gareth Posted January 14, 2003 Share Posted January 14, 2003 Has anyone used one of the new Strand 200 desks yet? If so, have you noticed the DMX output response lagging behind the faders? (i.e. snap a fader up to full, and the output takes about 1/4 second to do the same.) It only seems to affect the faders, and not the flash buttons, so I'm guessing it's a panel scanning issue in the software. I've e-mailed Strand about it, so I'll see what they say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Gareth, In another thread you mentioned "five or six issues" with the 200 series as well as the fader lag problem. If you think it's appropriate, could you list them here? As I could well need one this year, I am interested in hearing of any concerns from people who have actually used them. The 200 series certainly looks interesting, and is very competitively priced, which is amazing for a Strand product! The 24 channel version at £650 (UK list exc VAT) is an absolute bargain, as the only real competitor (as far as I know) is the Elara 24 at £885. The 12 channel one at £420 is also £105 cheaper than an Elara 12. It looks like there will now be some choice in the small memory desk market. I wonder what's happened to make Strand do something sensible? If they can now design and make decent small desks for less than the competition, perhaps their next project should be a "250 series" with similar features to the Frog range... One thing I noticed on the 200 series is that the audio input appears to be on a male XLR, wired unbalanced, pin 3 hot. If this is the case, the designer of that feature should be sacked. The accepted worldwide standard is that audio inputs are on female XLRs, and pin 3 hot is obsolete. Thanks, Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J Need Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 The 200 series certainly looks interesting, and is very competitively priced, which is amazing for a Strand product! The 24 channel version at £650 (UK list exc VAT) is an absolute bargain, as the only real competitor (as far as I know) is the Elara 24 at £885. The 12 channel one at £420 is also £105 cheaper than an Elara 12.Strand have woken up to the fact the Zero have a large slice of the education and small venue market sown up. Remember the days when you would see only Strand equipment in schools ( Apart from the odd Furse installation) The Mini II desk must have made a fortune for strand in its heyday. The pricing of the newer small desk is a direct attack on this market. The detail, for example the Audio XLR connector is somewhat shameful however......... (Paul shakes head) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted January 31, 2003 Author Share Posted January 31, 2003 Gareth, In another thread you mentioned "five or six issues" with the 200 series as well as the fader lag problem. If you think it's appropriate, could you list them here?Hmm, did I really say "five or six" issues? I don't think so, but if I did then I must have been exaggerating! Aside from the output lag on fader movement, it's minor niggles like the XLR audio input being wrong, oddities in certain menu/softkey items, that sort of thing. Niggles, really. I'm not going to go into them in any depth just at the moment - I'm in discussion with a couple of people from Strand at the moment, and I'll reserve any further comments until I know the outcome of those discussions. But don't let what I have to say put you off. The 200 is basically a very good desk (which will be even better once the 'niggles' are sorted), at an excellent price (if you want to buy one, e-mail me for a quote - I can do you a good price!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Gareth, Your exact phrase was: the fader lag thing is only one of about 5 or 6 points that I'm discussing with Strand at the moment (but it's the only one which has a real operational impact). It's in the Elara thread if you still can't remember! (I admit my wording differed a bit - I should have quoted you verbatim!). Look forward to an update from you in due course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted February 1, 2003 Author Share Posted February 1, 2003 Gareth, Your exact phrase was: the fader lag thing is only one of about 5 or 6 points that I'm discussing with Strand at the moment (but it's the only one which has a real operational impact). It's in the Elara thread if you still can't remember! (I admit my wording differed a bit - I should have quoted you verbatim!). Look forward to an update from you in due course. I did indeed write that ... but the majority of the 'points' (as opposed to 'issues' :D ) that I asked Strand about were things like keypad shortcuts, software upgrades and the ability to off-line edit shows that had been saved to CF card. Piffling matters, really. As I said at the time, the only one which may have any great impact is the fader lag thing. Having exchanged e-mails with three different Strand employees the fader lag issue is no closer to a resolution. However, time permitting I'm aiming to meet up with one of the Strand chaps fairly soon and show him precisely what I'm talking about. Will let you all know what transpires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobitLight Posted December 17, 2007 Share Posted December 17, 2007 Hi! Today we were doing a practise run (I say that for want of a better word as we didn't really do anything) of our Christmas Concert. One thing we did try out was the audio input to activate chases on our Strand 200 24/48. It didn't work very well as the chase reacted to, we believe, all of the input from the band we selected in the menu (High, Medium and Low). Could someone explain a bit more about how the audio cable being different (I.e, pin 3 hot) as I think this may be where the problem lies. Thanks P.S. I hope you don't mind me bringing up this old thread instead of starting a new one but I've read that old threads used again is good :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted December 17, 2007 Author Share Posted December 17, 2007 the chase reacted to, we believe, all of the input from the band we selected in the menu (High, Medium and Low).That's what it's supposed to do .... :huh: Could someone explain a bit more about how the audio cable being different (I.e, pin 3 hot) as I think this may be where the problem lies.The standard in this part of the world is for pin 2 to be 'hot' - you just need to make yourself a little jumper cable that swaps pin 2 and pin 3 (and if your 200 has the male connector for audio input, you might also like to make your adapter with a female connector at each end so that you've got the right flavour of XLR as an input). P.S. I hope you don't mind me bringing up this old thread instead of starting a new one but I've read that old threads used again is goodIt is good, yes - but a thread that's almost five years old?!?! :** laughs out loud **: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobitLight Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 That's what it's supposed to do Yes, but in the manual it says Audio – will allow an audio signal to trigger effect steps to the beat of the music.'The beat of the music', not all of it. you need to make your self a little jumper cable ... and pin 3 Thanks, that's what I needed to know. It is good, yes ... five years old?!?!Sorry, I'll keep that in mind for the future! Thanks for your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted December 18, 2007 Author Share Posted December 18, 2007 Audio – will allow an audio signal to trigger effect steps to the beat of the music.'The beat of the music', not all of it.Try reducing the level of the incoming signal. Where are you taking the audio feed from? The best bet is to take it from a free aux send (if there is one) on the sound desk - that way you've got control over how much signal is fed to the lighting desk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dj Dunc Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 I usually just send the kick drum off either a direct out / insert or aux send, and works fine for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 To be honest this problem has been around years - certainly the 3 ch dedicated sound to light units in the seventies had the same problem. In most cases, the problem is simply too much level - the agc simply squashes everything and the results are not good. Reduce the level to the desk and it gets much, much better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobitLight Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 We are taking the signal from the sound desk via the headphone port as it is the only other out port other than the main mix that has volume control. The part of the concert that we are using the 'Sound to Light' function is backing tracks in our X-Factor competition. So in our reheasels today I just set the timer to the beat but as you can only set it to tenths of a second (e.g. 0.1, 0.2. 0.3, etc...) a lot of them couldn't be done like that so I manually used the step button instead. :** laughs out loud **: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted December 18, 2007 Author Share Posted December 18, 2007 So does your desk not have any aux sends that you can use? If you have to use the headphone output, just try turning the level down on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HobitLight Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 It does have an aux out but with no control over it. One thing, though, is that our sound guy pulled out the headphone cable and the chase still went! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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