I just purchased the operator 192 and anxiously started programming in scenes and chases. In the manual for creating chases it says that I can go choose a scene and enter it in using the Mid/Rec button and then it also says that I can use the faders, joystick and channel bank buttons to create scenes on the fly that can be recorded into my chase.

I created a chase using some scenes and went once through to make a colour chase. Then I thought I would go through again adding just a touch of blue to each scene just to make it look a little different the second time through. The next time with a bit of green and then red.

So I finish programming it all in and then want to see how it looks playing back and it just goes through all of the original scenes over and over again without adding my little touch of blue the second time through or the green the 3rd time or the red the 4th time. Just the original scenes.

I followed what it said in the manual and it definitely says I should be able to do that.

Is there something wrong with my board? Is the manual wrong? Am I possibly on an old firmware? And if so can it be updated via computer and midi?

For anyone who knows this board please let me know.

Thanks,

Kevin

It sounds like you are not recording new scenes when you adjust the colors slightly. You will have to record news scenes for each change and add those scenes into the chase to make it work.

I could be wrong in understanding what you are trying to say. Let us know if this is the issue. Sorry for the delayed response as well.

Thanks Serra, I know I could definitely make it work by saving a scene and then using the scene, but the manual says that I should be able to make changes "on the fly" using faders etc. to create a step in the chase.

It doesn't say in the manual that I have to save a scene first. Maybe I am reading it wrong or misunderstanding the manual? Or perhaps the manual is misleading, or my operator 192 has something wrong with it. I sent an email to elation tech support but I haven't heard anything back. I just thought that if someone on here has an operator 192 and has been able to program chases including scenes on the fly then I would be a little ahead in determining whether or not I have a faulty unit.

Thanks again for the response Serra

Kevin

You can make changes on the fly but, they will not be permanent. You need to go back and program the changes you want like you programmed the scene originally.

Thanks Iguana, the consensus seems to be that the manual isn't really accurately worded. I don't know what the purpose would be of saying that you can program a chase step on the fly if it's not going to play back when you run the chase. Kind of misleading, they should say that any chase steps that you want to show up during playback have to be pre-programmed scenes. I still haven't received a reply from the email that I sent to elation support. I guess I will get busy programming a bunch of slightly different scenes.

Thanks Iguana and Serra

Ha, You think the manual is bad for your Elation product...try the compulive manual. I have never used a more worthless users manual! Thank God I got James' cell number. If not, I would have been totally lost. They go into minute detail about some advanced programming but, the most basic things are not even addressed. Shame on Elation for this piece of crap. I accidentally erased a fixture button and found nothing in the manual for rectifying this. James pointed out, I had to right click on the fixture's top line and a drop down menu would appear to let me reset the buttons. Now wouldn't you think THAT would be in the manual? It took me a few hours just to figure out why my "scenes" were adding buttons to the fixture page rather than the Master page. It turns out you have to choose the Master page before creating the scene in order for it to be a "Master Scene" rather than a "Fixture Scene". Again, something that should have been in this anemic manual! Good luck with the controller.

In all honesty, the manuals assume you have some knowledge of DMX based control (that is not to say Iguana or litesnsirens have no knowledge). The other thing you have to remember is that Elation product manuals are translated in to a few dozen languages for around the world use, so some grammatical mistakes are bound to happen as well as things lost in translation.

We are luck enough to have a support forum and a team from Elation (John, James, and Gines) that check in regularly and are active on the forums to answer any questions we might have. There are a few other companies I can name that don't have such support and/or service (they will remain nameless out of respect). Just some food for thought.

Edit: Sorry Sergio, forgot to mention you too. So you get the special edit mention, lol.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SerraAva,

Hey Serra, I totally agree, we are blessed to have John, James Gines and Sergio here to help us out. I don't know that I have been on any other support forum that offers as much help as these guys do, or with the same kind of patience for new users.

I am a pretty quick study, but I am still fairly new to the DMX LED game. That said, I learned everything important that I needed to know right here on this forum. I have figured some stuff out on my own by playing around but it was only building on the knowledge I learned here.

I don't know if you use the DMX Operator 192. But you can download the manual in pdf from the elation website. There is a half a page about recording chases on page 11 of the manual. I dare anyone to read that and come to a different conclusion than I did regarding recording steps into the chase on the fly w/o first saving the changes as scenes.

To me, it doesn't look like a translation thing as it would take extra effort to put that in there. If they had simply left off at the point where they say choose your scene and then hit the mid/rec button to program that scene into the chase, there would be no confusion.

Is it possible that this manual is shared with a higher level board than I am using which actually has that feature???

I agree with the forum being awesome but....it should NOT be the way to learn this software. I too have called James numerous times this week for help and he has always been great! Too bad Elation doesn't put a little more effort into the manuals. I do indeed have some knowledge of DMX but, that doesn't allow me to figure out how to add accidentally erased buttons back into the software. LOL

Just stopping in to say thanks for all the kind words folks! All of us here at elation really do strive to work hard for our customers and try to make them happy.
Sincerely,