Palette - Cue Stacks and Showfiles!

[Munro]

Evening folks, just a quick query.

 

I'm operating a Strand Palette VL tomorrow, with no prior experience of these consoles, I trusted the newly appointed college tech to program for the show, which I would operate. I discovered yesterday that he is a sound engineer by trade and although he understands the basics of this specific console, has little generic programming experience. (Which is evident with his "why is this light still on?" - because it's a tracking console that isn't in cue only mode!)

 

Cut a long story short, instead of having three cue lists in a show file (for the three different sections), I have three different show files. The trouble with this being that when changing between show files, the console blacks out, thus killing the house lights momentarily.

 

My question is simple, how do I go about merging the three cue stacks into one show file so I may stick the house lights on a sub and have a clear transition between pieces? I'd love to have a play and discover it myself but time is tight and it's crucial I don't break anything!

 

Cheers

JM

[J Pearce]

When I was responsible for a Palette I looked into doing just this and couldn't find a way.

Head over to strand-dev.com and ask there, the strand development team read that forum, and will know definitively.

[Munro]

Cheers for the pointer Jon.

 

Anyone got any ideas for a work around? If I put the same fixtures on the same sub on each show file, will it dip to black before reloading that sub?

 

JM

[J Pearce]

If you wiggle the sub fader between 90% and 100% you can catch it as it resets to black (as you can't save the sub being on, and the desk prioritises software values over hardware values as part of the remote/client system) that's the best solution I managed. Not pretty.

 

Stick the house lights on a long cable and an alpha pack?

[Munro]

Stick the house lights on a long cable and an alpha pack?

 

Or hang the house tech from the rig with lots of torches. :D

 

Cheers again

[rich_lambe]

You can import cue stacks to a show file.

Go to file, import palette show file, browse to file, select/deselect required elements.

You will probably need to rename the cue stacks.

The GO button always controls the cue stack at the top of the list, right click on the cue stack to move up/down.

Make sure to release cue stacks not in use.

 

HTH

[indyld]

While importing the cue lists and creating a proper single show file definitely is the way to go, don't forget that you have the ol' "pull the DMX and reboot" trick to fall back on as I've done quite a few times over the years when things have gone awry on the desk front.

 

However, you should (and I do now) perform a rehearsal of this to check that the elements of the system are set to HOLD the DMX not CLEAR or go to some random emergency state. The annoying thing is that the DMX clears a number of seconds after signal is removed for just long enough, making you think you've gotten away with it before the whole place plunges into blackout. Usually, just as you've let go of the cable or at least removed it a good distance from the DMX Out.

 

And you also need to have the look set up exactly as it was before you pulled it before reinstating for it to be seamless.

 

In these days of states made up using the shape generator it's now less subtle to pull the DMX to get you out of hole and I'm sure everyone is far too professional to have the DMX loom on the deck, the desk boxed and lidded and be ditching the FOH mains before the punters have left, ahem. I think I learned my first lesson in that when the VT engineer had the projector frozen on the holding slide and all the switchers and racks back in their packets before the end of the show, only to be asked to play the opening VT again!!! You can be too keen to start the out. :blink:

[Munro]

Last night was certainly eventful!

Got my subs ready, and thanks to J Pearce, was able to ride them between 95-100 when the desk changed the show file WITHOUT a blackout.

 

Unfortunately, my little sound engineer friend was asked to add some more light to the stage at the beginning of the evening and decided to overwrite the blackout with my preset state... Consequently, due to the similarity of the preset to cue 2, when going to the blackout at cue 3, it appeared that NOTHING changed. The same technician attempted to pass the blame and even tried explaining tracking... "It's weird that desk, if you don't turn it off, it just stays on."

 

Thankfully there was a convenient line "you've blown the bloody power" 10 lines in that allowed me to remove the house lights quite skilfully :D

 

Thanks for the helpful comments folks :)