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.

[Phil Mckerracher]

Lots of interesting stuff, but no-one has really answered the original question. Is there really no way of programming a submaster so that it stays the same colour all the way up? It seems like such an obvious thing to want to do.

[kgallen]

If your fader is NOT set to control colour then the colour will trigger at 5% (configurable) of the fader. On the way down when you get to fader 0 the fader will no longer control colour (or anything) and will release control to some other cue or playback unless you disable Release on Lower. You get at these settings with Setup+Playback button. 
 

[Davidmk]

Colours will fade if...

1. There is a colour fade time on the cue or
2. Fader actions include colour

Otherwise they should snap.

You will see the previous (or default) colour when you first move the fader off zero if the trigger level is higher than the intensity level that actually produces visible light or the intensity is already at or above the visible level on another sub.

Most of us buskers do not want colours to snap so the knowledge is mostly about how to avoid it. We are pointing you to the things we use to get fades and telling you to turn them off. You are also getting advice from FLX users, not Leapfrog and it's just possible ZerOS has Leapfrog specific quirks we don't know about.

You could try clearing the desk and starting a new show file from scratch if you've been messing with it for a while as you might have something lurking from a previous experiment.

[kgallen]

A couple of videos that might be of use:

 

 

 

as @Davidmk says, we’re both FLX users but I hope the main (and only) translation you need to do from us is the name and presence or absence of specific console keys. I’ve been looking at Orb and Frog2 recently which are pretty old consoles and they are very close to what I get on my FLX.

 

[kgallen]

Edit: Sorry I see @Davidmk already said exactly this about half way down! The perils of replying on a phone!
 

Just re-reading your original post. Sorry if we’ve already said this above but it seems the fader might be configured fader-controls-colour if you are seeing that graduated colour change across the fader range. Default operation would be the colour would snap at about 5% of fader. Don’t set the fader to ‘controls colour’ in the playback setup leave it at default (controls intensity) and maybe change the trigger threshold down to say 2% (but you’ll have to make very sure your faders don’t get accidentally nudged just off 0 otherwise that playback is now controlling colour!).

 

[Phil Mckerracher]

The default "snap" behaviour of colour is probably the designer's intended answer to this conundrum, especially in the situation where we're not starting from black and something else had control. But the snap looks awful and I really want to avoid that, and hence I would indeed normally configure fader-controls-colour. That's really what I want, it's just the default colour that's the issue.

From a philosophical point of view, I should probably reconfigure all the LED fixtures so their default colour is black rather than white. Then if I bring up the intensity and nothing happens it's simply my fault for not telling the board what colour I want yet. Typically my very next step would be to adjust the colour anyway so it might not be too bad. I think I'll try that when I next get access (if I have time). My memory is that the board wouldn't accept that but I'd settle for a dim grey.

From a practical point of view it's yet another thing that can stop a light coming on unexpectedly, and there are already enough of those. And other users of the board might object to such a change. I'll see how it goes.

[kgallen]

I will confess at the outset that sometimes this same issue ‘annoys’ me. But it’s my fault not the console’s. The console can’t make the fixture ‘the colour I programmed’ until I tell it to enact that operation - either by pressing go or raising the fader to trigger when the console then ‘thinks’ ok I now need to perform that colour instruction. 
 

The colour isn’t sitting there on the fixture ready for the intensity to rise. That’s because that fixture can be controlled by a whole host of sources - other playbacks or cues, the programmer, incoming instructions over MIDI or OSC. This is the nature of the more advanced controls we’re using these days. It’s no longer ‘fader per channel’ where we might set an RGB value on a bunch of faders then move the intensity fader up when we want to ‘go’ and voila the colour is just there. 
 

I guess you might have a whole bunch of submasters (single cue playbacks) with a whole range of colour mixes for those fixtures. One red one pink one blue etc; the console can’t read your mind which you’re going to fire next and hence which should take control of the fixture. You might be on red, then want to fire the blue (without dropping the red intensity). I presume you want blue and not magenta in which case on fader move the console is going to have to snap to blue - and this is LTP. Conversely the intensity is HTP so that ‘red’ playback is still holding the intensity until your ‘blue’ fader reaches it.

To meet your requirements the console needs to be ‘told’ you want to trigger the new colour. I think in this application it’s either press the playback go or set the fader trigger threshold very low (1-2%) and be very careful not to nudge those set as such. 

[Phil Mckerracher]

Well, this comes back to my earlier point about "what does it mean to add or multiply a colour?".  In your example where I'm effectively cross-fading from red to blue I think an intermediate magenta is actually the best option. It seems preferable in this situation to other alternatives like white or a dip to black, or a snap. I don't want green appearing in the mix and I don't want sudden changes that don't correspond to my slow fader movements. Those are just artifacts.

Of course, there are situations where this is undesirable or impossible and a snap is better (physical moves and so on). That's why it's all configurable. My problem is I can't find a way to configure it!

[kgallen]

If you really did want magenta then you need to either:

- programme with colour parameters separate (colours usually record as all colour parameters together)

- set fader controls colour, which brings us right back to the beginning again in that you don’t want colours to cross fade

You shouldn’t get green unless green is a component of one of the colours you fade from or too. However LEDs can be a bit weird in that at some mixes, one colour emitter can dominate. This could be in part due to how the brain interprets colours - and I realise the ‘green’ was just an example.

 

 

 

[Phil Mckerracher]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I do want colours to cross fade in general, along with intensity. Like old-fashioned incandescent lamps with gels in front. If you cross-faded a red incandescent lamp and a blue lamp you would see magenta during the transition. That's fine by me.

I was trying to keep it simple by just talking about a single fader coming up from nothing to full. In that case I observe that the colour changes on LED fixtures (but not incandescent ones). I never requested that and I don't want it. The green LEDs in the device grow increasingly in intensity and then reduce again as the fader reaches full strength, as commanded by DMX. Nothing to do with non-linear LEDs or brain interpretation. Kind of bizarre, when you think about it. Certainly unexpected.

When I say "I never requested it", the default white colour has been set by someone at some stage (perhaps the profile supplied by Chauvet, the factory default of the board, a Zeros update, or a previous user at the theatre), and of course the board doesn't know or care who it was. They may have done this for good reasons. I want to change that configuration (effectively make the starting colour black rather than white, in this particular situation) and understand the implications. So far I have failed.

I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.

[Davidmk]

21 hours ago, kgallen said:

You shouldn’t get green unless green is a component of one of the colours you fade from or too

As @kgallen says, you will only get green if green is a component of the incoming or outgoing colour. Green is a component of white so, if you have a default of white and fade from nothing set by you to magenta you will see it.

20 hours ago, Phil Mckerracher said:

When I say "I never requested it", the default white colour has been set by someone at some stage

The default default is the Home colour which is, pretty much always, white (given what Home is for). I suspect the reason for this is the lack of an obvious and consistent, alternative. IMHO it should be black and I always change it to that. You can change it, it does work. Select all your colour mixing fixtures, set them all to R=G=B=0, and (on FLX) press Record (not Update), press Home and select Default on the screen.

Mixing between colours works fine in a cue stack, it's only as good as you are when done manually. Either way you can get unwanted intermediate colours. Yellow to Magenta will go via a mucky White for example when the incoming Blue and Red matches the outgoing Green. and Red. In a cue stack you could fade Yellow to Red with a follow on cue going from Red to Magenta but that would be inconvenient

to do manually.

If you want total control of the change from one colour to another then RGB mixing on faders is probably the way to go.

On 10/27/2024 at 9:15 AM, Davidmk said:

look up colour mixing here

 

20 hours ago, Phil Mckerracher said:

Kind of bizarre, when you think about it. Certainly unexpected.

Really thinking about it...

Fader controlling intensity and colour R=255 G=B=0, default colour R=G=B=255, trigger level 5%, fixtures not currently controlled by anything else.

• Fader @4% (below trigger level) gives I=10, R=10, G=B=10 (dim White)
• Fader @10% gives I=25, R=25, G & B are more complicated, they are reduced by 10% because you are 10% through a change from 255 to 0 but they are at 10% of that so G=B=23 that's 255 minus 10% all @10%. Sort of a dim, pale red?
• Fader @50% I=127, R=127, G=B=(255-(255x50%))x50%=127 (brighter pale Red)
• Fader @90% I=230, R=230, G=B=(255-(255x90%))=23 (bright, almost Red)
• Fader @100% I=255, R=255, G=B=0

With a starting colour of black, G=B=0 throughout. With a Magenta fader a.ready @100% B as above, G=0 throughout.

Edit: On reflection, I'm not sure I've got the sums right above. Nevertheless the outcome is similar.

Edited November 3 by Davidmk
Correction/addendum

[Phil Mckerracher]

We've come back to the title of this thread, which was "How do I control the initial colour of playbacks?". It looks like the answer is essentially to use the HOME key to edit the fixtures, a key I wasn't aware of (because it's literally invisible in the documentation and the simulator). I haven't verified this yet but it looks hopeful.

Thanks everyone, I've learnt a lot of incidental stuff as well.