"Parking" a channel on a 520/520i

[Sam Betts]

Hey all,

So I have a 520i for a console in my theater. Unfortunately, I am a Hog/GrandMA/ETC programmer. On other consoles, there is a feature called "Park", whereby you can, effectively, lock a channel at any intensity and it will not be affected in any way until you "Un-Park" it; it cant even be recorded into cues.

So for example; you could "park" your work-lights on for the crew to work and you can do all of your board notes without having the work-lights show up in any of your changes. Another "park" perk; let's say that some dancer goes running off into the wings and finds out first hand why they call 'em shin-busters. Now you've got this light knocked WAY out of focus; well sir, go ahead and park it out until you can get some fool with a wrench to fix it (and clean off any remaining dancer DNA).

The Strand has a "Hold" function that holds a channel in active control. This is problematic if you are trying to update cues on the fly (because the channels will update at their "held" levels and then inevitably track through) or if you want to use programmer shotcuts like ENTER@ENTER.

I get a lot of smaller touring shows through my space that carry a lighitng designer/director and we augment our rep-plot to their show - essentially writing a new show everytime (especially here because no one in the states has a 520, so no one carries a show on a strand disk). Every on of these non-Strandies ask to park channels.

Is there something I can do other than grimmace and explain that I have no idea (usually followed by the complaint that I got stuck with this board). Is there any functions like "Park" on a Strand 520?

 

Thanks

 

Sam

Resident Lighting Designer/Asstant Production Manager

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

[richard]

channel [hold] will hold the whole channel, chanel[.]attribute[hold] will hold a specific attribute

 

[shift][hold] will unhold the channel/attribute

 

To avoid updating the held channels into cues do shift+clear after holding the channel, then the held channels will not be included when using update (but will when using record)

 

If you need to go deeper then you need to use [dimmer] DMX address [@] ... which will then override everything, but I don't usually find this that necessary.

 

Richard

[Sam Betts]

Thanks Richard

That's interesting; it won't include if using update but it will if recording. What is the function of the SHIFT+CLEAR, other than removing any loose zero values in the active channel control? Also is there a way that I could, using the work-light analogy, keep all of my work-lights (a group of instrument spanning multiple dimmers) on and start writing fresh cues without the work-lights recording into cues or having them in active channel control so that I have the ability to use active control and dimmer functions for the purposes of writing and simultaneously troubleshooting?

 

Sam

[richard]

shift+clear is similar to clear on a hog, however on a 520 the cuestack will take over control from the programmer (where the hog's programmer over-rides all else)

 

When you change a channel in command line mode, it will turn red in the live display, update by default will then update anything in red (ie captured) into the specified cue, you can also do [12][update][cue][1][*] which will update channel 12's level into cue 1 (only cue 12)

 

The usual way to do the working light thing is to put them up on a sub, and then use the 'rec-sub' button in place of the 'record' button, 'rec-sub' means record minus sub, so records everything that is live except that under submaster control.

 

The other option is to just call the workers up with dimmer control, which never affects the record function.

 

Update is one of the most powerful features of the 520 - is worth searching the strand site for Rob Hallidays 520 notes on the subject!

 

Hope that helps

 

Richard

[gareth]

Richard's right - Update, combined with tracking and the Trackback function, is a very powerful tool when programming a 500-series. What I always tell people, though, is to use it carefully when you're not familiar with it, because when you're programming away in Live mode Update is the only function that will modify the contents of a cue (or series of cues) without giving you the "Are you sure?" prompt first.

[Tomo]

A little clarification on the ETC "PARK" function.

 

PARK is really an output function - what it does it is says "These DMX outputs are now fixed at level X, regardless of what else is going on"

 

Therefore you can "Park" a channel at a given level (on Congo and Eos this can be channel attributes instead or as well as), and then record a host of cues at different levels/attribute values without the physical world seeing these changes.

 

Couple of examples:

Park the smoke machine at 0% during rehearsals/plotting to ensure that it doesn't accidentally set off the fire alarms, but still record and update cues saying "Smoke blast now" as required.

When you unpark for the show, those smoke blasts happen.

 

Park the Houselights at a low level during a rehearsal so the director can see their notes, without worrying about accidentally recording the houselights into any new/updated cues, but still being able to record them into the interval cue(s).

(On Congo I'd use an independent for this, but the Expression didn't have those)

 

The Strand 500 "Hold" function isn't really a parallel to this, as the held level can still get recorded - it's similar to the ETC "Capture" function (although not quite the same).

 

Richard's suggestion of using Rec-Sub seems closest to what you're after.

[Bryson]

Yeah - the closer equivalent on a 500 is [Dimmer]xx[@]xx

 

It's been interesting as I'm having to transfer from Strand to ETC at the moment - I miss certain functions, but love some of the one's I'm finding.

 

The new Ion has pretty much all of them though - very nice indeed! And cute, too.