Preparing a lighting control desk for touring

[Uriahdemon]

Hi,I have a Zero88 FLX control desk with two wings.

I have been using it for a few years now with my own rig. In preparation for some potential work next year I need to set it up for maximum flexibility and capability. There is a chance the venues will be bigger and I will be using a small ground package and hooking into the house rig. I have done this in smaller venues and coped by getting fixture specs , positioning and DMX addressing info. Some venues were really good with a tech spec some not.

So the info I need some help on would be to help in a situation when you get to a venue with no tech spec info at all. How do you set your desk up, what are the work flows used for fixture selection groups, positioning etc.

 

Grateful for any pointers please and TIA.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Uriahdemon

[richard]

depends on the show really - for some shows I will often simplify the house rig by having a single channel for my warm/cold front of house, and for the colours overhead - that way irrespective of how many units the venue have they always are patched as one channel and so appear in the right cues etc.

 

Moving lights get more complicated but if you have a show file with sensible presets/palettes in place then you can help yourself, although I'm not sure how advanced the FLX is in its ability to clone fixture or change the type while retaining data

[Uriahdemon]

depends on the show really - for some shows I will often simplify the house rig by having a single channel for my warm/cold front of house, and for the colours overhead - that way irrespective of how many units the venue have they always are patched as one channel and so appear in the right cues etc.

 

Moving lights get more complicated but if you have a show file with sensible presets/palettes in place then you can help yourself, although I'm not sure how advanced the FLX is in its ability to clone fixture or change the type while retaining data

Thanks for the tips Richard. A lot of the setups will include LED Pars and movers.I am not sure I understand how you get them all on a single channel. Do you mean a group...?

I am working with the desk to understand its ability to replace fixtures. I dont have the knowledge as yet but it does have a fixture replacement capability so I need to learn and test that.

The show is a tribute band with many lighting highlights.

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Uriahdemon

[timsabre]

Some consoles eg Avo allow you to patch multiple dimmer channels onto one fader. You could just record a submaster to do the same thing.

[Uriahdemon]

Some consoles eg Avo allow you to patch multiple dimmer channels onto one fader. You could just record a submaster to do the same thing.

 

Thanks but unfortunately the majority of the fixtures will be LED Pars and Movers, so lots of attributes to them.

[timsabre]

Yeah I think Richard was thinking of conventional fixtures. Building your show using palettes and mastering fixture exchange are definitely things to look at.

[Uriahdemon]

Yeah I think Richard was thinking of conventional fixtures. Building your show using palettes and mastering fixture exchange are definitely things to look at.

Thanks

[Edward- Z88]

Hi Uriahdemon,

 

I have replied to your post on the Zero 88 forum...

Forum

 

As Richard mentions, most consoles have the ability to replace existing fixtures in the show with a fixture of a different type. On FLX this is called "Change Profiles", where all existing programming will be applied to the new fixtures. For more information see below...

ZerOS Manual

 

Regarding Richard and Tim's comments to assign multiple fixtures onto a fader, this can of course be done by programming a group, or to allow you to instantly apply all programming done on one fixture to others, you can add multiple additional addresses to existing fixtures in the patch. You could therefore have programmed a single LED PAR in all your cues, add multiple addresses, and then multiple LED PARs of the same type will also do the same thing, even if addressed separately. More information here...

ZerOS Manual

 

Hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know.

Edward

Edited February 15, 2021 by Edward- Z88

[Uriahdemon]

 

Thanks very much Ed, much appreciated. I will have a look and play at all the info you have provided here and across on the FLX forum.

 

 

 

 

[J Pearce]

I used to do this on tour with a metal band. We carried control (Chamsys), 4 LED PARs, 4 birdies (footlight), 4ch of set/blinders, a strobe, and a dimmer rack. Was enough to do something in venues that had nothing or had only fixed on/off lighting, and was programmed so it could integrate with venue rigs.

 

Choose your 'master' fixtures wisely when you do your initial program, I used something that had all the features I might encouter so that my showfile had data for all of those scenarios. Know how much control you need - if they have 32 LED PARs, do you need all invididually or is 3 groups plenty - if 3 groups just have 3 fixtures and stack the addresses onto those fixtures or by 'cloning' fixtures. Know how to morph/swap/change and clone fixtures in your showfile. Get good at updating focus palettes quickly - they're the ones that you can't do without being connected to the rig.

 

Be ready to compromise if you need to, time is always short and sometimes doing less programming and actually having time to eat will lead to a better show than a beautifully programmed show operated by someone who is hungry/thirsty struggling to concentrate due to a lack of blood sugar.

[Uriahdemon]

Can anyone please share their work flow process for setting up. Where do you start, go to and end up, is there a sure fire sequence for doing this ....?

 

I used to do this on tour with a metal band. We carried control (Chamsys), 4 LED PARs, 4 birdies (footlight), 4ch of set/blinders, a strobe, and a dimmer rack. Was enough to do something in venues that had nothing or had only fixed on/off lighting, and was programmed so it could integrate with venue rigs.

 

Choose your 'master' fixtures wisely when you do your initial program, I used something that had all the features I might encouter so that my showfile had data for all of those scenarios. Know how much control you need - if they have 32 LED PARs, do you need all invididually or is 3 groups plenty - if 3 groups just have 3 fixtures and stack the addresses onto those fixtures or by 'cloning' fixtures. Know how to morph/swap/change and clone fixtures in your showfile. Get good at updating focus palettes quickly - they're the ones that you can't do without being connected to the rig.

 

Be ready to compromise if you need to, time is always short and sometimes doing less programming and actually having time to eat will lead to a better show than a beautifully programmed show operated by someone who is hungry/thirsty struggling to concentrate due to a lack of blood sugar.

Thanks Jon, this is the gem info I seek. I will go through this with a fine tooth comb later.

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Uriahdemon

[James Phillips]

This time last year (before all the madness) I was on a little tour through concert halls/theatres so knew from the outset house rigs would be quite varied. We also had no pre-production rehearsal for lighting so a rough showfile was thrown together during the fixture prep and very much refined as I went on. This meant that there was no "master" show to start fresh from each day so I made sure to lay the groundwork as best I could so I didn't have to bodge things in later.

 

For me the first thing to nail down is a good consistent fixture patch that covers all your touring fixtures as well as a sensible range of house fixtures. Try and group your head numbers so everything makes sense and is easy to remember/amend (e.g. spots 101 onwards, washes 201... etc). For this show the majority of the lighting came from our touring package with the house rig covering orchestra overhead wash, front wash & specials (vocals, conductor etc). For each of these "functions" supplied by the house rig I ended up patching two dimmers, two moving head profiles and two LED par fixtures so I had maximum flexibility when walking into the venue. If the previous night was fixed profiles for the conductor but today is Source 4 Revolutions I can just unpatch the dimmer heads (but leave them there in the console) and address the moving profile heads that would have been unpatched the previous night.

 

I was always coming back and changing things every show, cloning fixtures etc. if some venues had more for each specific task, however I liked the approach of keeping every "type" of fixture in the show separately as then no information is lost when morphing/exchanging. If I morph my moving head profiles on the conductor into generic dimmers I lose all the additional attributes like position and colour meaning I have to start again with those the next day!

 

Second thing is making sure any FX in my cues run against groups and not fixtures. This means that I can reorder, grow and shrink effects to suit in each venue. For each fixture type I had two groups (e.g. Spots 1, Spots 2) which the effects then ran against. If I had to grow/shrink the show to suit different setups I could just add/remove/reorder fixtures in these groups and not touch any of my FX. Same goes for sure attribute values in your cues come from your palettes, and that your palettes don't contain more information than they're supposed to (e.g. "Wide Zoom" also storing open gobo) to avoid any confusion.

 

Then, each day after the touring rig was flown my workflow usually consisted of:

1. Get DMX patch from house rig & make sure data is getting to the right places
2. Unpatching all house rig fixtures in the showfile
3. Morph existing fixtures in the show file into their house rig equivalents for this day with the correct mode etc. If there's more fixtures than the previous day clone some existing ones
4. Address fixtures & test
5. Touch up Fixture Groups & FX Groups to make sure all fixtures are present and in the correct order
6. Test some FX to see if things look right, tweak if necessary
7. Update position palettes for the current day, focus generics with house crews, more checks
8. Do the show

...oh yeah and find time to eat at some point!

 

This might not be an excellent example but it worked for me - although I'd also say that every time I start a new showfile I end up doing things a bit differently - eventually you'll find a style that suits the way you work & think.

Edited February 16, 2021 by James Phillips

[Uriahdemon]

Thanks very much James for taking the time and effort to put all this together, it is really appreciated.

 

There is some obvious good info here and some I dont quite understand as yet and will need to digest and mull over in time.

 

If you dont mind I may post a few questions on this when I do.

 

Thanks again, Mac

 

This time last year (before all the madness) I was on a little tour through concert halls/theatres so knew from the outset house rigs would be quite varied. We also had no pre-production rehearsal for lighting so a rough showfile was thrown together during the fixture prep and very much refined as I went on. This meant that there was no "master" show to start fresh from each day so I made sure to lay the groundwork as best I could so I didn't have to bodge things in later.

 

For me the first thing to nail down is a good consistent fixture patch that covers all your touring fixtures as well as a sensible range of house fixtures. Try and group your head numbers so everything makes sense and is easy to remember/amend (e.g. spots 101 onwards, washes 201... etc). For this show the majority of the lighting came from our touring package with the house rig covering orchestra overhead wash, front wash & specials (vocals, conductor etc). For each of these "functions" supplied by the house rig I ended up patching two dimmers, two moving head profiles and two LED par fixtures so I had maximum flexibility when walking into the venue. If the previous night was fixed profiles for the conductor but today is Source 4 Revolutions I can just unpatch the dimmer heads (but leave them there in the console) and address the moving profile heads that would have been unpatched the previous night.

 

I was always coming back and changing things every show, cloning fixtures etc. if some venues had more for each specific task, however I liked the approach of keeping every "type" of fixture in the show separately as then no information is lost when morphing/exchanging. If I morph my moving head profiles on the conductor into generic dimmers I lose all the additional attributes like position and colour meaning I have to start again with those the next day!

 

Second thing is making sure any FX in my cues run against groups and not fixtures. This means that I can reorder, grow and shrink effects to suit in each venue. For each fixture type I had two groups (e.g. Spots 1, Spots 2) which the effects then ran against. If I had to grow/shrink the show to suit different setups I could just add/remove/reorder fixtures in these groups and not touch any of my FX. Same goes for sure attribute values in your cues come from your palettes, and that your palettes don't contain more information than they're supposed to (e.g. "Wide Zoom" also storing open gobo) to avoid any confusion.

 

Then, each day after the touring rig was flown my workflow usually consisted of:

1. Get DMX patch from house rig & make sure data is getting to the right places
2. Unpatching all house rig fixtures in the showfile
3. Morph existing fixtures in the show file into their house rig equivalents for this day with the correct mode etc. If there's more fixtures than the previous day clone some existing ones
4. Address fixtures & test
5. Touch up Fixture Groups & FX Groups to make sure all fixtures are present and in the correct order
6. Test some FX to see if things look right, tweak if necessary
7. Update position palettes for the current day, focus generics with house crews, more checks
8. Do the show

...oh yeah and find time to eat at some point!

 

This might not be an excellent example but it worked for me - although I'd also say that every time I start a new showfile I end up doing things a bit differently - eventually you'll find a style that suits the way you work & think.

[James Phillips]

No worries at all. The console may dictate the way you work slightly (that example was Chamsys) but I think the fundamentals stay the same across any palette-based lighting desk nowadays. Do let me know if any of it needs a bit more detail.

[Edward- Z88]

Hi Mac,

As James says, all of his great points will be applicable to operation on FLX too - there will just be some subtleties where there is a difference between MagicQ and ZerOS.

Edward