Light Question

[The Boogie Man]

Hi troops, one for you lampies.

 

when programming a desk can presets or lighting states be programmed to the desk for later recall in a busking way?

I'm trying to picture having say, a drummer hit an intro 1234 on a hi hat and the lights copying with 4 timed flashes of whatever.

Easy to busk, but can that be saved and then recalled or does a desk store only the state of the desk, and to get the 4 flash effect do you programme a cue with the appropriate delay between the 4 states?

If that makes any sense.

baz

[zonino]

dark answer: it will depend on the desk!

[The Boogie Man]

Binky may have to be saddled for an answer that vague zonio :D

So some desks can record states on the fly and some carn't?

[peter]

Some desks will allow you to record a chase with a 'beat' (tap-tempo) trigger, together with a defined number of 'Shots' (how many times the chase will run). This would give you the effect you desire.

 

Desks like a Level 6 won't. Desks like a Leap Frog 48 will. Likewise the Pearl will do a similar function.

[philis]

the problem is all desks are different (that's why so many heated discussions over them)

you can do what you want on most desks but some would be easier, achieve better results.

 

You will many times have to work with what you have got (at least until you are the one doing the spec for upgrade)

So wait until you are doing a specific gig then learn that desk

 

If you have the opportunity learn as many different desks as you can, this can be difficult as the best way to get to know a desk is to get your hands on it, though most new desks now have offline editors and manuals available on-line

 

It's not possible to answer a general question for all desks in a simple answer (sorry)

 

Phil

[Stuart91]

Desks like a Level 6 won't. Desks like a Leap Frog 48 will. Likewise the Pearl will do a similar function.

 

Possible on a Fat Frog?

[peter]

Possible on a Fat Frog?

Yes, with a little fiddling. To set a Fat Frog to Beat on a chase, make sure the Drive modifier is set to BASS & MANUAL LEDs both being on. You can then use the relevant Step button (either the Submasters or Memories one, depending on where the chase is active) to tap the tempo. The Shots is set in the column on the monitor.

 

HTH

[Tomo]

when programming a desk can presets or lighting states be programmed to the desk for later recall in a busking way?

Can you be more vague?

 

There are many consoles that can do this kind of thing, but you'll have to be a lot more specific about WHAT you're trying to do, and with WHICH console.

 

Without those vital pieces of information, the question is completely unanswerable.

[The Boogie Man]

I know this post seemed to be a bit open ended and yes even vague, but not unanswerable.

The question was answered. Some desks can some can't.

I didnt put which desk can etc as that wasn't what I wanted to know.

When someone is new to an aspect of something the questions/discussions start general and move slowly to specific.

cheers

baz

[paulears]

Baz - I think the problem people have with vague posts is that if the answer "depends on the desk, but yes" is what you wanted to know, then to be honest - there wasn't too much point in the question.

[The Boogie Man]

Hi Paul, as I said earlier I can understand how the way a post is worded can sometimes seem vague and lead to ambiguous answers, but after having asked a question I now know that some Lighting desks can do something that previously I wasn't aware if any could. I'm not certain I see how that is pointless.

Still, It's all learning.

baz

[dbuckley]

The short answer is yes, but the slightly longer answer is more vague.

 

First off, manually four flashes on the beat of the hihat from a standing start is quite hard, the lightist has to be watching carefully for the first hit and get the timing right for the second and subsequent hits, otherwise it looks awful. However, its just a lighting op skill, and anyone decent can get it right every time.

 

Many lighting consoles allow chases, so if you have your chase time programmed to be the same as the beat rate of the drummer, than the desk will faithfully and reliably do the changes on the beats, as long as the start button is pressed at the right moment. Some desks even have the ability to accept audio in and make things happen "on the beat" of the incoming audio (nb: not all desks do beat detect, some do a 'colour organ' which although a useful and interesting effect is not necessarily what you want.

 

Many lighting consoles allow lists of states, and allow automatic advancement from one state to another based on time, so again, get the timing right and it works.

 

Yet another approach is to have a click track on tape (or computer or something), and have the tape deliver timecode to the desk, and clicks to the drummer, and you programme up the desk to do things in absolute time (ie HH:MM:SS:FF of timecode), and as long as the desk is programmed correctly and the drummer obeys the click track it'll all be perfectly in time.

 

Alternatively, if you attach a microswitch to the hihat pedal and a microswitch to the bass drum pedal and connect them to lights, then timing is guaranteed, and you dont need a lighting desk; the drummer is the lighting desk! This dodgy old idea (if I had pictures I could put myself in the dodgy electricians thread with this one) could of course be expanded in the modern context by doing switch-to-MIDI to control lighting timing. But this would fail your example, as you've presumably got closed 'hats.

 

Even higher tech there are boxes available that do "music to MIDI clock", so a drummer is again the timing source, and use the derived MIDI clock to operate lighting changes, though I must confess, I don't know of any proper lighting desks that accept MIDI clock, but I guess there must be some. Again this needs a recognisable rhythm to work, and thus wont be up to speed on the first hit of a 'hat.

[The Boogie Man]

Cheers David.