advice for lighting desk

[bugsymol]

Hi all this is my first post on your forum I hope someone can help me. I have a 5 piece Tribute band and have bought a variety of DMX lamps, 2 Icolour 1500w 4 DMX , 4 chauvet Omega colour changing 250w 4 DMX, 4 colorblasters 250w 2 DMX and a led lamp 4 DMX. 1 par36 pin spot (may get more) I have a 192 channel Botex DMX operator. There are plenty of scenes and banks but its very limited on fading (only one overall slider) What would be the best desk upgrade.

Thanks

[Tomo]

Use the SEARCH FUNCTION!!!!

 

Sorry, but this kind of laziness really, really annoys me.

[pyromonkey]

And welcome to the blueroom!

[David A]

Welcome to the Blueroom, your enquiry is entirely sensible and informative, pity about the first response.Do you want to preset your cues and play them back in a sequence or are you looking for a desk which can be busked on.An idea of the price range would be useful.There is a range of pc based units which may suit especially with a 'wing' such as Martin Light Jockey or the Chamsys units or a range of console desks which are more expensive.hopefully you'll get some positive suggestions.

[Tomo]

Welcome to the Blueroom, your enquiry is entirely sensible and informative

It has also already been answered several times.

 

I actually answered your question.

- Just click on the link I provided, then go through the list of topics - you'll find consoles for every budget, plus long threads discussing their relative merits.

 

If you then have further questions, post at the end of whichever thread appears to come closest.

 

You will note that the search I used was "new lighting desk" - not exactly very esoteric.

We give our time here for free, and the fact that you apparently did not bother searching implies that you think our time is much, much less valuable than yours.

 

Most of us have full-time (and more than full-time!) jobs, and very little free time.

We post here because it makes us feel good to answer a good question.

 

When someone appears to be abusing that good nature, well, it irritates, and sometimes I snap.

For that, I do apologise.

[David A]

Tomo Yes there are pages and pages and pages of information, there is so much information that digging it out is too blooming hard and time consuming, if you know the stuff it seems so obvious, but to search you have to be fairly well informed in order to search sensibly.A bit like giving a spell checker to an illiterate.Give the guy a break.

[mac.calder]

There is also the pinned thread at the top of the lighting thread labled "FAQ and Useful Lighting Links" - which has a link to an even more up to date FAQ on the wiki, however even without following the link it contains:

 

What lighting equipment should I buy for my school / college / church / village hall / other small venue or system?

 

A number of ideas and opinions on this subject can be found in the following threads...

 

Small DMX Desk, Possible Ideas?

Lighting desk recommendations

Advice Wanted, Typical School Stage

Desk And Dimmers For Installation, strand or zero88

General Lighting Rig, Help with some general lighting question

Use of movers

Small hall setup, shopping basket?

Small (CHEAP) 4ch DMX dimmer stand mounted

buying new lights, trying to build a better stock

Refurbishment Time, A lighting designers best friend BUDGET!

Small Spots, Time to spend some cash...

cheap profiles, cheap lamps but good performance

School Friendly Lighting Rental

Small Desk

Lighting Desks, Help me pick one

Secondary School Equipment, What do you have?

Control console help needed

Dance studio lighting, Some ideas on equipment please!

new dimmers + desk, for school, on the cheap

lighting desk recomendations, lighting desks

Which Moving Heads (250W MSD)?, Advice on moving head unit

second hand dimmers, (as above)

expanding my rig, what first

El-cheapo moving head advice

A cheaper alternative or waste of money ?

I need some suggestions for a new lighting rig..., School drama refit on a budget

High School Upgrade, Huge overhaul, what should we use?

House Lighting, for new install

Which Lighting Desk?, Lighting Desks, so many to choose from

What desk for med size generics + intelligents, a fair few contenders - tight budget

Controller Suggestions, 24 Channel for Movers and Conventionals

maXim in Schools, Any experience

Advice for small rig, Drama studio needs a controller

new dimmerpacks, school upgrade

New control desk for controlling intelligent lighting fixtures, Again it's for school

Lighting Problems, in large hall used for church meetings

Crowd Wash lighting, Church/Concerts

Lighting With Low Ceiling Height

School upgrade

What lighting do you recommend?

New control and dimming for amateur venue, Help me spend money

Smallest/ Cheapest Theatrical Console

The Cheapest Possible Light Rig

Dimming house lights

Small lighting rig, that will not make my job more complicated

A new Control Desk for a school

(each line being it's own link to a related topic)

[bugsymol]

Welcome to the Blueroom, your enquiry is entirely sensible and informative, pity about the first response.Do you want to preset your cues and play them back in a sequence or are you looking for a desk which can be busked on.An idea of the price range would be useful.There is a range of pc based units which may suit especially with a 'wing' such as Martin Light Jockey or the Chamsys units or a range of console desks which are more expensive.hopefully you'll get some positive suggestions.

Thanks for your reply David.

I did spend about an hour ploughing through info on the site and there are a lot of suggested desks. (to be honest not shure on all the jargon) I know the colour changing lights have their drawbacks ie they have to go through their sequence to get to the colour you want but with a bit of thought I can change them in blackout. I don't want to spend a lot of money on a desk that can do 100 of things I will never need. I want to play back in sequence 28 songs (intro verse chorus solo ect maybe 8 changes max per song) would like to be able to fade at dif rates between dif lamps at the touch of a button. Was considering the behringer but it seams to be not very reliable from what I've read on this site. Looking to pay up to £400. Thanks for your time

[David A]

At that price point look at the showtec showdesigner or light desk pro 136, we have the bigger version of this which has been totally reliable but a bit tricky to programme.however when programmed you can get to things easily to 'busk'.If you have a few spare days you could browse through the hundreds of threads provided by our helpful friends or you might even get some other suggestions.

[Trunker]

What about the behringer lighting desk? Forget what it is called now........................................

[bruce]

What about the behringer lighting desk? Forget what it is called now........................................

 

Inappropriate for this application. It has some well-publicised deficiencies (search the archives) but in general it's OK for a cheap way of controlling generics. But nothing more sophisticated.

[bugsymol]

At that price point look at the showtec showdesigner or light desk pro 136, we have the bigger version of this which has been totally reliable but a bit tricky to programme.however when programmed you can get to things easily to 'busk'.If you have a few spare days you could browse through the hundreds of threads provided by our helpful friends or you might even get some other suggestions.

Hi david thanks for the sugestions. I'm looking at the light desk pro 136. It says in the spec can control 8 scanners and 8 parcans. can use the parcan section to controll my I colour and colour blasters? or will only par cans work?

[Zak]

Hi david thanks for the sugestions. I'm looking at the light desk pro 136. It says in the spec can control 8 scanners and 8 parcans. can use the parcan section to controll my I colour and colour blasters? or will only par cans work?

I'm not familiar with the desk in question, but I'm quite familiar with Colorblasts. If the desk sends DMX output to control a dimmer to which PAR cans are connected, the same DMX signal could be used to control Colorblasts. The problem is they take three channels each, so you can only control two of them, or two groups where they're all set to the same channel. If that's what you want, it should be fine. I'd look for something with a few more dimmer channels, personally.

[bugsymol]

Hi david thanks for the sugestions. I'm looking at the light desk pro 136. It says in the spec can control 8 scanners and 8 parcans. can use the parcan section to controll my I colour and colour blasters? or will only par cans work?

I'm not familiar with the desk in question, but I'm quite familiar with Colorblasts. If the desk sends DMX output to control a dimmer to which PAR cans are connected, the same DMX signal could be used to control Colorblasts. The problem is they take three channels each, so you can only control two of them, or two groups where they're all set to the same channel. If that's what you want, it should be fine. I'd look for something with a few more dimmer channels, personally.

Hi thanks for that I understand. I'm only using 12 inteligent fixtures 8 use 4dmx ch and four use 2dmx ch, I'm finding it difficult to find a 40 channel desk that can be stepped 180 ish times by an opperator that will give me good fade options.

If I buy the light desk pro 136 I wont use half the desk (thats for pars) and it only has 8 inteligent channels so I would have to double up on some fixtures. Any suggestions?