alternate board to avolites azure

[mumbles]

Another thumbs up for Chamsys from me!

 

Having been a staunch Avo fan for years my first experience of a Chamsys was a bit of a fail, having been given a PC wing, with a non-touchscreen PC to play with - it all seemed very clunky and difficult. But following a training session at Chamsys, and a few gigs playing with a MQ100Pro I've been totally swung over, and am currently buying one.

 

Thanks to the 2 hours Matt @Chamsys let me spend in their warehouse I now find the Avo's outdated and not good-enough any more. I still like the Avo's, and will keep the Pearl as a backup, but come to the conclusion that while I always just accepted the difficulty in achieving some things as one of those things that beset every desk (that is in the sub 10k bracket), Chamsys has made it all simpler! Also, while Avo's support has always been friendly and kind of helpful, they are not a patch on Chamsys.

 

I'm aware this must seem like I'm trying to advertise Chamsys, but it is purely personal opinion, I really do think anyone buying an Avo nowadays should only do so having had a chance to demo the Chamsys and decide that a Pearl, or whichever, is what they actually want.

 

I will add that I as yet haven't yet personally used the Tiger touch, and this may change my opinions, but having sat next to friends plotting on them and having heard their comments, I'm not holding my breath...

 

To summarise, in not such a gushing way, before you seriously consider an(y) Avo, please do look at the Chamsys - there are enough of us out here saying that they are something special (especially given the price) that there must be some truth in it.

 

 

EDIT: Having just seen rossmck's post I hadn't realised the date of the OP, but feel that my advice stands for anyone else looking at desks nowadays...

[paulears]

I've been using an Azure at a nightclub for about 5 years. I have 3-4 parties every week so I have used it a lot. We have 16 moving heads (Martin and Robe), 44 Elation Exbar LED Bars, about 40 china LED Bars that are lighting bar and stairs next to dancing area, 4 strobes, 36 channels of dimmers for blinders and house and bar lights. I find that Azure is the best for nightclub.

I have also used Pearl 2000, 2008, and Expert with Titan a lot. I like Pearl best for live shows and concerts, but Azure for club. I have also tried Expert in this club, but I found out that Azure is better here.

Also I have some experience with Vista T2, but it's not very good choice for club. It's good in theatre, where I have been using it for about 20 times.

 

This is great Raxz, but you forgot one critical element - why? You've told us (and the OP is long gone in his quest now, of course, being a couple of years ago) what you use it for, but how do you use it, what kind of things does it do the others don't - that kind of stuff. It sort of says "I've used one for 5 years. I think it's best for the nightclub" - why? - is the question.

P

[raxz]

F***... I wrote long reply, but my cell decided to crash my browser. I reply later when I'm at my laptop. ;)

[niclights]

I really do think anyone buying an Avo nowadays should only do so having had a chance to demo the Chamsys

By way of reinforcing Emma's comment I would similarly advise people get demos of Avo Titan software and the various hardware that supports it before making a decision.

[raxz]

Azure has 50 playbacks on one page which makes it easy to quickly react to changes in music.

Memories and chases I use most (moving heads' shutter, dimmer, pan/tilt shapes, positions, LED chases and shapes, strobes, blinders etc), are on the first page. I don't need to roll rollers or xhange roller pages. I can access everything immediately.

On other pages I have colors, gobos, etc - everything I don't need to change to the music so often.

[niclights]

Azure has 50 playbacks on one page which makes it easy to quickly react to changes in music.

Memories and chases I use most (moving heads' shutter, dimmer, pan/tilt shapes, positions, LED chases and shapes, strobes, blinders etc), are on the first page. I don't need to roll rollers or xhange roller pages. I can access everything immediately.

On other pages I have colors, gobos, etc - everything I don't need to change to the music so often.

 

Totally with you on fast access. But in response to that, Expert Titan has 80 playbacks on fader + 60 palettes per page. It also gives you lots of new options that can help you get there even quicker - for example tap tempo on chases (all or individual), virtual dimmer (essentially bringing normal palette operation to problematic LED's), playback priority (for example to exclude positional shapes from swop). Just in case you were thinking of upgrading...

[raxz]

Totally with you on fast access. But in response to that, Expert Titan has 80 playbacks on fader + 60 palettes per page. It also gives you lots of new options that can help you get there even quicker - for example tap tempo on chases (all or individual), virtual dimmer (essentially bringing normal palette operation to problematic LED's), playback priority (for example to exclude positional shapes from swop). Just in case you were thinking of upgrading...

On Azure I use Sound to Light sometimes instead of tap tempo. I take sound from DJ to my sound card, split frequencies on my MacBook using MainStage, put some gates and feed it to Azure and chases run pretty well to the sound.

We have white Pearl Expert Titan in our rental company and I've made many gigs with it and I really like it. All LED Bars I use, are patched as RGB+VDim (For example: American DJ Mega LED Bar, 11 channels mode, [R,G,B,R,G,B,R,G,B,Shutter,Dimmer] is patched as 3xRGB+VDim and 2 dimmer channels. Dimmer's dimmer channel is inverted and then I have 3xRGB+VDim for every LED Bar). I've also set playback priorities and I like swop buttons there to black out everything else.

But still I wouldn't change Azure in nightclub to Pearl Expert Titan.

New Pearl Expert Titan is my favourite when touring around.