Console selection help

Goldtop
If you do a search for “Hobson” in this forum [you might check at the ADJ forum as well] you will find that I have written much about the Magic 260. I’m a keyboard player in a band and run the light show with the M260. I use midi triggers most of the time, but also have the console within reach so that I can hit the buttons when that works better. I use a FCB1010 and triggers on my keyboard, but for what I do with the M260, that is not enough. I have to punch buttons as well.
The FCB1010 is not the complete answer for me because for all practical purposes it is stuck on one midi channel all night. With one midi channel you can trigger either 72 “Scenes” or 24 “Shows.” A Scene is a static light setting, i.e., you set the color, macro, strobe, etc. and brightness of each light on the stage and save the result. Nothing changes while a scene is playing, but you can have lights strobing or going through chases built into the lights – but they will stay strobing or chasing the same way the entire time the scene is playing if you do. The M260 makes setting up and saving scenes fairly simple.
For me, strobing lights and built in chases are too busy for most situations, but static scenes are too boring. So I like to use Shows so that I can get the lights go back and forth between two, somewhat different Scenes. Sometime I have them slowly fade from one Scene to the next, and other times they pop from one Scene to the next, either in tempo (using tap tempo) or with Sound (with is an option on the M260). During a song’s verses I’ll use one Show, during the chorus I’ll use a second Show, and during solos I’ll use another Show that highlights the musician playing the lead. On some songs I might use only one Show but on some songs I use four Shows. For an entire gig, that can be a lot of Shows. [Note also that the way you get moving lights to move is to set them to shine at one spot in one Scene and a different spot in the next Scene, and you use a “Show” to cause the change from one Scene to the next happen. This requires you to use Shows instead of Scenes.]
You might think that using many Shows is not a problem because the M260 can save up to 288 Shows. That is true if you’ve got a light guy who can sit at the console and punch the buttons. The problem arises, however, if you want to trigger more than 24 Shows with a foot controller. The 288 Shows are spread out on 12 “Pages” (with 24 Shows on each Page). If, for example, you want to trigger the forth Show on Page 1, you would send Note 98 on midi channel 1. An FCB1010 can handle that in a snap – you set the FCB1010’s note sender to Channel 1 and program Note 98 to one of the patches. But if you need to get at more than 24 Shows you will have to “turn the Page,” so to speak. For example if you’ve saved Shows on Pages 1 and 2 of the M260, you would have to send note signals on channel 2 to get to the Shows stored on Page 2. The FCB1010 won’t switch note signals from one midi channel to another on the fly. I am not aware of a foot controller that will give you the flexibility to send note signals on multiple channels.
Fortunately I’ve got a Korg M50 keyboard that has “Chord Trigger” buttons within very easy reach with my left hand. With these buttons I can send midi note messages on any channel I want. So each song can have four different light Shows within very easy reach. On songs for which I want multiple light Shows, I program the first button to be the Verse light setting, the second button to be the Chorus and the other two buttons for leads. On songs with just one light setting, I let the FCB1010 do the light setting.
I don’t know much about the Operator 192, but I’d recommend you not consider it if it requires you to zero out the faders before programming the next fixture like so many cheaper consoles do. That would be a colossal time consumer if you are going to do any serious programming – which you will have to do if you ever go to moving heads – and which I recommend you do even with the lights you’ve already got.
BTW: The first M260 I got was full of bugs and very unstable. It had to be returned and Fed Ex delivered the replacement this morning. I am assured by Elation that buggy M260s are extremely rare and they sell many of them. I did use it long enough to know that if I can get a stable one, it is an awesome console.

Thanks for the response. Excellent advice too.

You're doing pretty much the same thing we want to do. I might use a chase to open Purple Haze (for example), where I set up a color chase across a set of LED pars, but we won't be using chases much otherwise. Might use a strobe in audio mode at the end of the song, when the drummer beats the snare to conclude the song. These are effects to be used sporadically during a night.

What we want to do is program a song as a set of scenes (intro, verse, chorus, solo, etc). Some songs may stay one color throughout the whole song. Others may color fade between a verse scene and a chorus scene. We have color changers, that's whats cool about them - they fade/snap to change colors. Regular par cans don't do that.

If I can find a MIDI footswitch that allows me to program notes or macros (i.e., series of notes) to each patch, the footswitch then contains the set list, and the console contains the memorized scenes/chases to be recalled during the sets. Simple enough concept - a fancy "go" button through a preprogrammed set list, which is what I really wanted in the first place.

I can live with a single MIDI channel and the limitations (i.e., partial addressability of scenes), provided the console can be loaded with the next set. A set is ten to twelve songs - that fits within the limits. A night is four sets, which does not. If I load the next set during break, then we're golden.

I'm not sure I follow you on the issue of zeroing faders before programming the next fixture.

I like your "fancy go switch" idea. Let me know what kind of midi controller you choose. The FCB1010 would do the trick.

I also think your idea of loading a new set of scenes every break will work (although I wouldn't want to hassle with that at a gig).

I've got a couple of fairly inexpensive ADJ Aggressor LEDs that I aim at the audience and plug it's power into a DP-415. I use the Auxiliary Buttons on the M260 to turn them on during leads. You could either do that if anyone in the band has a hand free from time to time, or have it come on when you hit one of your go buttons.

I too have the lights go crazy during the massive drum rolls at the end of songs. I've written that up on the forum in another post.

As to zeroing out faders. On some consoles you will record scenes by sliding a series of faders to certain from zero up to where you want each light in the scene to be. Then you save the scene. I've read that if you want to save another scene, you have to slide all the sliders to zero and then set up another scene. See page 13 of this: http://www.box.net/shared/hl7oxy4bd6
With the M260 you don't have to slide everything back to zero. You just tweak the few things you want different in the next scene and then save. Somehow I have it in the back of my head - and it may be wrong - that the Operator Pro is like that. I don't have anything in my head about the Operator 192. Just make sure you don't get a controller that requires that.

Someone from Elation want to comment on that? I have to admit that it would be frustrating as hell to have to zero out faders before selecting the next fixture to program.

A fader has an absolute position (unlike a simple rotary encoder), so the firmware should be capable of reading an A/D value and setting the parameter, whatever value it happens to be. Should be no need to zero out anything. It does necessarily mean, however, that the next fixture selected gets identical (+/- 1 LSB) values as the previously selected fixture, but that's ok.

Would be good to know, since the difference between a Magic-260 and Operator-192 appears to be about $350, and it seems either would do otherwise.

I read that paper early on. Extremely useful. Thanks.

I took a quick look at the specs on the Operator 192. I couldn't tell anything about the zeroing out issue.

But as best I can tell it doesn't do Shows; it only does scenes. Like I said earlier, I think static scenes are pretty boring.

You would have to do a riverdance number on your foot controller to get much action out of hte lights. IMO you wouldn't be happy with the O192 for long - if ever.

BTW: The Operator Pro doesn't appear to have Shows either.

In the long run, you'd be much happier with the M260 if you've got the time and inclination to program it to do what you want, it can do it.

Hobson

... and Riverdance is precisely what I'm trying to avoid.

I'm going to call Elation now and see if I can get a couple of these questions answered. We'll see how that goes. Never tried to call them before.

outta curiosity.. did you get to call in?