Patching Scrollers

[TallPaul]

What's the best way of patching scrollers into an ETC Express 250 desk. I usually just run the scrolls on subs, but I think it might be better to set them up as fixtures (i.e. dimmer + scroll) so that the scroll can be an independent channel and will not be affected by the Master/BO etc. Presumably, I could then soft-patch the Fixtures dimmer channel back to the actual channel for that dimmer.

 

What's you opinion on this?

[Stu]

Hi Paul.

 

I'm an Expression 3 user so I apologise if the menu's etc I give you are slightly out, I'm pretty sure the software is now almost identical on the desks these days.

 

Anyway, I run my scrollers by patching them in as LTP and Independant channels on the Channel Attribute menu. So Setup / 8 - Channel Attributes / and then selecting the right channels and 'ticking' yes to Ind and LTP. As you say this makes them unaffected by the Master, BO, and the clear button the A/B and C/D faders.

 

You can also be a bit more advanced by linking the scroller onto the X/Rate wheel while having the intensity on the normal setup of the Y/Level wheel.

 

If in the same menu as the previous setup, you press S7 - Link List you can link the scroller onto the X channel and the dimmer onto the Y channel. So if you then bought up the intenstity (say 1) then you'd have the colour on the X wheel. Not my favourite way of working - I tend to have my dimmers on groups and then the scrollers on other groups.

 

One show I programmed recently at work was done quite while by having Group 1 being the intenstity of the backlight Par 64s and then Group 11 as the scrollers for group 1. We then repeated as appriopate.

 

Of course then you can get more fancy by recording the show in Tracking, but frankly I find that a pain in the arse.

 

Oh and recording macros for the control of scrollers is also useful.

 

Hope this helps.

Stu

[TallPaul]

That'll be a huge chunk of submenus I've never looked at before then. ;) Thanks for the help, works a treat.