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Alcora Z88 Dipless crossfades?


rishardamod

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Hi, I've recently inherited the equipment in my school (I'm a Teacher) I do have extensive tech knowledge as I use to freelance as a tekkie in South Africa. The problem is that I want the outgoing state/step to go out over 5 secs and the next state/step to come in over 3 secs so that it is next scene leading thereby avoiding a dip. How do I set this on the Alcora Z88? I have read the manual which doesn't mention crossover in detail apart from the same timings in both the outgoing and incoming states. Please suggest how to do this in program mode. Otherwise I will have to run the show manually. Does anyone have a Tempus 24 for sale? Thanks
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As far as I can remember, (used to have an Alcora when I went to school), the Alxora doesnt have the feature for split timed cross fades.

 

The people to talk to would be Zero 88 themselves. Im sure they'd be happy to help.

 

Oh and Tempus 24 way desks seem to have become a rarity. I was searching for ages for a fully working one for a Uni research project. Could only lay my hands on my scholls old one which had 17 of 24 channels working.

 

Dave

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Thanks for all the info. Really sad :off: with the Alcora. I will check the dimmers and get back to you on the s-curve.

 

This desk works perfectly other wise and I would gladly sell it to someone who wants a basic setup. Will also try contacts in South Africa for the Tempus 24.

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Could someone explain what the actual problem is here - I understand that each cue/scene in Zero88 speak, has an up time and a down time, and that on some desks you can set this, whilst on others you can't, but why, if there is say a five second up and a five second down, is there a dip in the middle.
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because the desk does not 'sum' the outputs - if you have a fade down from one state and a fade up into the next (which for the sake of arguement is exactly the same as the last), then at 2.5 seconds in, the first state will have faded down to 50%, and the second will have faded *up* to 50%. Just because there are 2 states both at 50% doesn't mean that the desks output is any greater.
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Thanks for that P.Funk, I see what you mean.

 

Are there other ways of dealing with this other than to have a Down Time of 5 and an Up Time of 3, for example?

 

If lantern 26 is at 80% in Cue 10, and also 80% in Cue 11, does the desk realise not to take the lantern down to 40% in the middle of a five second x-fade.

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Well on our board (where scenes are stored in submasters only) I have just told the lighting ops to bring the next state to full, and *then* taking the previous state down. Thats probably the easiest way of doing it. The only other way I can think of doing it 'properly' would be using a few different cues at once, and would be pretty complicated. Without having a genious operator, the chances of the execution of the cues going wrong would be too high for it to be worth plotting.

 

EDIT: on an alcora... neither of the 2 things ive mentioned would work in stack operation - you'd have to use the 2 preset part of the desk as well (I might have misunderstood - I've never used one and I only realised what exactly it was having just looked it up on the z88 site).

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I know what I said about the different up and down time works on a computer desk, or at least the effect is barely noticeable (to me anyway). The other option would be to put a 5 sec delay on the down, so the lights in Cue 10, for example, will not start fading until the desk has brought up Q11.

 

In answer to my previous question, presumably making a move fade rather than a x fade would solve the previous problem. (Why can't my brain work as fast as this board!)

 

James

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