Multicell Fixtures

[BobJ]

We use several simple LED fixtures that use perhaps 3 channels, R G and B. And when we give that lamp a base address of say 10 we can raise/lower faders 10 11 and/or 12 to see the different colors. All very simple.

But with a new console (ETC Element 2) on the way I am seeing videos showing patching whereby our lamp might still get a base address of 10 BUT someway or somehow the other channels would appear in Universe 2 as say 240 and 241!

Totally confused and as this would be too big to answers here I'm looking for some sort of book or article (the ETC Videos are too fast for me) that talks about modern (complex fixture) patching techniques. The guys on the ETC forum are really good but I think it is hard for experienced operators to get through to really naïve newbies.

[Shez]

You're perhaps confusing fixture number with address. Modern consoles give every fixture a number with which to easily refer to it. Four LED cans on your back bar might be fixture numbers 1,2,3 and 4 for example. Their addresses could be anything you like; they could even change for operational reasons but the fixture numbers still remain as 1-4.

When programming, it's then much easier to say "make fixtures 1 to 4 red" than it is to say "set DMX channels 1-132, 1-135, 1-138 and 1-141 to 100%".

[Ynot]

We use several simple LED fixtures that use perhaps 3 channels, R G and B. And when we give that lamp a base address of say 10 we can raise/lower faders 10 11 and/or 12 to see the different colors. All very simple.

But with a new console (ETC Element 2) on the way I am seeing videos showing patching whereby our lamp might still get a base address of 10 BUT someway or somehow the other channels would appear in Universe 2 as say 240 and 241!

Totally confused and as this would be too big to answers here I'm looking for some sort of book or article (the ETC Videos are too fast for me) that talks about modern (complex fixture) patching techniques. The guys on the ETC forum are really good but I think it is hard for experienced operators to get through to really naïve newbies.

Not sure what video you've seen, but the new feature in 2.7 is for multi-cell fixtures being patchable as channel 10, for the master intensity, with each cell being given 10.1, 10.2, 10.3...... etc.

That makes a great deal of sense both in patching and control.

In fact right at the beginning of

on the Eos page on the ETC site tells you all about it.

Enjoy

[timsabre]

Hmm sounds like you are getting confused with terminology here.

 

A multi-cell fixture has several lamps in the same fixture, e.g. an LED batten with 12 LED "spots" where you can individually control each of the LEDs.

What you are talking about is fixtures with multiple control channels, as opposed to a simple dimmer with a single control channel.

 

It sounds like you're operating the R G B as if they were 3 dimmers, this is not the way it's done in modern consoles. The fixture is counted as a single "channel" and the fader sets the intensity of it, you would then tell it what colour you want using a colour picker or gel picker. So you don't directly control (or even see) the individual DMX control channels of the fixture, you tell the console what you want in terms of brightness and colour (and position, for moving fixtures) and it does the rest for you.

 

When you are patching the fixture, you tell it what the fixture is (or sometimes how many channels it uses) and it will allocate a block of DMX addresses to control it. You don't patch the individual R,G,B channels.

 

[Ynot]

Have to admit, I based my reply on the topic title...

Should read text more carefully... :)

 

 

 

[mac.calder]

Others have already covered that the stumbling block seems to be terminology. Things seem to have settled a bit on a standard:

 

DMX Address or just "Address" - this is the DMX address of the fixture. Between 1 and 512 and can be prefixed/suffixed with a universe (often seen written as 1.101 or 2.3) - and in really big systems utilising ArtNet there are collecctions of universes called subnets, and collections of subnets called networks.

 

Fixture ID or Fixture Number - this is the human friendly number to refer to a fixture or device. Back in 'the day' when moving head fixtures were given a number somewhat related to the wattage of their lamp (like Mac500, Mac600, Mac575, Robe 170AT etc) instead of a fancy name like Quantum and Sharpy, many people would tend to number their mac600's as 601 through to whatever, their 700's as 701 through to whatever, and so on and so forth, so that when programming, you could look at the stage and go "the 3rd Mac700 on LX2 is out of focus..." and straight away type 723 and fix it up. With the advent of things like LED bars with multiple components, these are often handled as a subfixture on new desks - the common notation, as Ynot mentioned is to use a period to indicate the element number (so 102.3 would be the third 'pixel' of bar 102).

 

Channel ID or Channel Number - some desks separate Channels and Fixtures. A Channel is (generally) something with just intensity. So a dimmer channel or similar. Again, these ID's are generally human friendly, user defined numbers to allow you to quickly type the channel number and change something.

 

As mentioned these human friendly numbers have some added advantages when touring shows - the DMX addresses can change (as you move venues) but your numbers don't.

 

It's fairly loose standardisation though - not all desks will have all features, not all desks will represent them the same.

[timsabre]

I'm not that much of an ETC expert, but don't ETC/eos consoles call everything a "channel" though? Even a multi-channel fixture. You can see how the confusion starts, especially if you've come from a channel-per-fader type of desk.

[alistermorton]

The newer etc software refers to each fixture as a "channel" and where there are cells within that fixture it is addressed by point notation so the 3rd cell of the fixture allocated as channel 12 is 12.3

e.g.

12.3 @ FULL cell 3 of fixture 12 at full.

12.5 COLOR PALETTE 6 set cell 5 of fixture 12 at color palette 6

 

[timsabre]

So it's very important not to confuse console "channels" with DMX "channels"... I've been trying to explain the Avo world to an Eos expert and it's quite difficult to relate some of the concepts.

[strand600X]

I've just spent the morning getting my head around this on our ION.

It all clicked into place when I saw it was exactly the same as Strand used to do with their attributes once I had realised that all fell into place.

 

bAZ

[gareth]

Don't get drawn down a rabbit hole ... your definition of "multicell" and ETC's definition aren't the same! Ignore what people are saying to you here about patching/controlling multicell fixtures in Eos v2.7 - it isn't relevant.

 

You have a fixture which has three light sources - red, green, blue - which are controlled by three consecutive DMX addresses. So on a simple fader-per-channel desk, if you set the address on the fixture to (x), fader (x) would control the intensity of the red source, (x+1) the intensity of green, and (x+2) blue.

 

Element handles this much more elegantly. When you patch the fixture on the console, don't do it as three separate channels - just use one, and give it a fixture type of "Generic RGB". Set the address in patch to the address that you've set on the fixture. Then go into Live mode, select the channel and wheel the intensity up - all three colours will come on at the same level. Then you can use the colour picker or ML controls to adjust the relative intensities of each source and change the colour that the fixture is outputting.

 

(Edit: on the other hand, I can see that you haven't logged into the forum since you posted your question three days ago, so I guess we're all wasting our breath. I hate it when that happens.)