Whats Tracking

[Alan]

Hi

 

I didn't upgrade the last time as there seened to be some concern over 'tracking' and the fact that it coudn't be turned off. This seems to have been overcome in this version. I am not certain exactly what tracking is and how it will effect me and wondered if someone could explain it to me in straight forward way. I use the fat frog for local amateur musicals with the use of the occasional moving head (still learning this).

 

This leads to the next question of 'Why do some people dislike tracking so much?'

 

Last of all, there had been talk on the forum that 'Move when dark' would be added to the new version, this is obviously taking a bit more work, but I wondered if it was still on the cards?

 

Sorry if this seams a bit basic but I'm still new to it all!

 

Many Thanks

 

Alan

[Paul]

Tracking is described (with some nice pictures by Peter) in THIS TOPIC. It is useful if you have a series of scenes which build on the look from a start scene (e.g. start with a general wash, then in subsequent scenes introduce some specials/practicals). Then if you later want to make changes to the base scene, you only need to do them in one place, not in every scene that follows on from it as well.

 

Because each scene is then partial in nature (i.e. it only records the changed channels, not all the channels), unchanged channels in each scene are said to 'track' from previous scenes. When playing back a scene, the desk outputs all the tracked channels as well as the changed ones, to build up the complete look.

 

A bit of history on version 10...

 

Version 10.0-10.4 added individual parameter level programming capability to the Frog series. Without tracking, this can make using a traditional theatrical memory stack difficult, as the look of each memory could change depending on the running order of the cues. So in version 10.8 we added (compulsory) tracking, thinking everyone would see this as an improved way of working, with memories always looking the same, regardless of what order you ran them in.

 

However as it turned out, not everyone was using the memory stack in a traditional theatre style. Some users, particularly those involved with more live busking style operation, were using the memories as a collection of looks to recall at random. So for them, they wanted the partial memories, but not tracking. Hence in 10.9, tracking is now optional.

 

If you've not used tracking before, it's probably best not to dive in under pressure programming for a real show, but instead sit down with the desk and the release notes and go through it first to grasp the concepts. And definitely make sure you have a monitor connected so you can see what's going on.

 

Move-on-dark is fully implemented in the Leapfrog48/96 and Frog2 desks, and if we can find the time to add it to the original Frog series then we will. However you will understand that from a business perspective, supporting current products is always going to take priority over supporting a discontinued product range. It will cost us money to do it but won't increase sales - a difficult proposition to put to the owners of the company, we'll have to wheel out the old brand-image and customer-confidence arguments...