Zero88 Fat Frog - Show organisation.

[DrummerJonny]

Hey All, I'm currently working on a project with a Zero88 Fat Frog, that involves multiple shows over multiple nights.

 

As it stands at the moment, I am busking some parts of the shows using Submasters, and have some parts running from the cuestack, with each night saved at 100 cue intervals on the same show file.

 

By not following the rule of the 6 P's, I have managed to put these in an order that now leaves me pressing the next cue button several hundred times a night to reach the correct cues. As a result, I am wondering whether any of the following are possible:

 

• Bulk moving of groups of cues (I have enough space on the desk to use as a temporary holding place for the groups of cues) to allow me to reorder them to the order of the nights
• Copying of cues to a new show file, including all submasters, to allow me to have one show file per night. (As an aside, I can have more than one show per floppy right? If not, I have enough floppies though would rather avoid constantly changing them as the position of the desk makes this a pain.
• an easy way of skipping to a certain cue instantly.
• Any other solution that may help my problem.

I have access to a supply of floppies and a reader for my PC, so could I possibly edit the files on a PC? Assuming the file makes some sort of sense, and can be edited I'd be happy reorganising that way.

 

So, does anyone have any suggestions other than "write it all down and start again"? I'm new to the desk, somehow. Something to do with me mostly doing sound throughout my college years.

 

Many thanks for your help in advance.

[TomHoward]

Attach a keyboard to the Frog, so you can just type the cue number in?

 

Alternatively I thought you can program 'Jump' cues as well - where it skips to a number when fired - so Cue 1 could just to 100, 2 to 200 etc - but off the top of my head can't remember how to do it.

[DrummerJonny]

Attach a keyboard to the Frog, so you can just type the cue number in?

 

Alternatively I thought you can program 'Jump' cues as well - where it skips to a number when fired - so Cue 1 could just to 100, 2 to 200 etc - but off the top of my head can't remember how to do it.

 

Ooh, I think you're right about the jump cues! That would work nicely, since I left cues 1-50 free in case I wanted to program my busked stuff at any point.. Looking at buying a keyboard too, so one of those 2 Solutions will work, although there's not much room for a keyboard at the moment. I'm not using the ML section at the moment so maybe a "numpad" keyboard placed up that way would work. Will report back tomorrow and let you know if I have any success.

 

Nearest keyboard shop is a fair way from my venue and free time is at a minimum at the moment, so won't be able to test that just yet.

 

Biggest pet hate from all of this: Pressing + and - at the same time resets to Q1, and the desk seems to register latent presses (where I tap too fast and the desk needs to catch up) as the button being depressed and moves back to Q1 when I overshoot and try to immediately go down. Doing that 3 times in a row when I was trying to reach Q400 had me rather annoyed.

[TomHoward]

It's a old PS2 keyboard, not a USB keyboard, so it may be harder to get one. Usually you can find one around though.

 

It's an even messier solution but you've got the remote contacts on the back of the desk as well which can be programmed to jump to a cue number, so in the absence of a keyboard you could make a little box with 6 buttons and have six jumps, or program them up and short the pins with a multimeter probe/paper clip..

 

The + and - jumping to Q1 is especially annoying as the shortcut to enter Super User/setup is +,- and Enter, so you can't enter the setup menu without jumping to the top of the cue list.

 

Also, trying to edit the raw data in the file on PC is not possible. We've been trying to reverse engineer the files for years. We've been in contact with Zero88 and they won't release the details for the file format, as the file isn't properly verified when loaded, just trusted and run, so a corrupt / improperly formatted file could spectacularly crash the desk.

[PaulDF]

You can save more than one show to a floppy, depending on the amount of data I think you can get around 20 on a floppy.

+1 for the ps2 keyboard, I have tried a USB keyboard with an adapter but didn't work. A keyboard and monitor make life a lot easier as you can name the memories

[Brian]

Use the 'remote' socket on the back? It has 6 inputs which can be used to trigger a 'goto mem#'.

 

Makes a great budget riggers remote.

[TomHoward]

In terms of keyboard recommendations, we have a Cherry G84, which is a USB keyboard but supplied with a PS2 adapter and works with the Frogs. Expensive new (£50) but can be found cheap on ebay.

 

Very compact server/industrial keyboard and fits in ours at the bottom of the case over the scratch strip.

 

http://andymurkin.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cherry_g84_2.jpg

[david.elsbury]

Don't think a numeric keypad works on its own, you need arrow keys to move between fields.

[Young Johnstone]

Those little keyboards are good.. I prefer roll up key boards though for transport!

I always carry one just because I'm not that keen on touch screen keyboards :-) and a wireless mouse! It all fits beautifully in my Avo bag :D

[DrummerJonny]

Thanks for all the input guys, Havving played around today I am now using cues 1-6 as "Jump" cues, linked to the start of my respective shows.

 

For reference, all you have to do is set the "Jump" option (last on the list of cue options in the cuestack) to the cue you want to jump to.