smalljoshua Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 This is Somthing that has always intreted me What Type of ML Control does everyone prefer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 Your question is a little vague unfortunately. For Pan & Tilt of scans, I quite like a trackball.Mice are essentially the same as trackballs but need more deskspace.For almost everything else, rotary encoders - either 'wheel' or 'dial' style is ok.- I do prefer the wheel style as I find it much easier when adjusting multiple parameters simultaneously, as I can do two wheels with one hand! I can't stand joysticks. Imprecise, and almost impossible to do slight adjustments. Graphics tablets are only useful when controlling in the XY domain instead of Pan/Tilt (Avolites did this for a while.) Faders are sometimes very useful (I quite like having RGB or CMY here), but I would always want this to be an option, and not to be forced to do so. "Touchscreen" is completely vague - touchscreens are great for hitting dynamically-generated virtual buttons, but simply aren't accurate enough for anything else.- How big is your finger? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted October 1, 2007 Author Share Posted October 1, 2007 Your question is a little vague unfortunately.Sorry about that I meant for general Control of fixture paramaters like on the Zero88 Desks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 Because I've used the Masterpiece series most of my industry life I'm very used to attributes on faders. You might think this has alot of flaws but actually it's very simple. It helps me remember the channel layout for fixtures, you can bring up all attributes or grouped attributes all at the SAME time instead of dealing with each attribute individually. I even find manual followspotting with pan and tilt on faders alot easier than wheels! Of course you have to have a good try at it to master that pan left is fader down and pan right is fader up :** laughs out loud **: :) Oh and I NEVER use the joystick on that board!!! If only they had built in Pac-Man.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnomatron Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 I quite like buttons :** laughs out loud **: I used to use the Martin Case desk a lot which had built-in pallettes that were rather nice to use. Prefer a rotary encoder for things like pan & tilt though, and a fader for the dimmer. Bound to be someone somewhere who likes to enter raw binary/decimal/hex numbers, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niall Posted October 1, 2007 Share Posted October 1, 2007 I suppose it depends on the type of desk, and the situation in which they are being used. For example, I used to be a member of the crew at the St Andrews union, and the main thing we did was club lighting, and the desk when I was there had a joy stick, which for club lighting is fine. I've now come accostomed to using wheels (pearl and Fat Frog) but still like the use of a track ball (Strand stuff). I'm not sure I could really use a standard mouse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete LD Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 Your question is a little vague unfortunately.Sorry about that I meant for general Control of fixture paramaters like on the Zero88 Desks Well I voted for trackball but only for movement! I wouldnt want to be changing gobos with one! For everything else I like strand 500s pots! and lots of group macros to do colours, gobos, positions etc. so should I have voted for wheels? aghh its to late at night!pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 It is a case of horses for courses IMO. Colour mixing, three encoder wheels, hands down. Pan/Tilt of moving head, two encoder wheels. Pan/Tilt for moving mirror, track ball. Any "Hard" parameters, I will always go for pallets on buttons/touch screen. Any "soft" parameters (like gobo rotate speed etc), encoder wheels. Intensity, I like the vertical wheel as opposed to the dial style rotary encoder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben.suffolk Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 This thread has come at quite an opportune moment as far as I am concerned. I was just starting to think about what the best input device to use for the mac lighting software I'm writing might be. I'm after off the shelf stuff thats not massively expensive , and I notice that its quite hard to come by wheel encoders (lots of them on mice, and you can get some trackballs with them, but nothing stand alone, or with a decent size to them) I could of course take some mice apart and make my own, but like I said I'm really after off the shelf stuff, so it looks more like rotary dials are the only real answer. The PowerMate from Griffin is a nice looking dial with a good feel to it, but I wondered about the ShuttleXpress from Contour. Besides the dial it had a outer ring and 5 buttons that could be put to good use, maybe for selecting the attributes that dial will change. I have also notice though that there are a couple of new style dials out now that can do more, one is the nuLOOQ from logitech. It has a touch sensitive dial on the top like an iPods volume wheel, and what I think is a spinner underneath as well. It also has 5 touch buttons on the top dial. Also there is the Space Navigator from 3Dconnnection (I think that might be owned by Logitech). Thats basically a dial on top of a joystick, which you can also move up and down. I'm not exactly sure how, or even if, some of those addition features would be any use in a friendly way for lighting, but I'd be interested in peoples thoughts about using them, and what they might do. With the nuLOOQ for instance you might use the lower spinner for coarse control, with the top touch dial for fine control. If anybody has one of the latter 2 devices I'd also be interested in what you think of it, build quality, feel etc. Regards Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peternewman Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 Have you looked at the Behringer BCF2000? Its got endless dials, with LED indication so you can make them ended, motorised faders, buttons and all sorts, outputting via MIDI for about £110 or so. I've used one for lighting for a while now, with quite a lot of success. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave_m Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 wheres the option for sad people like me who can work out the position of a mover and type it in using the keypad! Seriously, it's the way I work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted October 2, 2007 Author Share Posted October 2, 2007 Have you looked at the Behringer BCF2000? Its got endless dials, with LED indication so you can make them ended, motorised faders, buttons and all sorts, outputting via MIDI for about £110 or so. I've used one for lighting for a while now, with quite a lot of success.How do you use the BCF for lighting? It's something I have thought about before but with the software I have (Sweetlight) but I cant seem to fathom it. What software do you use Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peternewman Posted October 2, 2007 Share Posted October 2, 2007 Its been used with all sorts of things over the years, from homebrew software I've written, to Hog 2 PC when dongles have been used for shows. It's also been used to control Resolume, a VJ package, for producing astons for student TV and even a tiny remote head, via MIDI and DMX, and its currently being used as intended for a change, to mixdown a recording of a show! I usually just leave the device patched as normal and just generate a MIDI-OX patch file to do the hard work as necessary, to make things easier to use. If your interface/software accepts MIDI, which it looks like it does, then you should be able to get it to work. In fact there is a whole subforum on the Sweetlight forums here. If you have any specific questions/want any more help, then reply, although we probably ought to split this out into a new topic if it goes any further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben.suffolk Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Have you looked at the Behringer BCF2000? Its got endless dials, with LED indication so you can make them ended, motorised faders, buttons and all sorts, outputting via MIDI for about £110 or so. I've used one for lighting for a while now, with quite a lot of success. Thanks Peter, I already use one, and think they are great value for money. I was just after something else as well. The more physical input the beter, the problem with a lot of software based lighting is that you have to the mouse for too much stuff, and thats just not easy. How do you use the BCF for lighting? It's something I have thought about before but with the software I have (Sweetlight) but I cant seem to fathom it. What software do you use If you have a mac, then my lighting software already supports the BCF2000, and if you have a PC I think I read somewhere that FreeStyler supports it. Regards Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notwhoyouthink Posted October 3, 2007 Share Posted October 3, 2007 Wheels... but only when recessed like on the zero88 desks... the strand palette wheel in its lump is awful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.