Zero88 Jester ML24

[lightsource]

Just wondering of what people on here think of the Zero88 Jester ML24.

 

http://zero88.com/products/jester-ml24

 

Not interested in recommendations for other desks in a similar price range, as I've researched most of them. Just wondering what the overall perception of this desk is.

 

As far as our needs go, will want to use it with about (rought guess) 8-20 Dimmer channels, and about 4-16 moving heads. (Martin Mac 250+, 300 Wash) depending on the show.

 

We're mainly live rock music based, rather than Theatre orientated.

 

Edited to add.....

 

After re-reading what I posted above, there is a secondary question, New Jester ML24, or 2nd hand Leap Frog, and the pro's and cons between the 2 desks.

[Shez]

I've programmed a few theatre shows on ours - it's certainly OK for that. I suspect it's not so good for busking although I've not tried to do that sort of thing with moving lights with it. Programming static states & basic chases on to the subs is easy enough with dimmers. It does support a partial mode for doing cleverer things with MLs but I've not explored that side in much detail.

[jonhole]

Hi lightsource,

 

We can arrange a demonstration of the console if you would like?

 

Or alternatively you could come to one of the training session to really try out the console - they are free of charge:

zero88.com/training

 

Which version of the Leap Frog have you found second hand? The old 'Leap Frog' (with Floppy Disk) or the newer 'Leap Frog 48' (with USB).

 

Best Regards,

[acoppenolle]

I'm personally not a Zero88 fan at all... Slow programming and not really 'busking-friendly'. I've had several at my fingers and I think they are mainly good for theatre, not for busking. Then I'ld rather look at Avolites... With the Titan software they went a big step up the ladder.

[Techy John]

I use a Jester ML24 for theatricals, though regularly use movers as well as conventionals. Due to the lack of time that I have in the tech rehearsals, I am practically busking as we go, saving furiously at each queue to end up with a stack to work from. After the actors are out of the way, I can then go thorugh and tighten things up.

 

In order to do things this way, I set up a range of positions and colour palates on the sub-masters so I can quickly access them. In more of a rock music use, you would quickly select the fixture(s) and hit the palate/position you wanted. As already mentioned, the partial mode would mean that you could keep other chases etc. going in the background with no problem.

 

In the most recent production, I had the conventionals with 4 movers (A7 LEDs, love 'em!) and a row of 8 pairs of LED Pars doing the cyc cloth. I needed the cyc divided this way for effects later in the show. The only thing that I would have liked to have done was to have a quick way of selecting a range of fixtures in one go, rather than having to press lots of buttons to select lots of fixtures. I guess this is where the Jester hasn't got some of the features of the more expensive desks, but it has still done very well for us.

[jonhole]

The only thing that I would have liked to have done was to have a quick way of selecting a range of fixtures in one go, rather than having to press lots of buttons to select lots of fixtures.

 

Did you know you can press and hold the first button, tap the last button and it selects all the fixtures in between? I know this isn't helpful in all situations, but it can speed things up sometimes :-)

[Techy John]

Did you know you can press and hold the first button, tap the last button and it selects all the fixtures in between? I know this isn't helpful in all situations, but it can speed things up sometimes :-)

 

Thanks jonhole - that will be a great help!

[AfroAlex]

Hi

 

I use it in a theatrical situation and I think it's brilliant for what I need. We use 24 dimmer channels, 8 led par 56s grouped in twos, 6 led par 64 grouped in threes, 4 pr pilot 250, 4 pr pilot 150 etc. we use it in a community hall so amateur shows and small concerts occur and it is good. Also feel that if your in a hurry, it is easy to use.

 

Personally I like the pallets you can create and also the fixture editor software. We use a demux for our 24 channels and then have added a dimmer fixture for our DMX dimmer packs giving us 12 extra channels.

 

Also zero 88 support is really good. Overall then I give it a thumbs up!

[lightsource]

We can arrange a demonstration of the console if you would like?

[/Quote]

 

Cheers Jon, that may be an option, but there is a local band in our region that has one, so might be borrowing theirs for a couple of days.

 

Which version of the Leap Frog have you found second hand? The old 'Leap Frog' (with Floppy Disk) or the newer 'Leap Frog 48' (with USB).

 

Nothing specific, they come up on Ebay and Gearsource Europe now and then. However I'd only be interested in the LeapFrog 48 with USB.

 

Cheers for the replies so far.

[jonhole]

The Leap Frog 48 will be more suitable for 'busking', and it runs the ZerOS Operating System which offers a lot more features, so long as you can deal with the physically larger console. It does have DMX in though, so you could hide the console somewhere, and use a smaller fader console to trigger up to 30 submasters at a time. It also has Touch Screen support which might make control a bit easier, as you can jump between palettes etc etc (I'm assuming you're playing and running LX at the same time?)

[tomscott]

Having been using a ML24 forthe last 18 months or so on what sounds like similar situations, I have anumber of points you may be interested in. All our kit is LED or moving head so haven't used the conventional side at all and as such, can't comment. Its a bit "War and Peace", but if I had known what I know now, then I think I might have reconsidered things and I hope this will help others in the future!

 

Cons

 

Using pallettes in chases is a bit of nightmare, because when building the chase each time you press a pallet button the desk assumes you want to edit the pallet. It changes the output and the lights change but to then save it to your submaster you have to press the flash button under the sub, press edit, scroll to the last step, press insert... then you can press program and repeat ad nauseum until your chase is saved. All in all its the most frustrating aspect of the desk and drives me bonkers every time. Its very easy to make a mistake when programming times short and theres a bit of pressure on, as there are a few steps to do it. If the desk didn't assume you wanted to edit the pallet when pressed in program mode (pressing "Edit" then the pallet for example) then it would make things much better and, imho less confusing.

 

There's no "programmer", its all done by tagging and untagging fixtures/attributes, this means that there is no quickand easy (pressing "clear" or similar) to empty the programmer when your done building a look or sub. Again, its easy to program something you didn't mean to into a sub - I've lost count of the times mid show when I can't work out why some of my lights won't go below 60% say. It's always because I've not been vigilant enough clearing the tagged fixtures before saving another sub. The main reason for this I find is because there are 3 pages of 10 fixtures each, and every time you start building a look/sub every page and every fixture needs checking to make sure its not tagged. It would be great to be able to press"Shift+Tag/Untag" or similar to clear all tags.

 

There's no way to put effect shape/size on fader.This isn't a real problem, however, I understand fully that it is beyond the scope of this desk... but would be nice to have, especially when the band stops a bit unexpectedly and there's no quick way of stopping things moving! My way normally is to have a sub programmed with a"safe look" which I duplicate on each page of subs. The other way is to press the fixture select button, select your heads, press position, then possibly press again to get to the effect page on the wheels and stop the effect. Or use up a fairly precious pallet (theres only 30 per attribute) to stop things, but this still requires you to select the heads and find the right page of pallets. There is a home button, that is useful but only if you've made your own fixture personalities that you've changed the home values so there don't go to 50/50 P/T and open white (rather embarrassing when an inexperieced operator hits it mid song!)

 

The flash button settings are global - so it means another few button presses to change from flash/solo/latch/chase tempo etc. Again, I understand this is beyond the scope of this desk.

 

No auto palletes, so you need to create them everytime, this is a feature that I am looking forward to in our next desk (either an Avo Titan Mobile or Chamsys PC Wing). Its tricky due to the tagging of fixtures to create palletes of the same colours of different led fixtures, but you do need to be vigilant on the tagging of stuff or you end up with odd things happening!

 

Pros

 

Easy to make fixtures with the fixture creator tool.

 

Thumbwheels work well, easy to use and wheels are layed out nicely - thumbwheel for pan, and fingerwheel for tilt works very well.

 

Once its programmed its fairly easy for non lampies to have a play.

 

Its fairly easy to use with 2 people, its common for me and another to have some fun in a live event, one person on the subs changing up dimmer chases on the led kit and another changing colours and playing with the movers.

 

Its a great starter desk to introduce people into the world of consoles.

 

As ever, great service from Zero 88 - we had anintermittant fault with the thumbwheel and after our dealer couldn't get the fault to reoccur, Zero had it back, replaced the PCB under warranty and sent it back in under a week. All despite the fault not occurring while they had it.

 

Summary

 

If all the cons sound like I don't like the desk,this isn't the case at all. Its been ideal for us, as I had never used a proper console before, and with the aid of the great manual, taught myself how to use it over the course of a week or two. I do like using it, and for us, only having 10/20 fixtures it wasn't too daunting using it for the first few times. However, we've now outgrown it and it takes some creative patching to organise things sensibly, with 30 fixtures this desk becomes fairly unwieldy, due to the tagging/programming. Maybe some of the issue is me and the way I use the desk tho! I would certainly suggest that you have a desk on hire for a few events and really try it in anger for yourself.

 

I think that it all comes down to how you use the desk - if like us its a starter desk, with a view to upgrading in the future then you'll find ways to overcome the shortcomings like we have. Its certainly got its place in the market (it would be good for schools etc.) but if I had the choice again, I think I would look at something like the TL or Leap Frog range of desks. I am mindful of the fact that desk is designed to be as easy and uncomplicated as possible, which on the whole it is, only the chase/pallet issue letting the desk down in my opinion.

 

At its price point its a good entry level desk, we used it as it as such and are now looking at an upgrade. We will be keeping the desk, as it will be useful for wedding/corporate event uplighting/venue styling type stuff, for which it's ideal - one small(ish)flightcase and we've now got a fair stock of base saved shows with palletes saved/fixtures patched to cope with most stuff we do.

 

If there's any suggestions from anybody on any of the cons above, then I would love to hear them, as its always useful to know!

 

 

(Edit - Sort out formatting issues - damn you notepad!)

[Swaffer29]

Hit the nail on the head tom. A very good wee starter desk but has its drawbacks. Must say zero88 support is first class though.

[dbuckley]

Have you given Z88 your thoughts on how the operation can be improved?

[jonhole]

We check these forums, and all those comments have already been logged :-)

[lightsource]

Thanks Tom Scott for that detailed reply :D

 

 

The Leap Frog 48 will be more suitable for 'busking', and it runs the ZerOS Operating System which offers a lot more features, so long as you can deal with the physically larger console. It does have DMX in though, so you could hide the console somewhere, and use a smaller fader console to trigger up to 30 submasters at a time. It also has Touch Screen support which might make control a bit easier, as you can jump between palettes etc etc (I'm assuming you're playing and running LX at the same time?)

 

Cheers Jonhole, we're actually a PA and Lighting hire company, looking to do some upgrades. Realistically, from what you've said above, a 2nd hand Leap Frog 48 is looking to be a better choice.

 

Just found Peter K's LeapFrog training video's on YouTube.