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    Anne S
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Positive Random Effect=Chase Playback Mode?

Hi,
I'm transcribing some Expression effects into Congo (exciting), and for chase playback modes, I see Reverse, Bounce, and Single Shot (Build toggles, of course). Is there a correlative for a positive random effect? I can randomize the channel selection but I don't see a way to randomize step playback order. 

No emergency. The show is cut down from its larger version enough that missing channels will provide some randomness anyway, but I'm just wondering. 

  • Use the "random" dynamic effect that is already in the board.  It's much easier than building a chase anyway!

    J. R. Lidgett
    Salina Community Theatre

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous in reply to lidgett

    I would agree with J.R.  Using the Random Dynamic (#28) is much easier than using a chase. 

    Syntax: 

    Select your channels, [2][8] [DYN EFFECT] will start the random effect.  You can then modify the effect in the Live Dynamic Effects tab or via the Soft keys.

  • in reply to Anonymous
    You're not kidding, it would certainly be easier. In this instance, however, I'm simply translating an already-designed theater-style show, blind, offline--at home in fact--for someone else to slap into the board and look at. If I were in a theater looking at the situation, I'd be all about the random dynamic. Can't though. I don't have the foggiest idea what these chases are chasing or what it's meant to look like when complete, and I can't look at it live. 

    In fact, in this case I'm pretty certain the guy tasked with mounting the show lighting doesn't know either--he's touring with it, has only seen it twice and is more or less reverse-engineering it by looking at the cues as programmed to find out what it's all supposed to look like. There's no real time available to tech this thing, so re-creating it from scratch won't happen before it opens. Possibly over the length of the run they'll want to tweak, but not now.  

    I'd have to say I think this is a feature the console could use, if it's truly meant to combine theater-style specificity with rock& roll speed and flexibility. Flickering campfire effects or TV glares are a very specific kind of randomness that take time to create well, and if someone goes to all the trouble to write something like this it's a shame to not be able to easily recreate it for the lack of a choice among Bounce, Reverse, or Random. 


  • in reply to Anne S
    For know what you could do is create individual presets for each of your looks and then insert them into a new seq. list in the random order that you want them to playback in. And then turn the Seq. list into a chase. I hope this helps!

    DS
  • in reply to ETCdsmith
    The problem with that is that the presets will still play in the same order, creating a pattern, which is not the same as the random like the old Expression effects engine, which is what Anne was trying to achieve. What you would need is an option to play back sequences in a random order, something I don't see happening as it doesn't make much sense for any application but this! J. R. Lidgett Salina Community Theatre
  • in reply to lidgett

    Hi all -

    This "Expression-style" effect will be coming in a future version of Congo. At the moment, since it is a random effect, there's no way to know how it played back in the Expression (since it would be different every time) so there is no way to get exactly the same look in the Congo without some serious "specifically random" programming.

    Anne, I would suggest talking to the road guy to see if you can get a sense of what the effect is intended to do, then offer up a few suggested alternatives. You can get a randomized channel order into the chase wizard by selecting the grouping of channels first, then using the # RANDOM & SELECT Nth function to randomize the selection within the wizard (just make sure to use 1 as the #). Once you make the initial chase sequence, you can copy and paste steps to introduce more randomness into the chase, if needed. If the effect doesn't run for long periods, you won't need too many steps to get a noticeably non-repeating effect. You could also use the chase wizard a few times to generate different random steps, then combine those presets into an über-chase.

    I would also offer up a random dynamic version, just in case. This will give you the most randomized look on stage, but without knowing what kind of random effect they are looking for, it's hard to know if this is the best for this purpose.

    Please let me know if you need more suggestions...

    Thanks -

    Sarah 

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