 'consoles' that are out there.

 

The Jester and Smartfade are 'fader per channel' desks - push a fader, a light comes on.

Both can record memories and do sequences, chases, and submasters (put a recorded state onto a fader instead of a single light)

 

However, neither do moving lights very well - they will control them, but it's fiddly and you don't get the clever bits like palettes and encoders that are present on moving-light aware consoles.

 

They are both well under a grand, but exactly how much depends on how many channels you want and the dealer you buy it from...

[kikabyte]

I use a program called Freestyler. It's free to download from this site http://www.freestylerdmx.be/. You use a USB - DMX converter module, that allows your laptop to control all of your DMX fixtures. This software even makes use of Easy View 3D, so you can sit at home, design your light shows, then take ur laptop to the gig, plug it in, and let your engineer select the different shows to suit the mood of the song. I must add that this possibly isnt the best if you want your show to be done on the fly by an experienced guy, as clicking away on a mouse isnt as quick as swapping a fader around!

 

Thomann - I've only just recently come across this company. They take around 3 - 4 days to deliver, postage is only £7, and their UK telephone customer support is manned by english people (But it still costs you to ring Germany). Most items come with 3 yr warranty, and my friend had a problem with one of his light, they had it picked up the next day, and a new one arrived within 3 days with a load of free bits. Brilliant company! Note that most of their Starville items are Acme stuff re-branded. So if you want more details on the items, take a look on the Acme site http://www.acmeco.com.tw/

[Dayve]

Hey,

 

Im preety sure I will go for the iColours (x2) and two of the moving heads, mainly because they are quite cheap and they would be very useful for alot of the other stuff I do (school productions *our school lighting aint that good*, and I do alot of kids discos so they will come in useful).

 

Looking around the site, I came across a deal with two iColours and a controller, what will this controller alow me to do etc? Also, I saw another controler which was also part of a package deal with the moving heads, would this be good for moving heads and waht would it allow me to do (sorry, not done much DMX stuff before so dont know what exactly I can do).

 

http://www.thomann.de/gb/stairville_hl40_dmx_set_2.htm

http://www.thomann.de/gb/stairville_dmxmaster_i.htm

 

Would I be able to do everything thats on them controllers on a peice of software which I can bung on my laptop and a USB / DMX adapter?

 

Ty on the info about Thomann aswell, they look preety good :blink:

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[mumbles]

Also, I saw another controler which was also part of a package deal with the moving heads, would this be good for moving heads and waht would it allow me to do (sorry, not done much DMX stuff before so dont know what exactly I can do).

 

Would I be able to do everything thats on them controllers on a peice of software which I can bung on my laptop and a USB / DMX adapter?

Like and small DMX desk, it can cope with movers.

 

But, it copes if the movers are patched to say channel 1 onwards, and you move the slider for channel 1 to a point in the range (0-255) for a point in the pan/tilt or on the colour wheel etc. It then allows you to record a scene, which you can compile into a chase. But it will record all the attributes, as it isn't intelligent, so can only record a value for all 192 channels.

 

This is the main difference between a ML desk and this. A Pearl will record palettes and memories for either all the attributes for a fixture, or for just shutter say, depending on what you want. On this basis, a computer program would work better, as although it doesn't work with personalities, most will be able to just record the data for any channels that have been changed, so you can record a series of scenes for colours, for gobos, and for position, and then using hotkeys, can play these back for your show.

 

The other difficulty with the desk you suggested, is that unless you have recorded scenes for everything, you will find it difficult to busk a show. Because you cannot set the values for each fixture seperately, so you can make them all swing to a certain pan value, but you can't get them to a specific pan/tilt combination that is positioned at a specific point on stage.

[tokm]

Would I be able to do everything thats on them controllers on a piece of software which I can bung on my laptop and a USB / DMX adaptor?

In addition to Mumble's comments, I believe freestyler has shape generator, the little DMX desk doesn't..

 

Handy tool for quick programming of movement from your ML's!

 

In some ways I'd say go for the little DMX controller, ok it isn't fully ML aware, but at least when your off to a gig, thats all you have to take. With the DMX/PC option, you've got to take a laptop or a PC (expensive, could be more hassle to carry, easily damaged on a gig) the PC could fail and you have no LX running. The little controller won't be as susceptible to those problems..

 

HTH.

 

Tom

 

P.S. Dayve, improve your spelling or use the spell checker when posting! Just ran one on this post and the only actual spelling mistakes were in your post mate.. Have noticed it in other posts of yours, just a friendly tip. Some people on here get bit touch'y about spelling sometimes.

[Dayve]

Hey,

 

I might look at that piece of software and see what its like, then ill make my decision.

 

 

P.S. Davye, improve your spelling or use the spell checker when posting! Just ran one on this post and the only actual spelling mistakes were in your post mate.. Have noticed it in other posts of yours, just a friendly tip. Some people on here get bit touch'y about spelling sometimes.

 

Spelling never was my strong point, only just saw the spell checker, ta :blink:

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[tokm]

P.S. Davye, improve your spelling or use the spell checker when posting! Just ran one on this post and the only actual spelling mistakes were in your post mate.. Have noticed it in other posts of yours, just a friendly tip. Some people on here get bit touch'y about spelling sometimes.

 

Spelling never was my strong point, only just saw the spell checker, ta :blink:

;) Is a handy tool for those of us (including me) who aren't the best spellers!

 

You can download the software off the net from various places, so at least you can have a play and get a feel for the software 1st!

 

and then using hot keys, can play these back for your show.

Used freestyler and similar software a few times myself. I think you can assign different chases & memories to hot keys on a key board, so OK not as nice as a fader on a desk, but still, it's not too bad!

 

Tom

[kikabyte]

Freestylers great, you can create a fixture file (or use the ones other people have made), and then to control the fixture, you simply use a control panel of images to select your colour, gobo, brightness etc. So everything you want to do is visual, rather than checking the manual for what place the fader has to be in to create what colour. The software stores 20 sequences, and 15 scenes per sequence. Once you've stored all the sequences you want, you then use the cue list to play them, you can also give them quick reference names.

 

Once you get into the software it can also run sound to light, so you could route your drummers snare drum off your mixing desk, and allow that to step through your scenes, making it both an automated, and custom show.

 

AND...if your really clever, you could purchase a midi footpedal like I have http://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_fcb_1010.htm . This thing sends a midi trigger to my laptop, which then triggers blackout, cue's, tap-tempo etc. So as your playing, you can run the whole show from your feet, giving you big strobe endings, blackout finishes, and moody lighting for the different stages of a song!

 

So much for you to get your head round!

[johnhuson]

I use a program called Freestyler. It's free to download from this site http://www.freestylerdmx.be/. You use a USB - DMX converter module, that allows your laptop to control all of your DMX fixtures. This software even makes use of Easy View 3D

 

Hi Kikabyte,

 

Interested to know how you are using Easy View with Freestyler? Are you using the Enttec Pro interface or the Sunlite interface?

[kikabyte]

If you check out the freestyler website, it automatically downloads Easy View 3D when you install the program. I am using the Velleman kit interface, seems the cheapest and reliable.

 

Easy View sits in the corner of your screen, and as you make alterations to your fixtures, Easy view represents their movement, colour gobo settings in the 3D image. It takes a bit of time altering the stage and putting in your fixtures but its well worth it. I don't fully understand what version number they are, but I know that its a limited version. I have yet to find a feature that I wanted to use that has been locked. I know their sales have increased as a result of Freestyler supporting their software.

[johnhuson]

Ah, looks like I need to download the latest version then!

[Dayve]

After a bit of thought I decided against using a laptop/computer because mine have the tendancy to crash and I dont have the money to upgrade or get a new one.

 

Dave

[jfitzpat]

Ah, looks like I need to download the latest version then!

 

No, download the latest Beta version. The latest official version will go through all the motions but not work. The latest beta will periodically freeze in MEVP calls to EasyView, but at least you can get the two to connect.

 

I went through this recently when I made the mistake of even suggesting Easy View as a possible Visualizer choice to someone. Unlike, say, the Capture demo, Easy View's demo mode does not accept controller input, so there is really no way to get a feel for the quality level of the visualizer. Someone suggested trying it with Freestyler, so we went through the whole ordeal together.

 

Easy View invoked via MEVP comes up in 'Limited mode'. Basically the CAD views are all disabled and say 'limited mode' on them. As far as I can tell, the connection is DMX only. You need to manually patch both applications to match. No big deal, though I noticed that Freestyler tends to only support one DMX mode for each fixture (and does not typically note it in the name), while Easy View's library generally supports all DMX modes for a given fixture, so it is sometimes hard to find matching pairs. It isn't clear to me what you do if a fixture you create in FreeStyler isn't already in the Easy View library.

 

All in all, Easy View isn't terrible. It doesn't really simulate intensity vs. beam viewing angle, and even beam size over distance is surprisingly off, but it has come a long way since the last version. Still, after messing with FreeStyler's implementation, Daniel and I blew off any thoughts of adding native MEVP support ourselves. The hangs might be some weird Visual Basic threading thing in Freestyler, but the interface is still a DLL. So, at least for now, if you want to use Easy View with us, spend the $300 and connect via ArtNet or physical DMX, so the applications are in wholly seperate process spaces.

 

As far as the sit at home an pre-progam concept, I think it wholly depends on your expectations. I couldn't, even with much better visualizers than Easy View. Intensities, positioning, and colors all need to be cleaned up with the real rig - but I'm picky. I can use a visualizer to get some ideas, or better yet to pitch ideas, but the simulations just aren't good enough for me to cue blind. Similiarly, I might use S->L for a few moments as an effect, but I'd find it pretty tedious and uninspired for long stretches.

 

Which brings me to my on topic food for thought. Buying what you 'can afford' may not always be a good investment. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, a bad light show may be worse than no light show at all. And, in my mind, there is no doubt that a handful of par cans used well will virtually always look better on a live act than an army of DJ fixtures in spaz mode.

 

Even if your primary decision making factor for lighting is 'schlep factor and hassle', I'd think twice about much of the DJ gear. As already has been noted, much of it is not very durable.

 

-jjf