How to keep track of the scenes/chases?

I have the DMX Operator as well, and right as I was about to get serious into programming it, I developed spreadsheets and RGB value charts(for working with my RGB gel'ed Par38's). I had a few intels at a time, a pair of color washes, a pair of movers and 4 color-wheel wash fixtures. All my other fixtures were high-tech FX-types running off dimmer and switcher packs.

I made another spreadsheet to keep track of everything. I think it was rather simple for the print out version:
Bank Number Description

With dark boxes around each bank and a bigger bank title above it.

I also had other pages that were documenting values for each channel. In the unlikely event I blew out my DMX Operator, I could "rebuild it". It came down to a page per scene, and so with a master list page(which pulled its name from the other pages, as they had a descriptor area), it became rather intimidating but it remained logical.


But, right after I decided to start programming it, I bought 8 ADJ 64 LED Pros and realized that the DMX Operator wasn't going to work well with where I was going. I wanted to start doing more complex stuff. So I bought ADJ's MyDMX product.

I'm now using Elation's Compu Show product. Totally different beasts, both have a place in my rig.

I may some day get back to programming it.

Hi Chris,

Thanks so much for getting back to me! I came up with a spreadsheet that breaks down the banks into scenes and the scenes into fixtures that seems to work very well.

I haven't been working on this project for the last little bit but I picked it up today and I was wondering, are there only 6 chases total?
I know there are only 8 scene buttons but there are 30 banks that you can program 8 scenes each into and I wanted to know if that was true of the chases as well. I have looked in the manual and as far as I can tell there are only 6 that I can use.

I know you can run whole banks of scenes but I need to have control over which scenes are running and they can't be programmed in the banks in the order that I would want to play them.

Thanks very much!!

Diana

I couldn't find my old notes. So, glad you came up with your own! Since my DMX Operator is not in active production these days, it sits safe and secure in a rack, just waiting for me to bring it back to life.

(on the plus side, having an Elation SD+ interface, MyDMX interface and the DMX Operator, I can handle 3 lighting jobs at once!)

There are only 6 chases in the DMX operator. This is not like the scenes that are organized into 30 banks of 8 scenes each. There is just one set of 6 chases. Each chase can have I think 240 steps, using ANY scenes, and in any order of YOUR choosing(including re-using the same scene again and again if you want). But, here's the deal, you don't get total control. It will start at the beginning, then run through each steps based on either the sound to chase using the internal microphone, or else via timing using the fader settings, and/or a combination of both(chase to move between scenes, but a X-fade setting to determine how long to X-fade between scenes).

So, according to your description, where you claim you want control over the order the scenes run in within your chase program, the answer is most absolutely yes, it does in fact work that way.

Thanks so much Chris! I've got everything working the way I want it to and I'm having a blast now that I know what I'm doing!


Diana