Questions about LF 96 and how to program it?

[chrisg]

Hi,

 

Next weekend I'm going into a venue, with a local drama group, that has a leap frog 96.

 

Our primary usage is for non-moving heads, majority are fixed lights provided by the venue, but we also hire in some RGB LEDs as well (I think we hired scrollers the year I tried to use the leap-frog)

 

One of the items I've had to keep hiring in is a lighting board, as the one occasion I tried to use the leap-frog 96 it turned into a painful experience, requiring every lighting cue be rechecked using the pc software (which was very time consuming)

 

I suspect the board is far more advanced than I need, and I'm used to simpler boards. I'm wondering if there's a way to dumb the leap-frog down? I think the software at the time might have been v4 on the board, and v5 on the pc.

 

I don't think I've any fancy requirements of the board, just turn light levels up and down that's about it, no chases, no moving heads, and store them in cues.

 

I just couldn't get the board to work in a sane way to do this, and even knowing something about how the board works (the tracking thing) makes me dread having to use it. Note this could just be my mind-set and how I'm used to boards working.

 

So my normal method is patching to bring related dimmers together.

 

I'd then put some of the lights onto the sub masters, eg so FoH spots for up and down stage are on subs etc, but still able to pull out the SL, SR individually when needed. Along with up and down stage warm/cold washes. Same with RGB Leds, I tend to put related LEDs onto RGB sub-masters and mix the colour that way (probably not the best way)

 

I then use the sub-masters (with one or two manual channels) to build a scene. I'll then record the scene into a cue.

 

Hopefully these are simple needs (or I'm just doing it wrong for how the board should be used?)

 

The two main issues I had with the board were around recording cues. I just want one cuelist to run from the start to the end of the show, but allow me to insert and adjust existing cues. The two issues that still stand out 3 years later are:

* Submaster controlled lights weren't recorded into the cues - that was fun to find out 30 minutes into a tech that very little had been recorded.

* Inserting/adding any cues (even a basic black-out) would trash the subsequent lighting until the next full blackout. I think this is something to do with tracking?

 

Because of this I ended up having to bring home the board files to then manually edit in the PC software to fix up the places things had been inserted, which was a pretty time consuming thing to do.

 

I'm wondering has the software improved on these areas? IE could I save money and not hire in an alternate board, and use the leap-frog board (possibly with a firmware update)?

 

IE have 3 years of updates perhaps fixed these problems? Or am I working the board in the wrong way?

 

Thanks,

Chris

[Jon Hole]

Hi Chris,

 

* Submaster controlled lights weren't recorded into the cues - that was fun to find out 30 minutes into a tech that very little had been recorded.

Press 'Special' and then on the Multi Function Keys (MFKs - the 20 buttons and LCDs on the right hand side) click 'Smart Tag'. This will make sure you're always recording the output of the desk.

* Inserting/adding any cues (even a basic black-out) would trash the subsequent lighting until the next full blackout. I think this is something to do with tracking?

 

In 'Special' press 'Cue Only', this will make sure any updates or inserts that you make don't affect any cues further down your cue stack.

 

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

 

Best regards

 

Jon