60mm or 100mm

[Madmac]

I will start off by writing about audio consoles.....

Most entry level digital audio consoles are now shipping with 100mm motorised faders and therefore the manufacturing volume of these parts is growing rapidly. At the same time the cost of these consoles is remaining fairly constant although the functionality is increasing along with ergonomic improvements like bigger displays. This is only possible due to declining component costs in real terms.

 

In the lighting world we have tended to use 60mm faders (with the exception of the odd crossfader pairs). The number of these 60mm motorised faders being manufactured is quite small in comparison to the 100mm parts.

This is reflected in the price,100mm parts can be sourced at around a third of the price of 60mm parts (some manufactures only do the 100mm size).

 

When designing the MQ60 entry level console I put in as much functionality as possible. Time has now moved on and a new larger entry level (MX80) now has to be considered with motorised faders, again keeping the philosophy of putting in as much functionality as possible without increasing the product price significantly. With this in mind (and that a certain leading theatre console manufacturer has moved over to 100mm motorised faders for all functions on its top two consoles) the question is .

.......is there a preference for the older 60mm track length?

 

Of the two dozen LD's / board op's asked so far the split is around 50/50. The ability to do a complete 60mm fade with a finger and not moving the hand seems to be their requirement.

 

To pre-empt a possible question, even on the MQ40/60/70 the faders are digitised to 12 bits ( 1 part in 4096, but only used as 8 bit or 1 part in 256), so in theory better control could be achieved with a longer fader if the console software supported it to control fixtures using 16 bit dimming.

 

Your thoughts please....

 

 

 

George McDuff

ChamSys

[top-cat]

I would be in the 60mm camp all things considered. With sound, the importance for them to get their level "bang-on" is high, the fader is always acting as the control of that exact level. In the lighting world, I tend to find my fader acts predominantly as an on/off but allows me to control the speed of that on/off more on the fly than with a fixed fade time. Even with the things that I do dim when busking, dimmers only have 128 possible values on output (whereas on a sound desk that number is in the high thousands) so 60mm gives you more than enough to accurately find the value that you want. Anything which really requires a very fine dimmer value will obviously sit in a cue anyway.

 

So for me, quick access beats finer control of the values, particularly when - in the case of dimmers, as the faders predominantly tend to do (when I say dimmers, I mean intensity - so movers included) - there are so few possible values.

 

One thing I do quite like is the 2 assignable 100mm faders as seen on the MA (as opposed to it simply being a crossfade section as on your MQ1000). You can assign many things to these playbacks to give you finer control of elements of your show. Of course I accept that fitting this onto one of the 'compact consoles' may be a pain where space is of the essence.

[djlorenz]

I don't think 100mm are good for lighting... I don't work in theatre so maybe in that field should be interesting...

in live/busking mode what you need is fast movements... I was worry about little faders when I changed from pcwing to mq60... but control of all 10 faders with only one hand is wonderful...

 

I don't think fader resolution is a big problem... ok you can find them an 1/3 of price but probably people really don't like this change...

 

that's my idea

 

 

[Geetrt]

80mm? A nice compromize between accuracy and speed.

[niclights]

Agree with above. Need to be able to go from zero to full with fingers without moving wrist.

[vinntec]

As owners of an MQ60 in a theatre punching way above its weight in LX terms...

 

For theatre, we use the faders only as masters to control whether the playback is active or not with levels set and recorded as cues. It would be perfectly possible, of course, to use the 10 playbacks on multiple pages and with motorised faders this would make them more useful although 10 playbacks for theatre is plenty in most cases. Motorised faders would allow the playbacks to act as submasters or even channel faders if you really wanted to - and submasters would be useful to assign one to each group in which case multiple pages, in other words motorised faders, would be useful. We have changed to using groups on the MQ60 as fiddling around with playback pages is not really on as we would really need 20 or more submasters to be usable. I don't see an advantage for the larger size (other than cost).

 

When cueing we use the X rotary to set intensities and ABCD to fine tune colour which we have predefined as palettes (we only have conventional + LED). So a more fine control at this stage would be helpful, although oldies might say a large multi-function wheel (mounted vertically with the top sticking out I mean) would be better maybe backed up by a tracker ball for quick coarse setting of position.

 

What we would like would be to have the keys on the console itself backlit so we need a desklight only to read the script, not so we can see the keys while in use. We would also like the internal display to be larger as it is hard to read from many angles especially those of us at the senior end (although I know work continues to improve this on the compact consoles already).

 

I stress this is a small theatre that does plays in the main with the odd small musical performance, including ballet, but little or no live music. So our needs are quite narrow compared to other venues.

 

EDIT: If we want to use submasters why not add a wing? Simple - we don't have the space in our cramped control position. Using motorised faders to make the playbacks more flexible might.possibly do so without needing more space.

[boac]

I'd agree that 60mm is the better choice for lighting. I've never found myself wishing I had finer control on a fader, if really fine control of level is needed this is likely to be taken care of in the cue, so being able to move the fader over it's full range without moving my hand definitely wins here. I can't see any advantage to 100mm other than cost, but personally I'd rather pay that bit extra to get it right.

 

Another thing that is important to me is not having too much resistance in the fader movement. For me, the MQ60 faders always feel too stiff compared to my Maxi wing or the full size consoles so that's one thing I'd like to see improved on an updated compact console.

 

 

 

[MarkPAman]

So if 100mm are cheaper but 60mm are nicer to use, what's to stop you putting a 100mm under a 60mm slot? The resolution seems to be way above what's needed anyway.

[paulears]

You can do a crossfade with two 60mm faders with one hand, it's much harder to do this on an audio desk with longer faders.

[GR1]

Paul, I think your crossfade scenario whilst valid is comparatively rare. When mixing at a wide range of audio levels it is quite difficult to do a long slow fade on a 60mm fader but much easier and better with 100mm. Try doing a long slow low level fade out with the 2 versions of the Midas Venice. The Behringer modified version is much better because of the longer faders.

 

Sorry for digressing from the original lighting question ....

[dmxlights]

I do have the MQ60 and I like the 60mm faders on it if they where the 100mm faders I probability would not have bought it. I have used the soundcraft sound desk that can do DMX as well and I did not like the 100mm fader for doing lighting. I find it hard to explain why.

 

I also like the size of the MQ60 as I am on the go type and its easy to take with you.

[azlan]

So if 100mm are cheaper but 60mm are nicer to use, what's to stop you putting a 100mm under a 60mm slot? The resolution seems to be way above what's needed anyway.

 

This is exactly what I was about to suggest

[Stuart91]

Does that mean users could extend the slot with a Dremel to "make it go up to eleven"? ;)

[Don Allen]

OT. That would make it an ideal lighting desk for Spinal Tap, just like their amps that go to 11 Spinal Tap Quotes.

 

It would be nice to have better resolution and cheaper motorised faders, if the space is available.

[paulears]

Paul, I think your crossfade scenario whilst valid is comparatively rare. When mixing at a wide range of audio levels it is quite difficult to do a long slow fade on a 60mm fader but much easier and better with 100mm. Try doing a long slow low level fade out with the 2 versions of the Midas Venice. The Behringer modified version is much better because of the longer faders.

 

Sorry for digressing from the original lighting question ....

 

 

That's interesting - I've found this handy since about 1974!

 

Pretty common when busking shows that get called by colour - so go red at the end of the song, then the person calls repeated colour changes. Ok when it's one up, one down, but when you end up with two or more faders up, and need to bring in two different ones, losing the originals, then you have to do a cross fade with each hand. Even more common when you have loads of stuff on faders - even when you're doing page per chunk, you often need to be prodding up down buttons, or maybe typing entries while the other hand needs to crossfade. I don't think this is a 'comparatively rare' operating technique unless I'm unique!