How do I control the initial colour of playbacks?

[Phil Mckerracher]

I'm an occasional user of a Leapfrog 48 desk at a small theatre in the UK, and I have a problem with the behaviour of playbacks (aka submasters) that has been bugging me for some time and I wonder if anyone can help.

The venue has a line of Chauvet Par-Hex 12 fixtures in the wings each side of the stage and in front of the proscenium that are very useful for colour effects in live dance shows. I program a range of colours into the playbacks and work them live during the show to change mood or pulse in time with the music (no time to program stacks of cues, the "dress rehearsal" is the first time I get access).

The issue I have is that as I bring up the playback fader, the colour changes from (dim) white at the bottom to the desired colour at 100%. I want it to be the same colour at the bottom as at the top, just dimmer. Like a conventional incandescent lamp with a filter in front of it.

For example, if I program R=100%, G=0%, B=0% I see a red light as expected when the fader is at 100% but when the fader is at 10% I see something like R=10%, G=10%, B=10% when what I expect is R = 10%, G=0%, B=0%. I hope that's clear.

How can I achieve this? I tried things like forcing everything to black, programming that then adding in just the red channel and programming that but it makes no difference. In fact none of the settings I have tried changing (including things like playback properties, tracking settings, HTP vs LTP, fade durations etc), have made any difference at all.

[kgallen]

There are several ways to avoid this I think. 

- Do a ‘go’ on the playback before raising the fader (where colour fade time is set to 0)

- Programme fixture defaults to black R=G=B=0 rather than white as they are in the library

https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/controlling-fixtures/defaults

- Programme a two cue playback where cue 1 sets your fixtures position colour etc then a second that fades them up. Probably this is the least convenient though!

Other users who busk more may have better suggestions but I didn’t want to leave your question unanswered for too long!

[Davidmk]

@kgallen is spot on with his suggestions, especially setting default to black - it would make sense for that to be the default for the default setting (@Jon Hole are you listening?) for all LED fixtures.

In addition, look up colour mixing here this is a good way to busk because it uses less faders, gives you control over fade times and is generally more versatile than one fader per colour.

Another approach is to record all your colours as cues in a stack (with colour fade times, say 2sec) and use goto cue to select them. This is what I do but it probably won't suit everybody as you have to remember the number for each colour. You could get over this by using OSC but that's a whole new skill to learn for an occasional user (not even sure you can do it on a Leapfrog).

[Phil Mckerracher]

Thanks, those suggestions are all interesting.

I'm not keen on the two-step processes (the first and third bullets) because they will will slow things down too much and be a bit error-prone. Also they're not reversible, I will still see colour changes on the way down.

Programming fixture defaults to R=G=B=0 is something I did try and it didn't seem to work. I tried various ways but none seemed to accept the zeros - the changes didn't "stick". It seems like the most promising approach though. Can I do this without affecting the desk for everyone else? The theatre has a "standard rig" and I don't want to disrupt that in any way. Will saving the setup to a USB stick before I make any changes then restoring it at the end achieve this?

I love the colour mixing idea and I will give it a try but the setup is a bit too complicated to just memorise and then implement, I'll need to print it out and wait for the opportunity to program it and have a play with it when I'm the only one in the theatre, which is rare.

I could play with it at home if I could see a simulation of the results as in the video, but I think getting that costs quite a bit of money, am I right?

[Phil Mckerracher]

7 hours ago, kgallen said:

- Programme fixture defaults to black R=G=B=0 rather than white as they are in the library

https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/controlling-fixtures/defaults

Has anyone actually tried this? I imagine it would result in the fixture not responding at all (by default) when intensity was raised above zero, which would be a bit of a problem. That's probably why it didn't seem to be accepted when I tried it.

[Davidmk]

15 hours ago, Phil Mckerracher said:

Has anyone actually tried this? I imagine it would result in the fixture not responding at all (by default) when intensity was raised above zero

It would look like that, any intensity of black is still black, however, if the fixture was previously given a colour then it would light up in that colour. Maybe change the default after you've done your colour set up.

I can assure you it does work, I do it all the time. Although, to be fair, I never use the channel faders, just ch @@ / record mff syntax.

When changing defaults (or Home) values you use record, not update which seems counter intuitive to me.

 

[Phil Mckerracher]

Good to know there's something that works, at least. My hunch is that setting the default to black would create more problems than it would solve, though.

To be honest, this feels like a bug. I'm quite happy with the default being white, or even warm white to match old incandescents if there are lots of those still in the mix. But this is not a "default" situation. I've told it exactly what colour I want and unexpectedly it's bringing other colours into the mix.

I realise that "adding" one colour to another or "multiplying" two colours isn't a simple thing. But in this case there's only one colour that matters.

I asked someone who is familiar with the board about this and they said they open the program window and scroll a long way to the right to find the fixtures concerned and adjust the starting colour there. It solved a problem I had in the main stack but I couldn't get it to work on a submaster and in any case it takes far too long to be a general solution, though useful to know.

[Davidmk]

Another thing you could check out is the playback settings. (Here in the manual.)

On the general tab, see if the fader action includes colour, try removing it (this is the default on FLX but maybe not on yours) and also look at the trigger level on the raise & lower tab and try setting it to 0% or 1%

[Phil Mckerracher]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't currently have access, but in the past I have tried all the fader action options one by one to see if they helped and none of them achieved what I'm asking for here.

Of course, the permutations and combinations are almost infinite so it's quite possible I have missed the magic combination. That's why I'm asking here.

[Davidmk]

Last shot then. Separate intensity from colour. Use either the channel faders or a sub master with only intensity recorded on it and then one or more faders without intensity for colour.

If you are using colour mixing then follow the instructions for that exactly.

If you are using one sub per colour or  subs with colour cues then set defaults to black (which you should only see with no subs up). Remove colour from fader actions so that the last will always take precedence and make sure the colour faders release on lower. Putting up an orange sub followed by a magenta one should result in full strength magenta as soon as that fader moves past 5% and back to orange as soon as it is lowered.