Richard CSL Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Ok I have been doing a show in a small venue with Daslight using 2 universes, completely. We have now moved to a new venue, which has a full theatrical installation. approx 40 dimmer channels. 8 clay paky HPE miniscans.and 12 what look like goldenscans, but have a large letter B on the front , can't get close enough to read the label, but have been told they use 16 ch DMX each. So they are currently using a spark - commander with monitor for the control. I know this is a very old piece of kit as the screen is dos based. My problem is how to consolidate the two systems. option 1. use daslight to control everything.pros. I already know the software inside out and backwards. cons it's disco software not designed for theatre use. has no master dimmer option or cue stack facility. difficult to create on the fly alterations. option 2. upgrade to sunlight.pros. this can be controlled from a recently purchased BCF midi desk, has master dimmer facility. Cons. find the control of this system very confusing, can't see how I could do my show on this. option 3. upgrade to Magic Q. pros. this is software in the tradition of theatre based systems I have recently downloaded and experimented with this software, and realise it is a very powerful tool. cons. seriously expensive hardware. pc version only runs 512 ch with my current hardware. option 4. Freestyler. pros. free software witll work with my DMX dongle, uses submasters and has a master dimmer , will also work with BCF midi controller. cons. at present only 512 channels, been on their forum and discovered a lot of gripes about limited submasters and other worriying stability problems. So as you can see I have a bit of a dilema and would appreciate any help or advice because the sets and show construction starts next week and show due to go live in May. So I do have some time to learn new software. Oh one last thing my current show (pink Floyd) consists of about 500 cues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 I'm sure there will be other suggestions, but the question that will come up is what budget you have available for this upgrade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 MagicQ needn't be expensive. I believe its around £600 for a wing with 10 sub masters and one DMX output, and £1200 for a wing with two DMX universes and eight encoder wheels. You can easily add extra universes with the Enttec Artnet node. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 Okay, you have moving lights and dimmers and you have already tried MagicQ and like it? Then thats the way to go for sure. It is the most versatile system there is. You get a PC wing for around £1300 plus vat, a pair of 15" touchscreens from ProTouch at around £200-£300 each and build or buy a dedicated PC running Windows XP SP3 and you are golden. So for around £2k you have a really brilliant control system that can handle anything.When I say dedicated PC, I mean it. Dont install ANYthing other than Windows on it. You just need the bare essentials - you will need drivers for your touchscreens, and some kind of PDF reader for the manual but thats about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard CSL Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 I'm sure there will be other suggestions, but the question that will come up is what budget you have available for this upgrade? OK I really do not think that budget is important here , as it is as much about the learning curve, than anything else. As you can tell I have come from the computer based Daslight software. The venue has a compulite Spark desk, which is totally useless as it can only run 512 ch DMX, and is not expandable. I have purchased a BCF 2000 interface, which will help greatly with Daslight or Sunlite or Freestyler. However I think I need to stick to what I know, due to time pressures, even though ultimately Daslight has a lot of limited operating issues, which nobody appears to be working on. but ultimately in the background I really want to be using something far more professional and I do beleive Magic Q is probably the answer, the main restriction as far as I can see is the fact that I have discovered that I need 3 universes now. One for the existing Theatre set up . and 2 for the current show. Magic cue also requires a seperate piece of hardware for sound to light and midi this makes it now seriously expensive , and probably out of budget. Which incidently is about 1000 pounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisBogg Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 Magic Q is really the way to go. How about you go for magic Q with a wing and add a sound to light or Midi dongle later. You sort of get what you pay for with all these systems and Im afraid Magic Q is streets ahead of the rest so yeah there may be some small limitations without extra hardware but thats the price you pay for a professional user interface and top support. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard CSL Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 Magic Q is really the way to go. How about you go for magic Q with a wing and add a sound to light or Midi dongle later. You sort of get what you pay for with all these systems and Im afraid Magic Q is streets ahead of the rest so yeah there may be some small limitations without extra hardware but thats the price you pay for a professional user interface and top support. ChrisI think initially I am going to have to go with what I know. However in my own time I will definately persue magic Q. I have the manuals and I do like a lot of the controlability, and the biggest draw for me is that you can make alterations on the fly and store them immediately. This is not an option with Daslight and looks really ameteur when all the lights flash through zero between live and programming mode. As I said before I need 3 full DMX512 universes this would be very expensive with Magic Q and I need sound to light, midi not so important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Bleasdale Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 Vector PC has 1 free universe out of Art-Net all you need is a node to convert it to DMX. You can get an Eport for about £1000 which has 4 5 pin DMX outs on it. Best Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andygwk121 Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 Vector PC has 1 free universe out of Art-Net all you need is a node to convert it to DMX. You can get an Eport for about £1000 which has 4 5 pin DMX outs on it. Best Regards, Hi Joe is that 4 universes of DMX? or 1 with 4 outs on it? Personally I would go with the magicq Ive been very impressed with it recently. It is probaly the most affordable Hybriad lighting desk on the market. From the short time ive had on it ive found it very easy to use and very powerfull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wol Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 I think initially I am going to have to go with what I know. However in my own time I will definately persue magic Q. I have the manuals and I do like a lot of the controlability, and the biggest draw for me is that you can make alterations on the fly and store them immediately. This is not an option with Daslight and looks really ameteur when all the lights flash through zero between live and programming mode. As I said before I need 3 full DMX512 universes this would be very expensive with Magic Q and I need sound to light, midi not so important. Hi Richard, To get three DMX outputs from MagicQ, you can either use any of the 18 ArtNet outputs that the free version of MagicQ provides in conjunction with something like one of our 3 universe ArtNet to DMX converters. One of those along with a MagicQ audio interface, should fall within your budget. Adding a Miniwing would then give you some physical faders, but shouldn't stretch your budget too much. Feel free to drop us a call and we should be able to give you a bit more info regarding prices and different system setups you could use. e.g. a Miniwing + the USB DMX interface can also give you 3 DMX outputs direct from the PC, rather than over ArtNet, or whether you'd feel more comfortable to try out a Miniwing + Audio interface first to play around with and get used to, and then get 2 extra DMX outputs later on. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisBogg Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 Chamsys does a 3 universe artnet node for around £400 list so your 3 universe wouldnt be as costly as you think Chris Damm! Must learn to read all the way to the end of the thread! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard CSL Posted February 28, 2010 Author Share Posted February 28, 2010 so can I use my nicolaudie (daslight interface) for one universe, then a pc wing for a second. or do I need a fader wing? do either of these come with a sound to light input ? or does the computer feed the audio.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 Well, to see if you can use your current Daslight interface with MagicQ. Boot up MagicQ and try it. If you can't just get a 3 Universe Art-Net to DMX box and a USB Audio interface. Less than £1000 (IIRC) and will do your 3 universes with sound to light. The audio can't be fed directly into the PC as the USB box does some of the processing onboard. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wol Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 so can I use my nicolaudie (daslight interface) for one universe, then a pc wing for a second. or do I need a fader wing? do either of these come with a sound to light input ? or does the computer feed the audio.? You should be able to use the nicolaudie interface for universe 1 (Look in the DMX IO output type field for universe 1), and then use the two DMX outputs on a PC wing for universes 2 and 3. This will give you the three DMX outputs you require. As Josh says, the Audio interface does onboard processing, so that provides the actual interface which the audio connectors are plugged into. MagicQ doesn't use the PC sound card. So to get sound to light and 3 DMX outputs, you could use a PC wing and the Audio interface in conjunction with your current interface. This also has the advantage that by using the PC wing, you get more control features, so as well as having the 10 playback faders, you get the 8 encoder wheels, and a subset of the most commonly used programming buttons, as well as the remote input and console lamp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvi675 Posted March 1, 2010 Share Posted March 1, 2010 so can I use my nicolaudie (daslight interface) for one universe, then a pc wing for a second. or do I need a fader wing? do either of these come with a sound to light input ? or does the computer feed the audio.? You should be able to use the nicolaudie interface for universe 1 (Look in the DMX IO output type field for universe 1), and then use the two DMX outputs on a PC wing for universes 2 and 3. This will give you the three DMX outputs you require. Not quite true - when you have a DMX output device of ours connected (including the PC Wings) then the third party dongles are disabled on the first universe as in 99% of cases there isn't the need for them any more.. nothing to stop you using the dirt cheap Enntec ODE to get a third universe of Art-Net out though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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