Advice - S24

[Guest Giglight]

Hi

I'm looking for some advice. I am looking for a new control platform. I have used zero88 desks before intact I still have a sirrus for conference work.

I currently use martin mpc as it fits the bill on cost and functionality and the 2d view is a great help when prepping offline. 

However given the elation take over I have no confidence in the support future of this product. 

The flx s24 looks a good fit to my work but would like some advice from current users - my main issue is I think I would miss the 2d view offline capability too much and don' particularly want to purchase licensing for a simulator.

My work is small to med music events. I don't hire in so the fixtures I use are fairly static but in short normally consist of 

 

10x led moving head washes 

8x mac 550 moving heads

8 channels of generic dimming

Let bars Etc 

 

I never have needed to use more than 1 universe (or even get close).

I know zero 88 support is top notch. 

[Peachy001]

Hi,

The FLX range are really great consoles all running the ZerOS system.

Very easy to use and if the 7inch built in touchscreen on the S24 isn't enough, you can connect to a WiFi router and use a laptop or tablet as a second screen.  This feature is also great for focussing sessions away from the desk using the remote app.

You'll find the colour picker, where you can up load photos into the touchscreen and pick out colours very handy for conference work (corporate colours).

The patch wizard is very user friendly and newer RDM fixtures will automatically be added through the award winning RigSync.  Colour palettes can be automatically generated, picked through the colour window or a Lee Mood board can be picked of colours that are tried and tested together.

The auto palettes function also works for positions, beamshapes, effects, groups or macros.  This generators some great colour, position, intensity and focus/iris effects, which can be automatically offset by a press of a button in four different ways. 

In conclusion  the S24 is a great console with 48 playbacks that can be defined as a single scene, cue stack or chase.  The desk is limited to 48 fixtures and 48 of each palette type, but wow what value for the price tag.

 

 

[Edward Z88]

Thanks very much for the excellent review!

And don’t forget the FLX S48 doubles the Fixture count, number of Playbacks, Groups and Palettes to 96 of each. 

Edward

[Guest Paul]

Hi Giglight,

I toured with one of the first Sirus 24s and now look after live gigs in a couple of venues on FatFrogs, great desks for busking conventionals and a few LEDs. I've also been using M-PC for my movers triggering with midi and a FatFrog (96 way fader board is pretty great for busking) For one of the venues I've purchased an FLX S48 and am evaluating it and setting up various configurations before fitting in the venue.  Up until loading Mondays firmware, I was suffering lockups. One thing that I am missing for busking live at the moment is the ability to mix looks on the fly. With M-PC you can use overrides so say you have your performer spots on one playback fader and have two or three colour looks that your crossfading on the fly with the music. I like to be able to go from dipless intensity colour cross fades (and mixes) to almost full dips between changes as a song reaches its climax. With LTP on the colour I'm not found a way to do this yet (tried the payback controlling colour but then I lose the intensity control)

Regards

Paul   

[Edward Z88]

11 hours ago, Guest Paul said:

Hi Giglight,

I toured with one of the first Sirus 24s and now look after live gigs in a couple of venues on FatFrogs, great desks for busking conventionals and a few LEDs. I've also been using M-PC for my movers triggering with midi and a FatFrog (96 way fader board is pretty great for busking) For one of the venues I've purchased an FLX S48 and am evaluating it and setting up various configurations before fitting in the venue.  Up until loading Mondays firmware, I was suffering lockups. One thing that I am missing for busking live at the moment is the ability to mix looks on the fly. With M-PC you can use overrides so say you have your performer spots on one playback fader and have two or three colour looks that your crossfading on the fly with the music. I like to be able to go from dipless intensity colour cross fades (and mixes) to almost full dips between changes as a song reaches its climax. With LTP on the colour I'm not found a way to do this yet (tried the payback controlling colour but then I lose the intensity control)

Regards

Paul   

Hi Paul,

Were you suffering Lockups on ZerOS 7.9.3? FLX S first launched on ZerOS 7.9.2.60 software, where we found a couple of issues with patching, that were quickly solved by ZerOS 7.9.3. ZerOS 7.9.4 was then released on Monday, which is a minor enhancement software release.

The "Fader Controls..." option on Playbacks sounds exactly what you're after. Fader Controls will not effect intensity control, which will remain as HTP mixing across all Playbacks. You can read more about Fader Controls... here...

http://support.zero88.com/1011405471

Hope that helps,

Edward

[Guest Giglight]

Cheers, especially Paul as your situation seems to be very similar to mine.

To its credit M-PC coupled with the M-Touch & M-Play that I have is perfect, but I have concerns over it sitting on a Windows platform with very limited (if any) future updates given that Elation have bought the range from Martin. 

Zero88 people I have tried on several occasions to attend one of the training/demo days via your email addresses on the site but never seem to get any reply? Can you confirm which address I should be using.

Upon review I dont think I would miss the 2d view on MPC too much. Perhaps an S48 is better for me however. 

[Jon Hole]

1 hour ago, Guest Giglight said:

I have tried on several occasions to attend one of the training/demo days via your email addresses on the site but never seem to get any reply? Can you confirm which address I should be using.

The email address is training@zero88.com - sorry you've not been receiving a reply, I've just checked the inbox and spam folder and there are no emails from you in there.

Please try again, and CC my email address in to the message too (jonhole@eaton.com). Please post here once you've done that, so we can specifically check.

[Guest Paul R]

 Hi Giglight,

I toured with one of the first Sirus 24s and now look after live gigs in a couple of venues on FatFrogs, great desks for busking conventionals and a few LEDs. I've also been using M-PC for my movers triggering with midi and a FatFrog (96 way fader board is pretty great for busking) For one of the venues I've purchased an FLX S48 and am evaluating it and setting up various configurations before fitting in the venue.  Up until loading Mondays firmware, I was suffering lockups. One thing that I am missing for busking live at the moment is the ability to mix looks on the fly. With M-PC you can use overrides so say you have your performer spots on one playback fader and have two or three colour looks that your crossfading on the fly with the music. I like to be able to go from dipless intensity colour crossfades (and mixes) to almost full dips between changes as a song reaches its climax. With LTP on the colour I'm not found a way to do this yet (tried the payback controlling colour but then I lose the intensity control)

Regards

Paul 

Thanks Edward,

I've tried The "Fader Controls..." colour option on Playbacks again but with my own EasyMove RGBW fixture profile where my intensity and colour default values are 0 it almost works. With   red green blue playbacks set to "fader controls colour" they will mix until a fader is set to full then it appears that LTP takes over and only the single colour that is at full is output.......?

The desk was manufactured in Nov and when it crashed I forwarded the log file to yourselves. Loaded 7.9.3  I did subsequently have a couple of crashes with no log file just the dreaded Z screen with an incomplete status bar mainly whilst experimenting with the android remote app. I was experimenting with different patches with a clear all between them as I'm looking to use a different patch depending on the user of the venue that day (I've had problems visiting university tech lecturers using all @ 1%, doesn't do the main incomer fuse stress levels any good having a dead short across it for half a second as we are mostly a halogen load rather than LED)

 

[Guest Paul R]

Just been using the monitor app and noticed that as a colour goes above 50 the other higher colour reduces proportionally. 

[Guest Giglight]

Thanks Jon have emailed again. 

One other question as mentioned before 2d view. Would the remote monitor on wireless achieve similar? I am not fussed so much on the beam positioning as this I general program on a per event basis as they all differ but more the colours Etc.

I occasionally get some requests from acts prior to the event for specific colour chases Etc and at present I can do much of this in the hotel the evenin before or suchlike. 

Thanks 

[Jon Hole]

3 hours ago, Guest Giglight said:

Thanks Jon have emailed again. 

Thanks, we've received it - we'll get the answers back out to you on Monday

[Edward Z88]

On 3/23/2018 at 4:40 PM, Guest Paul R said:

 I've tried The "Fader Controls..." colour option on Playbacks again but with my own EasyMove RGBW fixture profile where my intensity and colour default values are 0 it almost works. With   red green blue playbacks set to "fader controls colour" they will mix until a fader is set to full then it appears that LTP takes over and only the single colour that is at full is output.......?

The desk was manufactured in Nov and when it crashed I forwarded the log file to yourselves. Loaded 7.9.3  I did subsequently have a couple of crashes with no log file just the dreaded Z screen with an incomplete status bar mainly whilst experimenting with the android remote app. I was experimenting with different patches with a clear all between them as I'm looking to use a different patch depending on the user of the venue that day (I've had problems visiting university tech lecturers using all @ 1%, doesn't do the main incomer fuse stress levels any good having a dead short across it for half a second as we are mostly a halogen load rather than LED)

 

Hi Paul,

It sounds like Tagging is the reason Fader Controls colour isn't quite achieving what you're after. When you move a Colour encoder wheel, all colour controls for the selected fixtures are Tagged, as in most instances when recording a colour, you are recording the mix of colour on stage. However if you want to be able to mix these colours on top of each other, you need to ensure only the used Colours are tagged. For example to Record Red, Green and Blue to a seperate Playback and give you RGB mixing on the faders, you need to ensure each has only its specific colour tagged (for example only Red is tagged for the Red Playback). The easiest way to do this is hold SETUP, and tap the "Colour" tab along the top of the FLX S touchscreen (this appears when you select a fixture with Colour parameters). In the Colour Settings, there is the Option for "Keep Parameters Seperate". Click "Yes", and now only the parameters you adjust with the encoders will be tagged, Allowing you to easily record only certain colour parameters to Playbacks, that can then mix when Fader controls Colour is enabled.

You can read a little more about tagging here...

http://support.zero88.com/1014189311

Thanks for providing a little more information on the console crashes. Let me know if you experience anything similar on ZerOS 7.9.4.

Hope that helps, any queries let me know

Edward