[Frogs and the Future ?]

Could it have some powerful hydraulic arms and legs so it could help unload the truck and do a bit or a lot of rigging and explain to the punter, who bitched about the price of hiring 2 Mac 250s, why it dosent look like Pink Floyd at Earls Court ( using those hydraulic arms preferably).

 

Joking aside sounds like a good board. Looking foward to its launch.

 

PS. Can it have USB so you can use one of those flash memory key ring devices or compact flash or multimedia cards, anything but floppy disk or PCMIA card

[Times appearing on Submasters]

Hi all,

Had a bit of a strange one yesterday when I booted up the desk, all the submasters (which I had transferred the memories to with "Transfer with no time") had all suddenly got the default 3 second fade up/down times and even the ones I transfered with times had also reverted to the default times. I have been running this particular show over the last 3 - 4 weeks, all programmed on OS 9.6 and no problems till now. I reloaded the memories to subs with the relevent times and no times and it worked fine ( although I lost all my submaster names. Is that normal?) I'll boot up the desk a bit later to see if it has done it again, (didnt get to bed till 6.00am this morning.) Has any one else experienced this? Any Ideas?

[Software Update - problems installing it]

Hi Andy,

I had the same problem with my three desks ( 2 Leap Frogs and a Fat Frog) they would not load the new software 9.6 no matter how many new floppys, formatting or unzipping options I used ( see Bug Reports " OS wont upgrade" ) but KWR88 at Zero88 was able to help me out.

[Software Update - problems installing it]

Hi all,

I seem to be having a problem upgrading my desks from 9.2 to 9.6.

None of them appear to recognise the new file. I've used an entire box of new floppys, I've tried them formatted as they come out of the box, reformatted them on the PC and formatted them in the desk itself. I've tried unzipping the download file to a seperate folder and copying the 3 files to floppy, saveing the files to floppy and even unzipping directly to floppy and each time I put the disk in the desk and power up I get the "Searching for uprade" message and some times the "Reading disk"

(1% to 100%) message, then the desk just boots up with 9.2 OS and all the previous show info. Some of the disks had fixture files on them and just to test I tried assigning fixtures fom floppy and the desks all read them perfectly. Any ideas?

['Beat' Chases on submasters]

Hi SP,

When you selected the beat chase did you make sure that the leds for both "Bass" & "Man" were on, as there were only the four drive options before the latest soft ware upgrade and to signify that "beat" has been selected both these leds must be on. If you only had the "Bass" selected then you would need a signal from a sound source connected to the desk in order for the chase to run and this might explain why you chase stayed on step 1 when you ran it on a sub

[Problem With Effects Generator]

Hi,

No none of the memories I programmed referenced any pallets but I will contact the chap who was using the desk and check with him if he was using position pallets. I imagine he would have been as he did say he had abot 100 cues in his show.

[Problem With Effects Generator]

Hi,

Unfortunately the desk was wiped when returned so I cant send you a show file but perhaps RAW can. When I done my test, one thing I did not do was to put a shape on a pallet and associate it with a memory. Iwill try that later on today if I get a chance. The other thing I did not do was add any generic channels into the scenes but I fail to see why that would cause it to happen.

[Problem With Effects Generator]

Hi all,

I was about to post the same report myself. A fellow from another lighting company subhired one of our frogs last week and when he brought it back on Saturday he said he had the exact same problem not only with our Fat Frog but his own one as well. I set up the desk and a coulpe of Macs in the warehouse and prgrammed about 10 static cues and 2 with shapes on them. I put them on submasters and ran them I also used the cue stack with the Go button and every thing seemed fine, I even turned the desk off and left it for a while, when I turned it back on later it still worked fine. I could not get the error to repeat itself so I put it down to pilot error but now that somebody else has expirienced the same problem I am not so sure.

[Programming snowfall]

Hi all,

I presume you are talking about running some breakup or dot pattern gobos down your backdrop or cyc to simulate the snow falling. To achieve a continuous effect will be pretty hard but if you were to write a chase with the first step using half the fixtures at the top of the backdrop or above at 100% brightness. Step 2 move these to the bottom of backdrop. Step 3 set these fixtures to 0% brightness and the other half of your fixtures to 100% brightness at the top or above the backdrop. Step 4 move these lamps to the bottom of the backdrop and the the 0% ones back to the top and just continue this cycle for a few steps possibably setting the attack modifier to "soft on / hard off". You will have to experiment with this for awhile to get close to the effect you are looking for.

[Frog screen; what is it!?]

Hi all,

This is very interesting as it may be an answer to one of my dilemas.

First of all can I fit this SMPTE/MIDI/CAN kit myself or will I have to return my desks to you to have it fitted and how much (for either option).

Secondly if I can connect a Frog Screen to a Leap Frog say, does that mean I could use the submasters for stage lighting (the band) and the Frog Screen to run dance floor lighting (the punters) at the same time?

This would be great as alot of the corporate functions we do follow this format and that usually means I have to use the first 4 subs for generics, the second 4 for stage movers and the last 4 for dance floor/Disco programs. This can be a bit limiting at times. To be able to access the dance floor lighting separately and leave all the subs for stage use, ah heaven. Ok I could run the Disco stuff off the cue stack with the Go button but sometimes by the time you find the cue your looking for the moment is gone. The other thing is I could give the Frog Screen to another crew member and let them run the dance floor lighting leaving me to do the band (much more interesting,sometimes).

I suppose I could always buy a Mambo Frog but that I think may be a tad more expensive.

[Zero88 Keyboard]

Well it was St Patricks Day and the gravitational field around the pub proved to almost impossible to break free from, escape velocity only being reached at closing time. Any way I supose a simple cardboard overlay would do the job ok. My original point was though, that there are a fixed number of buttons on the desks ( ok a lot more on the Mambo) to program with and as more features are add or upgraded it becomes a case of "press and hold x then select y and headbutt z" and as always happens the last person to have used the desk has taken the copy manuel and release notes home for a read, you're at a gig and there is someone asking you can you make the lights do this or that and you are trying to remember all the different combinations a single keystroke to access certain features would make life easier. I think you had a forum as to whether you should implement features accessible only via keyboard and screen. Perhaps this is all Frog 2 territory and my Frogs still manage to do the show.

 

 

Oh yes, the Swiss bankers were very disappointed

[Zero88 Keyboard]

Hi, after reading Raw Lighting Power's wish list I was thinking what if you were to design and market a custom keyboard add on for the Frog Range ie. instead of a standard PC keyboard you made one with the "qwerty" keys, the numeric pad but replaced all the function keys, tilde, Ctrl etc. with relevent things like Channel + and -, thru and @ and maybe a few others, surely would this help implement future upgrades as this would eliminate you having to use multiple button pushes to access new functions and if priced right would fund or help toward the costs of future software upgrade (we dont all want something for nothing). Of course this all hinges on whether or not the desk or processor is capable of such things. How far can the Frog Leap?

 

 

 

PS. If this works my Swiss bank acc no is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Chases]

We have a couple of Q Commanders and that is the way their chase system works, I would imagine that the Frog range of desks would be able to do this and a lot more. I know you can do this with the cue stack using auto triggers and jumps but that is more suited to experienced users. Somtimes as I recently experienced just to be able to push up a sub master is more suitable for a client who has no knowledge of lighting desks or equipment and just needs an effect to run, usually as there is no bugdet to have an opperator there.

[Chases]

Hi all! I have 3 Frog desks as hire stock (Fat & Leap) and so far I have been happy with them, bar the live chase speed edit issue but with the latest software upgrade all is right again. I was wondering if it would be possible to have individual fade and wait times on each step or even just wait times.