Noobe Question

[widowgobo]

hello everyone

would this ( http://www.thomann.de/ie/stairville_djx_16_dmx_controlr.htm ) control some LED Pars and a strobe simultaneously?

is it any good?

all I need is just colors changing and a bit of flashy-ness,it seems a bit excessive but its the cheapest thing going.

I would be willing to spend €120 on some thing a little more reliable (and half the functions).

thanks, Rory

[Matthew Robinson]

That link doesn't work, unfortunately. And TBH, I'm not sure that many people on here know what a N00b is...

[callumb]

This is what I think he is ment to be linking too: http://www.thomann.de/ie/stairville_djx_16..._controller.htm

[widowgobo]

thanks guys

my youth isn't showing again is it? damn!

[greenalien]

Although the desk you have picked will do what you want if you are happy to have all the lights the same colour at the same time, you'll soon run out of control channels if you want to have different colours simultaneously, as you only have 16 channels available. LED 'par can' colour changers use 4 or 5 channels each, DMX strobes typically use 2 channels each, so it soon mounts up.

 

You may be better investing in one of these :

DMX MASTER-1

 

Although it costs a little more, it's much more versatile, with 192 control channels, and believe me, once you've played around a bit with DMX lighting control, you'll soon want to add some more lights...

[widowgobo]

Does anyone have much experience with starville products?

[greenalien]

Stairville (not 'starville') is the in-house brand of Thomann, the large German electronics megastore. Most of the stuff sold under that brand is cheap and of reasonable quality and is good value if you're on a tight budget. Thomann also offer a good 3-year warranty, however once that's expired then if the kit goes wrong, it would be unlikely to be economic to repair. I have a Stairville lighting desk, and 4 of their 200W strobes - no problems so far!

[HolyPhish]

Jumping on the bandwagon of this topic how would the STAIRVILLE DMX-MASTER work with LED's. Is it easily usable for programming and live mixing? or will it be a dog?

[musht]

Showtec LED Commander is optimised for LEDs , 8 groups of 8 channels + 2 aux

 

http://www.thomann.de/gb/showtec_led_commander.htm

[ajh51]

Jumping on the bandwagon of this topic how would the STAIRVILLE DMX-MASTER work with LED's. Is it easily usable for programming and live mixing? or will it be a dog?

 

 

I own one of these and used it with LEDs for the first time at the weekend to light a band. It depends on your expectations of it if you think it is a dog or not! Programming is OKish but live modification of states is not really possibly. I guess it depends what you are comparing it to - against the pearl in my church it's obviously rubbish. Against other 90quid desks its about the only thing that can cope with a reasonable number of DMX channels.

 

The desk has 16 pages of 16channels (more usable as 16pages of 8ch as there are only 8 faders). These are hard patched so the 1st page has ch 1-16, the 2nd page has 17-32, etc.

 

It can store 32 banks of 8 scenes each (the scene buttons are above the faders - there are no flash buttons) and it can chase through a single bank from scene 1-8 or there are 6 actual chases which can pick scenes from anywhere in memory. There are time between steps and fade times controls which work well enough and it can be used sound to light if that is your thing.

 

I'll run through how I set it up at the weekend with a number of 4ch LED PARs and you can make your own call...

 

On ch 1-4 I put floorcans as footlights (they appear as the 1st 4 faders on page button 1)

On ch 17-21 I put a few cans lighting the drum kit (they appear as the 1st 4 faders on page button 2)

On ch 33-37 I put some cans on stands washing the stage from the side (they appear as the 1st 4 faders on page button 3)

On ch 49+ I put my architectural room lighting on conventional 8ch dimmers (they appeared as the first 8ch on page button 4)

 

When programming it (which you can't do on the fly to the best of my knowledge) it simply records the value of all 256 channels when you press the store button, there are no subs or palettes or shape generators, etc.

 

In the example above I selected page button 4 and set the architectural lighting levels and then deselected page button 4. This way the architectural stuff is recorded in every scene.

 

Then it is simply a case of recording the scenes as you wish. You can select multiple page buttons so it was easy to programme all three groups of fixtures together. Once you have your scenes you can then make up your chases and for band lighting there you go, or for theatre use you can manually advance the chase somehow as a rudimentary theatre stack.

 

Overall it is not a disaster - but I do curse it, at least a little, every time I have to use it. That said it is very cheap considering what it can do if you have the time/patience!

 

 

Edit - for SPaG

[swampman]

The DMX-Master fits your needs but be warned it is a FEAR unit "far east rebadge": potentially no spares and very limited support (not a comment on Thomman.)

1: if you can get your head around its way of programming and push buttons

2: organize your DMX channels on gadgets taking groups of 8 to use the selector buttons effectively

3: after getting a set of looks on the first few pages, set up a few sequences then use these for "Chases".

4: Set it to access the presets to manual and use a flash button to select the look.

5: do not let people play with it - no backup unless you (back up) copy to the higher page numbers 60 on...

PS Can be made to successfully run a hotel lighting system (PAR LEDS + some cheap head wobblers with moving gobes+colours) if operators follow instructions.

[lampyfromliverpool]

The DMX-Master fits your needs but be warned it is a FEAR unit "far east rebadge": potentially no spares and very limited support...

'FEAR' unit. That's brilliant, caused a few smiles in the the office this morning.

 

(Apologies for going off topic with that one).

[greenalien]

Just to point out that the DMX-Master does have a useful copy function that allows the entire desk programming to be copied to another desk - although they are pretty reliable, they are certainly not drink-proof and accidents can happen - but they are cheap enough that it's worth considering buying a second one to use as a backup.

 

If anyone can find out how to dump / restore one of these desks to a computer, that would be very useful to know, especially if it was then possible to manipulate the data....

 

Also be aware that the memory in them can be wiped by being put too close to a magnetic field, so keep the desk away from any loudspeakers, especially during transportation!

[swampman]

Greenalien and others: the rebadge I've used had two different manuals and now investigating the index (says 29pages) both incomplete: English one up to p17 so I missed out on the back up/linking !! On the Spanish one the translator tired earlier and there were only 7 pages. The outside is the same but maybe the software is different. Sorry about the Off topic for the Noobe but there's a chance to crack it and tell us all!

[greenalien]

As it's such a generic desk, there are lots of different instruction manuals around, some much better than others. Here's a good one DMX Master Instructions

 

Check out the 'File dump' section - just connect 2 desks together with a DMX lead, set the second desk to 'Receive', set the first desk to 'Transmit' as in the instructions, and the memory of the first desk is then dumped to the second desk.

 

If your desk is one of the models that only has 'DMX-out' and not 'DMX-in', then this option is not available.