Light Programming Tips...

[Aaron-Hill07]

Hey everybody, ive just had a little look around thomann and bought myself 2 stairville MV250H moving Heads and a DMX-Master I to go along with my 4 Acme Winners & 4 NJD Spectre's... I do local gigs with a mate of mine ( Sound Engineer ) and what ive got works well, but im getting bored of pre-programmed stuff, ive played with my controller for a while and its not really looking too good.

 

Just wondering if theres any kind little souls who will give me some tips on what to be buying next and some TIPS ON PROGRAMMING!.

 

By the way im 14 so money isnt the easiest of things to get. but I get enough through discos, so with the gear buying bit, be kind!

 

Thanks Alot Guys!

[greenalien]

Apologies if this is too basic but you did say you were just starting out...

 

Step 1 - get a notebook and pen/pencil

Step 2 - write down all of the DMX assigns for each of your lights and map out which desk channels you are going to use for each light. A little advance planning will save time later.

(the desk you are using can control 192 channels, in 12 blocks of 16, the 16 being split into 2 parts, A and B; the sliders can only control 8 channels at a time, e.g. A or B). Try to arrange things so that any controls that you might want to override during playback, such as scanner speed, are in A rather than B. You have 10 lights so you can afford to use 1 block per light.

Step 3 - Read the instruction book that came with the desk. Now read it again!

Step 4 - Connect your lights up to your desk with a daisy chain of DMX cables and power everything up. Don't forget to put a terminator at the end of the DMX run.

Step 5 - Build your first scene - keep it simple to start with. Remember that each scene is a 'snapshot' of your lights in a particular state, so use the desk to move each channel for each light until you are happy, then save the scene.

Step 6 - build more scenes until you have filled your first bank of 8. Then try playing the bank back, see how the variable speed and music triggers work.

 

Well done for getting this far, only 29 banks left to fill! (I didn't say it would be quick...)

 

 

Enjoy, and good luck.