James, when programming a cycle (with scenes playing) in Easy Show, how do I turn off the scenes when the cycle ends? Right now, they remain on (which is good when transitioning to another song) but when the music set is finished, or if I want to turn scenes off to start a new song with just a spot for example, how do I program this into the cycle? What's the trick here? Keep in mind I want the scenes to dim out not turn off abruptly.

i always create a switch that fades just the dimmer channel out for a length of time i need per song. So i would create a switch set the time for it. and then immediately after the switch is over hit the init that way the lights do not come back on. So make sure you program that switch for the exact amount of time you need them to fade out for. Make sense?
Sincerely,

James, I think I understand but how does this shut of the scenes? I think I understand the switch idea, accept:

1. I don't know how to program the switch to dim out. I need some guidance here.

2. Also, this won't shut off the scenes, right?

Here's what I need to do; at the end of song 1 it will end with scenes playing that lead into the color theme for song 2. When song 2 starts I need the scenes to fade out (or dim out if that works) and leave only a single spot on the lead vocal (which will be a switch unless a scene would work better).

So, in this case what's the trick to make this transition smooth?

Well when you program a switch and you turn "Off" all the other channels that you do not want overridden by the switch it will leave the scene on but it will take the values active in the switch and put them on that scene temporarily until the switch is deactivated. make sense?
so you program a fade out by using two steps on the switch using easy step. Step one would be the dimmer channels you want on. Step two would be the dimmer channels you want off. simply add a fade time in the appropriate boxes you can see in the scene edit window.
here is a screen shot

If you have anymore questions or if i didnt elaborate on something let me know.
sincerely,

Sorry James, but I'm sure this is simple to you but I've never worked with Easy Step. So when creating a switch (or scene) for the first time there is a check box to select Easy Step.

1. I'm guessing I need to check the box so the new switch (or scene) will respond to Easy Step programming, correct?

2. It would seem that I would want to make this selection for ANY new scene (or switch) I create, correct?

Secondly, once in the page your showing in your last post, please take me step by step because I'm not sure what to do.

1. I noticed the page shows "Step 1". So do I turn them on/off by clicking the area that reads "off" and "Easy Step" (meaning that channel is turned ON, I guess) above the sliders.

2. What does the sliders do? Will I need to adjust these?

3. What does the far left section do, how does it relate?

4. How do I go to "Step 2"?

Sorry, but I'm totally new to Easy Step.

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

1) When you first get the chance to name your scene yes check link all functions to the easy step function.
2) i always select link to easy step function for any new scene or switch I create cause 98% of the time i will use easy step function tab.

1) if you turn them on and they just say on and not easy step then they will not respond to the easy step function. So you will need to leave easy step on. Also once you turn a specific channel on or off it stays that way no matter what step you are on in easy step. it's all steps or nothing for that.

2) the faders are your faders just like on any other console. Use these to assign a dmx value to that channel.

3) the big purple fader on the far left doesn't really do anything to my knowledge. i never use it. haha the easy step box with the blue icon which appears as the default icon above all the channels allows those channels to respond to the fade time that is set above in the fade and hold time boxes. if you assign a easy step box with a red line in it, that will make that channel not fade with the fade time selected. it will simply snap to the specified value after the fade is done. for example say i have to steps with some moving heads, step one is pointing at the ceiling and step two is pointing at the floor but say on step two i am using a different gobo. so i dont want the gobos to slowly fade through the wheel as it is moving from step one to step two. so i put the Red lined easy step box above all the gobo channels for my heads and they simply will snap to that gobo once the head settles into step two. Make sense? also the on/off is what you use to turn off the channels for recording switches. click on it and go over the easy step box above a channel and right click to turn that channel "Off".

4)in my pic i posted yesterday you see 4 small buttons. going from left to right the first one is a page with a curl in the upper right hand side of it with a small arrow pointing to the left. That is the new step button. you can also mouse over these buttons and they will tell you what the names are. so continuing on, the button with two pages is copy. it allows you to copy the current selected step. the next one is a scissors, it allows you to delete or "Cut" a step out. and finally the last button is a clip board, it allows you to paste a step that was I really do need to make a video on how to do this. haha! I'll try to find the time to do that sometime soon. So does that help?
Sincerely,

James, the video would probably be very useful. However, I think I understand everything accept where the 4 buttons are. I see the 3 buttons that are the copy, cut and paste buttons.

1. So I'm guessing we use the first button (with the little arrow) to toggle to the next step, correct?

2. In your pic example and in the section that reads "Step 1", at the right are two timers. What exactly does the top one do, and then the bottom one? I'm assuming the top one fades in and the bottom one fades out, correct?

1) that button simply create a new step in easy step. to go back and forth between steps you need to just click on them. but they will playback in order from first step to the last recorded step. make sense?

2) top one fades and bottom one holds that step for that amount of time before going to the next step.

Notice how the top one has a red line going up. and the bottom one has a steady red line. the going up line is fade and the steady is hold.
Got it?
Sincerely,

I tripped across the big purple fader on the far left of the EasyStep window the other day; like say if you want to set the tilt for several heads to 128 or 50%, you can set this fader to 128/50%, then click on the the box above the fader (in the picture, this box says either EasyStep or off) and it will change to a purple box with a percentage value

I guess this way you don't have to set each one individually, you can set the value once, then just select which channels will use it

I haven't actually found a use for it yet, though

question: is the on/off the correct way to have channels of a scene/switch not be effected by the scene/switch???

an example, off the top of my head, is a pseudo-random flash with moving heads; i.e. the heads are constantly in motion and occasionally they will flash, but when I setup the scene/switch for the flash, I don't want it to have any effect on the motion

Well first off i dont ever really use the purple fader or set my channels to correspond to the purple Box when you click on them. for me EASY Step all the way every scene. one way to set all like channels the same value at the same time is to hold down SHIFT key and then click on say like the pan or tilt or color or gobo etc and they will all move at the same time to the same value.

ok so the on/off. Really a scene needs to be all on mostly. but for the switch turn OFF any channel that you dont want overridden by the SCENE.
so for your example turn off the pan and tilt channels. and leave the rest. Also if you see something change that you dont want go back in and edit it. to quickly edit a scene or switch click on it and then hit CTRL+E.
Sincerely,

it was accidental that I used the purple percentage thing, clicked on it, moved it up and down and wondered what the heck it did, then went to set a channel to EasyStep but the purple fader was still active; haven't used it on-purpose, from the sound of it I probably never will

use SHIFT to change similar values at once, cool; I saw that being done in one of the YouTube video's but couldn't figure out how it was being done, thanks

CORRECTION: ALT+E edits the scene. CTRL will assign a hot key trigger of E. sorry.
Sincerely,