a series of small lighting issues to solve.

[S&L]

first of all let me apologise - as a noise boy, what I knew about DMX you could fit on a postage stamp until a few months ago but events have pushed me down a road of learning a little more - now I can almost fill the side of a matchbox.

next, we have several overlapping issues probably best described by using 60s festivals that we provide sound and lights for where all the issues appear.

we have 3 distinct systems,

1. - 2 sets of 3 led par cans, 6 fixtures total with 2 addresses. these light the main bands and are programmed in advance one stage colour per scene, stepping between scenes - usually manually.

these are run from an old chauvet obey 40 controller. I would like to be able to continue in this vein but be able to manually alter the brightness of both sets of fixtures independently of the scenes set - actually I don't care too much but a few artists have complained. we do have some scene colours that already have a dimmer set point but I would like to be able to adjust the brightness on request and, unless I am missing something this can't be done with the present controller. can it be done at all? or, given that the two addresses behave differently (different instructions) is this not possible with LED fixtures?

 

2. a pair or 2 pair of njd spectres - at the moment they are running off their own controller and run to light the dance floor as spotlights for comedians and others who 'work the floor' and at the end of the night run on a tap chase, we use an njd foot controller for this which is DMX and surprisingly adaptable with ability to set fixed colour AND brightness for the floor - but it's a 2nd controller stacked up on the desk - if it has to be done that way fine but is there a controller that will allow me to independently control these lights such that they are off or on a fixed colour with the ability to dim, while the led fixtures above do something completely different?

 

3. we have 4 floor mounted par cans working as uplighters - sometimes we use all, sometimes just a couple and we keep them on a fixed colour. at the moment they are just set on the di switches without a controller. we would like to control these from the desk position to alter colour and brightness. I could put a small DMX controller on just for these but then we have 3 controllers and three DMX lines to stage - which all seems a little heath robinson

 

- is there a way of doing this so that all 3 'zones' run from one controller AND provide intendant control of brightness. If so, what sort of controller do I need to be looking at?

 

none of this is urgent - it's been whizzing around in my head for a month since the last festival and it won't kill me to do the next one the same way in June but suggestions that are proportionate to the fittings being used would be gratefully received.

[ianknight]

As long as there's nothing "odd" about the DMX you're using then the easiest way would be to acquire a larger controller and set all the devices to separate DMX addresses, this will then allow you individual control over the LED's in 1 & 3 and the Spectres. You'll only need to run one DMX Cable between them all...

 

The only fun will be deciding which controller to use - either laptop and software or dedicated lighting desk.

 

My mind would tend toward the latter - something with faders for busking perhaps? I would look at ShowTec Showmasters for basic control with faders or even perhaps consider the FLX from Zero88 - you'd be pretty much future proof for adding more LED's and there's some nice deals to be had. You're biggest hassle after that is going to be programming some basic "looks" to play with. ;)

[timsabre]

Ian is right, you just need a decent controller. The trouble with all (as far as I know) of the cheap Chauvet/Showtec type controllers is that although you can program scenes, you can't fade them to alter the brightness. Whereas something like a Jester or FLX, the scenes are on faders and you can just pull the fader down a bit to reduce the brightness. You could program separate faders for each of your current zones or combine them into a range of faders giving different overall "looks".

 

There's also the laptop route using Chamsys or something like that with a USB fader "wing" plugged in.

[Don Allen]

Can you tell us the model led par can fixtures you have, so we can look up the DMX channels.

 

The Chauvet Obey 40 seems similar to Led Commander desks etc.

 

Because you have your two sets of led pars set up with two addresses, as fixtures 1 and 2, I assume, you can control the brightness of each side separately, if the led pars have a master dimmer channel. To determine this, we need to look at the DMX channel allocations for the led pars. Most led pars have several DMX modes, usually a 3 channel mode, i.e. one channel for each colour, to allow them to be controlled from a conventional desk with a limited number of faders, or an expanded mode with one channel for each colour, a master dimmer, a strobe, a preset colours channel etc. If you can run your led pars in the expanded mode, i.e. less than 16 channels to suit your desk, it gives you better control.

 

For maximum flexibility, you could give each led par their own address sp each one is a separate fixture, then you would be able to set different stage areas to different colours and brightness. Lets call them fixtures 1,2,3 on the left and fixtures 4,5,6 on the right.

 

According to this NJD Spectre Manual they have 8 DMX manuals, so can be used as fixtures on your Obey 40 Manual desk. You will need a label strip to show what the channel faders are controlling.

 

This uses 8 fixtures, so you have four fixtures left to control your uplighters. We need the model number to see what the DMX channels are.

 

As long as each fixture is 16 channels or less, they will work with your desk. Set the start address on the dip switches to the DMX start address of the desired fixture number.

 

You will now have to run a DMX cable from your desk to each fixture in a series run, looping in and out of each fixture, if you do not have a DMX splitter, in basically a U shape run.

 

Does that help ?

[Emmien]

You could use Chamsys MagicQ.

 

The dongle costs £60, or you could use an E1.31 or ArtNet bridge, which works fine and can be found cheaper sometimes.

 

 

You could doo all of what you want to do and more.

 

The software is free to download and use.

[alistermorton]

Might it be worth a look at a Jands Stage CL?

[S&L]

thanks for your input so far folks - I really appreciate it.

I have looked at the various responses and the following thoughts occur:

 

1. some of the consoles mentioned are into several thousand pounds - after I picked myself up of the floor I reminded myself that I should have set a budget - belo £500 it's possible - above that and it's just not worth doing for these simple shows. also in terms of expansion, if it gets any more complex than this, for instance when we work in theatres, someone else does the lighting - so my initial description with 3 zones is probably as complex as it's likely to get.

 

2. I looked at some of the software for laptop options - really attractive price but a very steep learning curve and since I am either teaching a number 2 to work what I iave already programmed or pressing buttons and pushing faders between mixing sound, the laptop option is something I want to park - just for the minute - just because it's not as user friendly, it seems a very steep learning curve and a lot of time programming for some simple outcomes.

 

3. I was asked specifically what fittings - this is likely to vary over time but at the moment we have:

stage lighting zone - 3 no. Stairville LED Par56 Pro 24x3W, two on one side, one on the other - going forward I would be happy to have all these, subject to dimming they seem to do what we need in these basic festivals very well. also 3 no. Stairville LED PAR 64 10 mm, at the moment I sit and blend the pair of addresses for these until I get an overall colour wash - which is what we are looking for.

up lighter zone - at the moment this is a hotch potch of pulse and stairville but the plan by the end of the year is to have them all as Stairville LED PAR 56 floor pars. these will stay set on a colour, particularly for lighting between sets but also to infill here and there.

floor walk/ dance floor zone - 2 or 4 NJD spectre.

 

I particularly like the idea of Tim Sabre's suggestion and I'm fairly sure this is where we aught to be headed - i.e. scenes on faders with the possibility to run all three zones on separate scenes-on-fader.

thios is unfortunately where I come unstuck again...ploughing throw the showmaster 48 manual (within budget) I can't tell if that controller does or does not offer scenes-on-fader. If not, is there anything under £500 as a controller, which does? remembering that the intent is that a scene is a colour wash and we want to fade those independent of another zone scene and independent of the scene selected for that zone.

[timsabre]

I particularly like the idea of Tim Sabre's suggestion and I'm fairly sure this is where we aught to be headed - i.e. scenes on faders with the possibility to run all three zones on separate scenes-on-fader.

thios is unfortunately where I come unstuck again...ploughing throw the showmaster 48 manual (within budget) I can't tell if that controller does or does not offer scenes-on-fader. If not, is there anything under £500 as a controller, which does? remembering that the intent is that a scene is a colour wash and we want to fade those independent of another zone scene and independent of the scene selected for that zone.

 

From the manual, it looks like the Showmaster 48 does have dimmable scenes on faders (though everything seems to refer to chases), but I have no personal experience of it so I am not sure.

 

There is of course the venerable Behringer LC2412, but that is not exactly straightforward to use.

[erik10_4]

I particularly like the idea of Tim Sabre's suggestion and I'm fairly sure this is where we aught to be headed - i.e. scenes on faders with the possibility to run all three zones on separate scenes-on-fader.

thios is unfortunately where I come unstuck again...ploughing throw the showmaster 48 manual (within budget) I can't tell if that controller does or does not offer scenes-on-fader. If not, is there anything under £500 as a controller, which does? remembering that the intent is that a scene is a colour wash and we want to fade those independent of another zone scene and independent of the scene selected for that zone.

 

From the manual, it looks like the Showmaster 48 does have dimmable scenes on faders (though everything seems to refer to chases), but I have no personal experience of it so I am not sure.

 

There is of course the venerable Behringer LC2412, but that is not exactly straightforward to use.

 

As Tim says, you can indeed record and run slider controlled, fully dimmable, scenes on the Showmaster desks. The Showmaster 48 manual is a bit confusing on this. I own a Showmaster 24 (and one of it's differently badged variants). On these desks, all 24 channels can be programmed and settings recorded into sliders for channels 13-24 (I.e 12 recorded scenes on '4 pages' allowing a total of 48 recorded scenes. The Showmaster 48 (which has the capacity for 96 scenes) allows all 48 channels to be set at the desired levels for a scene but then says the scene should be stored in channels 13 - 24 (just like the 24 channel desk) which again would allow only 48 scenes rather than the stated 96. I suspect this is a misprint, (lifted from the 24 channel desk manual?) and my guess would be that scenes can actually be stored on channels 25-48 on 4 pages/banks. The important point, I guess is the desk certainly has dimmable scenes on faders.