UKC

Bit of a long shot, but I am hoping someone on here might be a stage lighting anorak able to give me a few tips...

I work at a school and we are doing a production of We Will Rock You the Musical. I am a Music teacher with a background in sound recording but have limited knowledge of stage lighting, but being the 'techie' member of the department have been put in charge of the lighting too.

We have a Strand 200 Lighting desk:

http://www.theatrecrafts.com/archive/documents/200series_console_manual.pdf

I can create scenes on the lighting desk however want to move to a computer controlled system but try and integrate the lighting desk into this. I was thinking of using the following product to do this:

http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&pn=70304

The idea being the the DMX output of the lighting desk goes into the input of the DMX USB Pro box. I then use piece of computer software to read the incoming DMX signal (the 'look' that I am creating) and save these values in the software. When the show is played back, the desk is then redundant and the computer outputs all DMX values to the dimmers.

I have absolutely no idea if this will work or not, or if lighting software can be used in this way. The software that I have been playing around with so far is this:

http://lightkeyapp.com/en/

Many thanks!

David

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

Can you not record a sequence direct to a drive/memory in the desk?

Sorry, can't help with specifics, haven't touched a lighting desk in nearly 20 years.
jk

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

I believe there are a couple who post on here. I once was, but I'm even more out of date that jkarran. The last lighting desk I operated was a Strand Geminii 2 (even more antiquated than your 200 series).

A couple of thoughts however:
The desk you have is capable of (somewhat basic) scene recall itself isn't it? I can't be arsed to RTFM you've linked to I'm afraid but I'm fairly sure it isn't purely just a manual desk.

What you're suggesting seems like more faff than necessary. If you're thinking of using a lighting desk emulator with a dmx dongle, it'd probably be better to use that to create your scenes in the first place. Another option that might be worth considering is hiring in a slightly more powerful desk.

Silly question - you are certain that your desk is outputting DMX I suppose? It was not uncommon for Strand systems of that vintage to use D54 instead (a form of analogue multiplexing wholly incompatible with DMX, though there were/are units around to convert from one to the other).

If you get no joy on here, this is a forum you might get better advice in: http://www.blue-room.org.uk/
Heads up - it's a funny old group. In many ways v friendly, in others even more arsey than UKC.

In reply to deepsoup:

I also was one in my uni days.. It kind of depends what you want to do and how much time you've got to invest. Are you using any moving lights? If not probably can do everything you need on that strand. Be aware that plotting a musical takes flipping ages, even without moving fixtures. If you're not used to it, doing moving stuff makes it much harder. Although I'm 10 years out of date too and maybe the control methods are more intuitive than they were.. Although I suspect using free software won't help in that department!

Mike

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

I used to be a lighting techy.
If you're moving to a computer based system I suggest you bin the Strand. It seems like you only want to use it as a user interface to the PC? If so, it's a horribly clunky way of doing it.
My first choice for a PC based lighting desk is Chamsys MagicQ - https://secure.chamsys.co.uk/download
Free download, you just need to buy their USB to DMX adaptor, or better still get an EntTec ODE - http://www.enttec.com/?main_menu=Products&pn=70305 and run it over ArtNet (DMX over Ethernet), more reliable than USB. I have this setup running a couple of automated installations 24/7 with no bother.
MagicQ works nicely on a touch screen PC, but you can also hire a real Chamsys lighting desk that runs the same software. You create your show on this, then send it back and run the show on the PC. I've seen a few installers do this.

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

Thanks for the replies! Unfortunately the desk is too old to accept a memory drive in a usable way - the manual says a 32mb card can be used to store show files but not read by a PC due to the file formats. The desk does have a sub master mode to recall scenes. I double checked and it's DMX not D54.

It's starting to sound like more faff than it's worth getting it to talk to the computer. I wanted to try and do some of it in the computer as it would allow me to work away from the drama studio which is often busy and hard to find a time to spend a couple of hours working on the lighting in there.

I've looked into renting a more sophisticated desk however school productions get chipped away at week by week and we can't afford to rent a desk for all that time. I could ask management to let me have the week leading up to the show off timetable but I think that will be a no!

The other reason I wanted to use a computer is to design some lighting shows that follow certain rhythms in the music (rather than changing to the beat which the audio input allows you to do).

I think I'll post in blue-room and see if they can throw up any other ideas.

Thanks!

David

In reply to David Kirsfelds:
I'd just get a DMX dongle for the laptop and run the lights straight from the laptop.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Any suggestions for software? Would you add a +1 to Hooo's suggestion that Chamsys is the way to go?

In reply to deepsoup:

No. Not really. There are a few dongles which come with basic software and there are quite a few freeware products about.

I think it's just a case of having a play and finding one that will do what you want.

I've only looked at it from a point of using LED par cans with my band. In the end it was looking to be complete overkill and I just run them on auto.

In reply to DancingOnRock:
Ok ta. I was just curious. It's not my gig fortunately (the OP's job being pretty much my idea of Hell!) ;O)

In reply to deepsoup:

Haha, what could be more fun than trying to coordinate a show with a cast of 50+ children whilst simultaneously overseeing lighting/sound and playing in the pit band? :-D

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

You need to get some 6th formers on board. They'd probably have worked out something with a blue toothed iPad running something whizzy before you've even typed DMX into Google.

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

Bin the idea of using the 200 in conjunction with another system - it is possible, but there really isn't any practical reason for it in this instance. Your sensible options are:
- hire a desk (may not be as expensive as you think).
- use PC-based software (Chamsys MagicQ is free, and their basic fully-functioning dongle is ~£60. The slightly more limited version is only ~£10). Many of the other console manufacturers have similar solutions.
- use something PC-based, in conjunction with a wing/control surface. You can hire a MagicQ PC wing for ~£30/week, for example.
- pre-program on the PC software of a desk (free), which you then hire in for the production period (to make life easier).

To be honest, if you only have a handful of conventionals there's very little reason you can't program and operate from a laptop. Things get a bit more fiddly when you start trying to work with moving lights without a control surface, but that doesn't sound like your situation at all.

On the tangential note on software, Chamsys MagicQ is incredibly powerful and mostly relatively easy to use if you're only, for example, controlling a handful of dimmers. Chamsys' actual desks (running the exact same software) have been used on some rather large concert tours with some really quite big rigs, so the software is very much industry-proven and accepted. It's also stable, unlike certain other offerings.

Having said all that, I thought the 200 would 'save' the current show to some form of internal memory and retain data after being switched off? I could be wrong, I haven't seen one in a very long time and my encounters with it were thankfully brief.

I'll probably post a more useful reply when it's not 3am and I've slept, or alternatively feel free to drop me an email.

In reply to tehmarks:

Thanks for the reply. I guess the reason why I wanted to use the 200 was to have a tactile interface to create looks with - I've done plenty of audio mixing using a mouse to control fades on a computer and it's just not as intuitive as having something at your fingertips. Having the looks then saved onto a computer would then allow me to further tweek the settings away from the drama studio.

I think that I might just use the 200 for the show and maybe explore its MIDI capabilities to trigger the lighting cues from a computer along with the projections and SFX. I've been having a play using QLab to trigger cues and hooking it up to Lightkey acting as a visualiser and it seems to work pretty well.

I also need to have a think about multiple display projections as we have a main projector and a series of TV screens in the drama studio which the director would like to use...ugh!

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

Seriously. Look at Bluetooth and iPad.

Touch surface. Awesome for sound mixers. They must do something similar for lighting. One of your 6th formers will be all over this if you let them loose.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

There's nothing similar for lighting that is useful and used in the real world. The closest you get are the various remote focus apps which communicate with the desk by WiFi, in the same way that most sound apps communicate with the desk. They're not a substitute for the real thing, usually need the real thing anyway, and I wouldn't use one for anything more critical than the focus session to be honest.

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

Can you explain your rig in more detail? Show control is a wonderful thing, but is more often than not complete overkill except for very complex shows - and more importantly, it can often make life unexpectedly difficult unless the show runs like clockwork with no hiccups.

(My background is as a LD for theatre and live concerts, and a lampie for pretty much everything including theatre and concert tours, TV and corporate events).

In reply to tehmarks:

Absolutely! I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm just google-guessing at what bits of hardware/software to use.

- 30 lights (mixture of floods, profiles and ...um the other ones? parcans/fresnels...?!?!) and space for a further 18 if we needed to rent any in
- 48 channel strand 200 lighting desk
- Main projector used to project scenery onto the back wall of the stage area
- 2 large TV screens at either side of the stage
- At the moment, no paid for software or USB DMX boxes as mentioned above, however there is some cash for investing in these if they will increase the production values of the show

Thanks,

David

In reply to David Kirsfelds:

Another plug for MagicQ
I know it can receive DMX and call a cue for each channel. As you only have 30 dimmers and no movers it should be pretty easy to set up a cue for each dimmer. This way you can create the looks on the desk faders and save it in MagicQ. Not tried this myself though.
One other thing MagicQ does that might be handy is video. You can play back videos on a cue, starting at any point in the video, at any speed. So you can have the whole show as one video file and it plays each section on cue. Last time I tried it didn't do audio, but this might have been fixed / not relevant to you. I only had one video screen, but I'd be surprised if it wouldn't do more.