Bass drive on Phantom

[sp]

Hi,

 

I've recently been using the phantom frog and outputs screen to experiment with the new chase options in the new software upgrade...

 

My question is, can the phantom pick up any bass signal from the pc (such as from a line in etc.)?

 

sp

[ice]

Wouldnt count on that... why would you want that to happen? It's not like there's any use to it...??

[K-Nine]

The Phantom Frog simply simulates the front panel controls of the frog desks, and provides a window showing the monitor screen displays.

 

The Phantom does not have the ability to process other input signals (eg audio), at present.

 

I don't think that there are any plans to develop functionality or feature set of the Phantom Frog at the moment. However, all suggestions for improvement are gratefully received, and will be logged in the database for future consideration.

 

Frog Reference 5483 - Audio input for Phantom Frog - to be reviewed.

[gordoncj]

Hi,

It is a few years since the previous post on this matter, and I am wondering if there has been any progress in providing the facility for bass input triggering of chases on the Phantom Frog [Frog REF 5483] used on a PC.

An example of the usefulness of such a facility arose today. We currently have a production which will be using the lighting board until Thursday. On Friday and Saturday the shows change, and will need chases triggered by new music. My only option was to re-program the board this morning to test the suitability of the music (which is supplied by the visiting Company and the quality is outside our control). I regard it as as unsafe to have to change a current program in order to test for the next show; as I could corrupt something accidentally, and not be able to reload the saved version for some reason (e.g. floppy failure). It would therefore be very useful to do the testing on the Phantom.

Regards,

Gordon

[Paul]

The hardware in the Frog desks uses a compander circuit and a low-pass filter to extract the level of the bass signal. This hardware is not present on a PC's sound card, and so even if we were to add this functionality, Phantom could only make a software approximation of the real hardware's response. There would still be some uncertainty as to how the same music would cause a real desk to respond.

 

If you want to be absolutely certain what the real desk will do with a particular piece of music, program a chase at a high-numbered memory well out of the range of the show currently in the desk, and test with that. If you want a finely-tuned response to sound-to-light (rather than a rough-and-ready disco type effect) then try putting a graphic equaliser on the sound input, see also THIS TOPIC.

 

In all honesty now that the original Frog Series is no longer in production, it is unlikely that this request will make it into Phantom Frog, sorry.

[gordoncj]

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt reply, and the explanation of how the circuit works. I have also looked at the other thread which you suggested.

I will try clearing the board memory and then, before a visiting company comes in, preloading it with a chase test sequence at say 850 in the memory. As long as they do not clear the memory again, it will then be available for testing the music. We will see what happens!

Regards,

Gordon