Houselights / Independent Faders

[martin-144]

Hi All,

it it possible to have 'independent' Submasters, which will not be stored in any cues etc.?

I would need such functionality to control House and Working lights which should not be stored into the show.

This would be normal dimmer channels, nothing special.

Regards,

Martin

[kgallen]

Of source - you have 241 playbacks on FLX and in it's simplest form with a single cue, a playback is what we used to call a submaster.

<set up lighting>

RECORD <select playbacks page, press button under multi-function fader>

CLEAR-CLEAR

Push up fader!

Easy peasy 

You might want to visit the options under SETUP+MFF button and the cue window for that playback, VIEW+MFF button, to set fade times.

[martin-144]

16 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Of source - you have 241 playbacks on FLX and in it's simplest form with a single cue, a playback is what we used to call a submaster.

<set up lighting>

RECORD <select playbacks page, press button under multi-function fader>

CLEAR-CLEAR

Push up fader!

Easy peasy 

You might want to visit the options under SETUP+MFF button and the cue window for that playback, VIEW+MFF button, to set fade times.

Hi,

it is clear to me how I can program a sub or playback to control our house or working lights. What I don't want is that these playbacks are stored into any other cues or  playbacks when they are on while recording. (It can happen that houselights are on during rehearsals, but I dont want to have them saved in my show). Hope it is clearer now.

Martin

[kgallen]

Sorry Martin, a very reasonable question very badly answered by me!

The best I can find so far is Jon's response here, but it's just a hint rather than a definitive answer to your question. I thought I'd seen this discussed somewhere but I can't find the post yet...

 

[Edward Z88]

Hi Martin,

The easiest way to do this is to Program with SmartTag disabled. SmartTag is an option you may have seen in the Record Options pop-up, that opens when you tap RECORD. If SmartTag is disabled, when you tap record only tagged parameters will be recorded. Tagged intensity parameters are displayed as red values in the output window, and tagged parameters are displayed with blue backgrounds behind their encoder displays. This therefore means channels from Playbacks will not get Recorded, as they are blue values rather than red. You can turn SmartTag off in the Record options pop up, by tapping Smart Tag so that it has a blue stripe next to it.  

The link Kevin sent a link to, is Jon explaining another useful programming tool for this, which is an Inhibit Playback. What you can do, is record your cues normally with SmartTag enabled, recording your whole lighting state for each cue including the haze. However, in the Playback settings of your Hazer Playbacks, change the fader function to Inhibit. This Playback now acts as a Grand Master for the Hazer. Therefore when the fader is at full, the haze level from the Recorded cues will be output, but if you need the level taking down you can use your Haze Playback to inhibit the level of haze. 

Hope that helps and makes sense, any queries let me know. 

Edward

[kgallen]

2 hours ago, Edward- Z88 said:

The link Kevin sent a link to, is Jon explaining another useful programming tool for this, which is an Inhibit Playback. What you can do, is record your cues normally with SmartTag enabled, recording your whole lighting state for each cue including the haze. However, in the Playback settings of your Hazer Playbacks, change the fader function to Inhibit. This Playback now acts as a Grand Master for the Hazer. Therefore when the fader is at full, the haze level from the Recorded cues will be output, but if you need the level taking down you can use your Haze Playback to inhibit the level of haze.

Edward - excellent explanation/example of Inhibit - I now understand how it works (and I might even use it now!!!)! Great job!

[martin-144]

Ok, I think I now understood what Inhibit does. It acts as a Master fader for a channel which is already "on" in any other cue or playback.

This is not exactly what I need. I would like to have a Submaster which is not taken into account when storing cues, playbacks or so.

If using Inhibit this would mean I have to have my houselights "always on" and turn them down using Inhibit. Not very convenient. Is there another way?

Thanks,

Martin

[AshA101]

You could try parking your house lights channel instead of having it on a fader. I'm not entirely sure but it shouldn't record parked levels (other desks work like this). You can set up one of the UDKs as a park button then set its shift function to unpark. Then just use the syn tax to set your level and hit park. 

 

Are you programming in tracking or non tracking? 

[Edward Z88]

14 hours ago, martin-144 said:

Ok, I think I now understood what Inhibit does. It acts as a Master fader for a channel which is already "on" in any other cue or playback.

This is not exactly what I need. I would like to have a Submaster which is not taken into account when storing cues, playbacks or so.

If using Inhibit this would mean I have to have my houselights "always on" and turn them down using Inhibit. Not very convenient. Is there another way?

Thanks,

Martin

Hi Martin,

Yes, the other way is to program with SmartTag disabled, so that Playbacks are not recorded into cues.

13 hours ago, AshA101 said:

You could try parking your house lights channel instead of having it on a fader. I'm not entirely sure but it shouldn't record parked levels (other desks work like this). You can set up one of the UDKs as a park button then set its shift function to unpark. Then just use the syn tax to set your level and hit park. 

 

Are you programming in tracking or non tracking? 

Ash is correct, FLX won't record Parked levels. Therefore during plotting, you could set your hazer so it is slowly pumping haze, and park your hazer channels. The hazer will then stay at this level, not getting recorded into any cues, until you select those fixtures and unpark them.

You can read more about Parking here...

http://support.zero88.com/1011403601

Hope that helps,

Edward

 

[martin-144]

Thanks for your answers so far,

I think the parking solution is more convenient to me. But I don't have the real hardware here yet and I am just busking around with Phantom.
I will post here if it works reasonable when I had as hands-on experience.