Venue upgrade - desk options

[ee61re]

Our non-profit 77 seat venue is currently being refurbed (literally the whole building, inside and out) - which in lighting terms means out with the old patchbay & 18 channels of Status, in with IWB for FOH1 and LX1-4, with 48ch of Chilli Pro.

Due to budget constrains, we are sticking with a Fat Frog console in the short term, but potentially funding may become available in the coming months for something new.

We have a complete mix of shows & events - cinema, comedy, music, panto, plays with casts anything from 1 to about 30 - mostly we are a receiving house, but the resident am-dram do the panto and 2 other shows each year.

Inventory-wise we have primarily conventional - mostly CCT minuette and Sil, P.23, PAR64, etc.

We do have a few older intelligent fixtures - 4 x Martin Roboscan 812, 1x Robocolor 2 set, 2 x generic RGBD PAR, 2 x generic RGBD Floods - typically only used for music and panto type stuff.

In terms of operators, in-house volunteers range from myself (been there about 20 years, primarily lighting) to the venue director who just needs it simple for when he is flying solo.

Some touring shows bring a tech, some bring a design and a cue list, some bring a console, some bring a showfile (ETC - not sure if anyone in recent years has brought any Zero88, tbh)

It feels like the sensible console purchase for in-house use would be FLX S24 - physically smaller than the Fat Frog, great value for money, simple yet powerful functionality.

But I wonder about:

• Will the lack of keypad / command syntax entry be an issue for programming a theatre cue-stack (for example for a 1 night touring show bringing their own tech)
  • Or does it work if we plug a usb keyboard in?
• Will the limit of 48 fixtures be a problem (I strongly suspect not, seeing as we don't have sufficient current inventory to fill it up)
• Will the lack of a monitor output be a problem (I suspect not, because we could use a remote monitor)
• I'm reading that the channel select buttons cannot be used to flash or solo a channel?

 

I think the 'nice-to-have' console purchase would be the FLX - but I think that's more 'want' than 'need'

Opinions / comments please?

[kgallen]

Your venue sounds wonderful!

Sounds to me like any of the FLX S or FLX series would do. But from the spec you give above your infrastructure seems well beyond that of a "basic" setting.

Whilst I think FLX S24 (or S48) would work I think you could easily outgrow them because once your new venue is ready you will grow in ideas quickly and start bringing in more LED, movers and "intelligent" fixtures. Particularly you will start to need more than one universe of DMX.

In which case I would suggest looking at the full FLX for the more "pro" interface and "grow" potential.

In addition this point begs the question, is your refurb taking into account the move towards LED - i.e. adding in DMX (possibly ArtNet) and hard-power infrastructure as well as the dimming infrastructure? If nothing else, if this is not going in now, provision of mount locations for data equipment, power and cable trays/conduit would make sense.

Kevin

[ee61re]

@kgallenthanks - we have DMX to each IWB (and at floor level both sides on stage), and we have a DMX buffer in the dimmer room. The Chilli Pro dimmers have bypass, so we can hard power anything on the IWB / grid if needed.

 

[Edward Z88]

Hello,

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

Whilst I think FLX S24 would work I think you could easily outgrow them because once your new venue is ready you will grow in ideas quickly and start bringing in more LED, movers and "intelligent" fixtures. Particularly you will start to need more than one universe of DMX.

I am with Kevin on this one. If you have 48 channels of Chilli Pro, that is a FLX S24 maxed out, as it can control a maximum of 48 individual fixtures. If you add some LED or moving lights, then you will have to decide which dimmer channels you don’t need to free up some fixture numbers on the console. This potentially isn’t an issue, especially if you are plugging LED or moving fixtures into a bypass channel, and thus that dimmer channel doesn’t need to be controlled anyway. 

2 hours ago, ee61re said:

Will the limit of 48 fixtures be a problem

As a general rule if people are deciding between FLX S24 or FLX S48, we say if your normal rig is a maximum of 24 fixtures, go with the S24, if it is a maximum of 48 fixtures, go with the S48. There’s two key reasons for that. The first, is that to access your “every day” fixtures, you wouldn’t even need to change page on the console - all your lights are available on the channel faders. The other reason, is not only do you future proof the console, but you also have plenty of spare fixtures if you get extra fixtures in for a particular show, event or production. 

2 hours ago, ee61re said:

Some touring shows bring a tech, some bring a design and a cue list, some bring a console, some bring a showfile (ETC - not sure if anyone in recent years has brought any Zero88, tbh)

All FLX range lighting consoles can load in show file exports from ETC EOS lighting consoles. However, if you have an operator from an EOS console who wants to use the house console, they will be far more happy with a FLX rather than a FLX S console, due to the syntax. 

2 hours ago, ee61re said:

Will the lack of keypad / command syntax entry be an issue for programming a theatre cue-stack (for example for a 1 night touring show bringing their own tech)

That’s a tricky one to answer really, as it all depends on the sorts of operators that visit. As I mentioned above, if you have visiting technicians used to using consoles with syntax, they’re going to be much more at home with FLX.

2 hours ago, ee61re said:

Will the lack of a monitor output be a problem

FLX S24 consoles have half the number of fixtures, playbacks, palettes, groups and effects as FLX S48. There’s therefore much “less stuff” to see on the screen. This means there is far less of a need for an external monitor. As you mention though, you can use ZerOS Monitor to remotely view an external desktop.

On FLX S48 and FLX, having an external monitor on your console definitely helps, especially for visiting operators that are not used to your rig.

2 hours ago, ee61re said:

I'm reading that the channel select buttons cannot be used to flash or solo a channel?

That is correct, channel buttons are select buttons, to allow you to choose the fixtures you need, and then control them with the touchscreen. When you have programmed fixtures to playback faders, you have many button functions available, such as flash and latch.

If you would like to chat through your options over Zoom/ a phone call, just drop me an email.

I hope this helps, if you have any questions let us know. 

Edward

[ee61re]

@Edward- Z88that is all really helpful - thanks, and thanks for the offer of a chat - I may well take you up on that at some point.