Davidmk

There are probably more busking tricks than there are people in this forum but a, non-exhaustive, list might include... Only use playbacks for the intensities of fixture groups, do the rest in the programmer. Practically limitless but difficult to keep track. Look up programmer time if you go down this route. Whether using the programmer or not, use palletes for LED colours, positions, beam & shape. Much easier to amend and makes them easy to apply when busking in the programmer. Record cue stacks and use go cue no. (hold the go button, type cue no. - on an external keyboard since it is S series - release the go button). Economical with playbacks but looking up the cue no. takes time does mean you can go from one cue directly to the next. It's in the manual with S48 selected but the text only refers to FLX so not sure it works @Edward Z88 will advise I'm sure. Use colour mixing for LEDs. Always a good choice but don't try to use playbacks or programmer for LED colours if you've set up colour mixing. Don't record full "looks", instead for (e.g) moving heads have some beam, shape, position & effect options on different playbacks so you can mix & match. Don't forget you can have playbacks that control a single parameter (like pan, tilt, zoom, etc.). Get into OSC sooner rather than later. I used to use midi (on FLX) but OSC is more flexible, uses less playbacks and available on S series. If you want more help with OSC contact me by DM. There are remote switches on FLX but these can also be triggered by ctrl/F1 to ctrl/F8 on the keyboard. These don't appear in the S48 manual so not sure if you have them or not. Again @Edward Z88 will advise. All I can think of quickly but I'm sure you will get other's offering their take on the subject. My own set up uses 18 playbacks as follows... 1 thru 6 contain cues setting LED PARs fixtures grouped by location and odd/even to one of 13 colours. 7 is the same 13 colours but for a small number of LED moving head washes. 8 thru 10 are positions, zoom settings and P/T effects for these mh washes. 11 is colour wheel settings for DS (non LED) moving heads, 12, 13 & 14 positions, gobo & P/T effects for these fixtures. 15 thru 18 are the colours, gobos, positions & effects US non LED mh's On another page I have the intensities for all the above fixtures, grouped similarly and a few LED colour effects like rainbow and sparkle. Finally, a tablet running TouchOSC (full one, not MK1) and a control surface I designed and coded myself to trigger the cues. This is customisable and I am willing to share it with a few people (because I couldn't support a big userbase). I'd have to write a user manual though. Have fun!

Because I had a fixture that responded to the house desk but not my FLX. Fixture showing "no DMX" error even though my tester said there was a signal, no errors or "flicker", with appropriate values at the fixture address. Fixture has worked with FLX many times in the past (last Sunday in particular). Anyway, after trying the house desk I reconnected the FLX and it worked on that as well. Trying a different frame rate would have been the next option. Facilities mgr reckons it's the Halloween effect (which is no more illogical).

Quick question... Is it possible to change the frame rate of the DMX outputs (without resorting to Delta transmission)?

Try starting the console in test mode (see manual here) in case it is a hardware error.

I am an FLX user but a quick check in the manual for S24 suggests that, if you have an external keyboard attached, you can hold down the Go button and type the cue number you want. When you release the Go button the cue should execute. I'm sure @Edward Z88 will come back pretty quickly if I am wrong about this working on S24. See manual here (for external keyboard) and here (for Go to cue). Personally I find this easier (if you know the cue number you want).

OK. Well, I'm guessing here, but it looks like you have the position recorded in your playbacks along with the colour and intensity. When you put the fader up the fixtures move to that position, when you bring it down the fixtures are released and so they go back to the default position (which is probably the same as Home). Firstly, does it matter how the fixtures are positioned if the intensity is zero? If it is the movement when you bring the faders up that is bothering you then try changing the trigger level or press the Go button on the playback before raising the fader. If that doesn't work for you then there's more than one way out of it but first you need to remove the position information from your playbacks. You can do this with update/remove or by just deleting them and recording them again without pan/tilt parameters. If you only need the fixtures in one position you could set that position as the default. Another option is to record the position on another playback and keep that up. There's also the option to disable Release on Lower but this will keep the colour as well - at least until it is overridden by another playback. Or, you could wait until the Z88 people give you a more authoritative response - I'm an FLX user and often recommend solutions only available on that console (I have checked the S48 manual this time though.)

I don't think you've done anything wrong but you seem to have recorded something you didn't mean to. What would you like to happen as you raise and lower the fader? Is it that they change colour and come on (on raise) and revert to the original colour and go off (on lower)?

How big is the lag? Can it be explained by a combination of dimmer curves and heating up (of lamp filaments) Check the dimmer levels on the fader screen.

Could speed override (see manual here) help? There's also Pause, here.

Hi @Amy Worrall @kgallen @Edward Z88 I love threads like this, I always learn something. In this case, more than I contributed 😀. Thanks all.

That's the great thing about it, you have a choice!

@kgallen I'm a busker but, call me old fashioned, I keep it off for cue stacks because I'm used to working that way.

@kgallen already gave one answer but there are other options. Read about blind mode here and cue editing here. There's also a save as CSV option, you can open the resulting file in a spreadsheet. It's not easy to read but it shows everything in every cue in a single playback.

From the manual... If any of the selected fixtures are not actually programmed in the applied palette, but there are one or more fixtures of the same type that are programmed, the fixture will use the values programmed for the first fixture of the same type. So, I presume all ZerOS pallettes are "by-type".

@kgallen is right I think. Only way I know anyway, you tap the time you want to change, hit ENTER, type the new time, ENTER again and then DOWN (the arrow key) for the next cue. Remember you have multiple fade times, not just intensity - best to do a column at a time rather than all the times on each cue in turn - less key strokes.

Hi @kgallen. This will remove that fixture from the cue entirely. If that's not what you want then just select the parameters you want (or do "thing") and then update remove instead. Or do HOME and un-tag the ones you want to keep. The values are irrelevant by the way - its the selection that matters.

Check the manual here. I'm an FLX user but I think this applies to FLX S as well.

Just wondering if anyone else has been writing scripts in TouchOSC Mk2. I've been playing with it for a few weeks now and I'm getting close to a finished busking interface for FLX (S) that is customisable (without changing the code) that you can operate from a tablet or a laptop. It also accepts MIDI over USB if you were using MIDI already and like physical controls. Its not ready for sharing yet but, while I still have a tenuous grip on my sanity, thought I'd see if anyone else is fighting lua who might like to share experiences and ideas. PM me if you are interested or have any tips on remaining sane while coding.

Originally I was but then I used search. So does that mean FLX S users need to set date and time whenever the desk is turned on?

The manual doesn't actually mention date & time adjustment but if you go to setup ->settings I think you should be able to correct the system date and time. My first thought was that you need to replace the battery but the thread FLX48S Battery has a post from @Edward Z88 explicitly stating that FLX S does NOT have a battery so it isn't that

Well, first look at "fader controls" here in the manual which should help with what you propose. I use this all the time to control combinations of pan/tilt/zoom/focus when busking. However, don't rule out cue stacks, especially now we have OSC (I believe it is available on FLX S). IMHO, these are better for colours and probably for gobos because you don't have to fade through unwanted values to get what you want. They are especially easy to use with /zeros/cue/go OSC commands (I've been doing it in Beta test). You need something like Hexler TouchOSC MK1 running on a tablet or laptop on a network with the desk to send the commands (PM me if you need more help with that). I've been doing this with MIDI for ages but OSC will make it much simpler.

You are not alone. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. 😀

Ditto. I generally want to record just intensity or everything else but intensity so SmartTag is a nuisance. I don't think I'm super-human (but I'm not disputing @Edward Z88's powers). It's probably because I'm not that I find myself baffled by SmartTag, Cue Only & Move On Dark. I've only done one show "on the button". I got through it but it was a mess. If/when I do another one I'll have to do some homework.

Yes, pretty much. Start from a problem (or something people want to do) and do a step by step guide. I still think flowcharts are good. Like "here's the steps" in order, with alternatives then link out to how. Not particularly relevant to your example though.

PS I've been up all night trying to write scripts for TouchOSC. I've been a programmer all my adult life but I've struggled with this. The Hexler manual doesn't help much, it assumes you know Lua. The Lua manual is better but I still don't know how to implement a multi-dimensional array. Making progress though.