dbuckley Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 but do you run LX for theatre?He may not, but I do, for amateur theatre, and for the amateur theatre practitioner the PC is the perfect control tool. It probably is for professional theatre too, but far too many people (many of whom live here) are highly employable because of skill they have in programming and operating those large doorstops, so the producers employ the people they know who use the kit they know, the circle of life continues. It's not about technology or the Art, it's the money, "for God's sake". (With apologies to 10CC) Annoyingly, those people at High End Systems could change all this, by making HogPC usable at the big shows, from where it's use would trickle down, and the financial effect would impact the rest of the industry. But they arbitrarily (ie for marketing reasons) restrict HogPC to using the DMX dongles, and prevent it from using the distributed DMX generation system the "real" Hog3 can use... grrr... PCs not bad for corporate style presentations either, I did a toy awards show a couple of weeks ago with the lappy, it provided lighting control (for all of 9 channels of light!), all the stings, and playback for the couple of acts that punctuated the evening, and the powerpoint presentations, all driven off a cuelist. I could have taken my old console (you know, the Zero88 XL12 that hasn't been out of it's box this century), hired a 360 systems instant playback, and I'd still need the lappie for slides, and I'd have had to have managed multiple pieces of equipment. It was the hottest day (and thus night) of the year, so just having to press one button whilst sitting in front of a fan was about the effort I wanted to put in ;) Edited to add a comma... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ike Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 Now I'm getting curious. I would love to have the confidence to use my laptop more but will admit I really can't get my head around it. Firstly would you find it difficult if say a lamp (or lamps) blew and you were trying to increase the level of others to compensate and still keeping your eyes on the action. How about if you were trying to update future scenes, could you "hit go" in effect while doing so? Again have you got to the stage where you are confident to bring channels up to a certain level or put them on a "wheel" with maybe only a glance at the "desk"? How quick is it say to do a chan 3 thru 33 @ 70% ? Isn't the key mapping on a laptop a pain in the arse? How smooth have you got your manual fades and how do you control them? Do you have a backup? Thanks, Ike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 Firstly would you find it difficult if say a lamp (or lamps) blew and you were trying to increase the level of others to compensate and still keeping your eyes on the action.Selecting the channel or channels uses the normal windows selection mechanism you already know how to do, so either click on a channel, or control-click on several channels, or shift click for a range of channels, then click on a slider and push up. The downside is that you dont get quite the physical range, but with care it's enough to be smooth, but not really unnoticeable. If I've got time, then theoretically I can do unnoticeable by quickly programming in a fade. So it's speed or subtle in terms of patching up a mess. How about if you were trying to update future scenes, could you "hit go" in effect while doing so?Blind editing, same activity as on a real desk, everything else still works. How quick is it say to do a chan 3 thru 33 @ 70% ?Type 3-33*70 on the keyboard ;) or click on ch3, shift click on ch 33, and click-shove up. Isn't the key mapping on a laptop a pain in the arse?Yes :) But normally I use a full size keyboard, so I have the numbers pad as well. How smooth have you got your manual fades and how do you control them?Manual fades with a mouse can be tacky, so what I arrange is a crossfade, and then control the rate of the crossfade, which means the fade is always smooth. Do you have a backup?Nope. I always think I should, but never do. Windows Xp is reliable enough to do shows on. If I had 50K people and was being paid the big bucks, I'd arrange a hot backup, though, just in case... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 Ok, potentially stupid question, but I am fairly new to lighting control! Maplins sell a USB to DMX interface (link below), does anyone have any experience of these? I'm doing a pub show at the end of april, and I need some kind of memory control system, as I will probabily be oping sound (and building the set, and doing all the rigging... one of those!), so this looks like a good alternative to the venue's manual board... http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?detail...=13m2#more_info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 The number one thing to do with PC lighting control is find the software you like first, and then buy the interface for it. Selecting the hardware first limits your choices, and many of those choices may be terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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