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Lighting control on a very low budget?


eviljonny

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Once you get a hang of freestyler its great for small rigs. I have controlled alot of different events off it and it works fine after you get the hang of of the "snap fade off" thing which Im sure they haven't entirely thought through. It also has the advantage of having Iphone/pod control using their app.

 

 

If your already familiar with freeystyler then why not practice up on it, it has everything you need and your used to it already. The dongle is cheap.

 

 

 

 

 

Gordon

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Once you get a hang of freestyler its great for small rigs. I have controlled alot of different events off it and it works fine after you get the hang of of the "snap fade off" thing which Im sure they haven't entirely thought through. It also has the advantage of having Iphone/pod control using their app.

 

If your already familiar with freeystyler then why not practice up on it, it has everything you need and your used to it already. The dongle is cheap.

 

Gordon

 

Yeah the snap/fade/off malarky annoyed me quite a lot. Maybe the bugs I'm seeing are specific to my controller or the version of windows I'm using. Which controller do you use? I was testing with an Entec OpenDMX USB in Windows Vista 64.

 

I feel somewhat put off the smaller desks now, one of the tihngs I love in freestyler is the shapes for moving head control, I got some great sequences going using those. I think I'll download MagicQ and have a play with it, see how the software suits me, I would like part of this whole process to include upskilling me so I can move onto bigger better things in the future.

 

Thanks for all the information so far, I'll share my experiences when I've had a chance to play (it'll be a few days away yet).

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I would like part of this whole process to include upskilling me so I can move onto bigger better things in the future.

 

Good attitude - any lighting control solution has a learning curve, so spending your time with a widely-used, fully professional solution like MagicQ is a good choice. Don't forget that Chamsys offer free MagicQ training courses which are well worth attending - you'll learn more in a day on their course than in a month of just 'playing around' with the software. However, to get the best use of it, it really helps to have a touch screen and a control surface, which require a somewhat larger investment.

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Once you get a hang of freestyler its great for small rigs. I have controlled alot of different events off it and it works fine after you get the hang of of the "snap fade off" thing which Im sure they haven't entirely thought through. It also has the advantage of having Iphone/pod control using their app.

 

If your already familiar with freeystyler then why not practice up on it, it has everything you need and your used to it already. The dongle is cheap.

 

Gordon

 

Yeah the snap/fade/off malarky annoyed me quite a lot. Maybe the bugs I'm seeing are specific to my controller or the version of windows I'm using. Which controller do you use? I was testing with an Entec OpenDMX USB in Windows Vista 64.

 

I feel somewhat put off the smaller desks now, one of the tihngs I love in freestyler is the shapes for moving head control, I got some great sequences going using those. I think I'll download MagicQ and have a play with it, see how the software suits me, I would like part of this whole process to include upskilling me so I can move onto bigger better things in the future.

 

Thanks for all the information so far, I'll share my experiences when I've had a chance to play (it'll be a few days away yet).

 

I am seriously considering a PC based lighting control solution at the moment, and as a sort of 'proof of principle' have run a few small busking band gigs using Freestyler, an ancient laptop running XP, a Peavey Midi controller http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar99/articles/peaveypc1600.htm and an Enttec open USB - DMX box (you can tell I didn't want to spend too much on this experiment). I was very pleasantly surprised; it was easy to use, solid and gave me no problems what so ever.

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