Re: Need help to decide to buy Congo Jr.

We upgraded from a Strand desk (in our case a GSX) to a Congo Jr at the end of last year - in fact 2 days before starting the plot on Panto (the biggest show of the year - YIKES!!).  Luckily we'd done some excellent training first and played with the offline editor.  Jeremy was also great at the other end of a mobile phone whilst we were sitting at the desk wondering what we'd done wrong this time!

 The basic desk is good, but with the addition of the fader wing it's excellent.  40 faders which can be channel faders, subs, chases etc. along with 40 buttons (with 5 pages) which can be used as pallettes for colour, beamshape, position or "all pallettes", flash buttons, buttons to tap in the speed of a chase etc. etc. make it a very versatile tool.

 It takes a while to change from the Strand way of working to the Congo way of working (keep remembering to press "ALL ALL" before recording anything, for instance) but once you get the hang of it you realise how precise and quick you can be when plotting.

Also useful is the ability to load any little bit you like ffrom a previous show.  For instance you can pull in some subs you recorded from the last show, or some pallettes you made last time you had a particular fixture, without having to start with the whole thing and delete stuff.  There's also the ability to delete a step from a sequence without deleting the preset: in other words when the director cuts a cue you can remove it from the show, but when he decides next day to put it back again, it's still there in the preset list and easily reinstated.

These are just a few of the things we've found useful in the 4 months we've had the desk and I suppose we probably only know about 25% (if that) of what the desk can do.

Get a demo and see what you think.

We upgraded from a Strand desk (in our case a GSX) to a Congo Jr at the end of last year - in fact 2 days before starting the plot on Panto (the biggest show of the year - YIKES!!).  Luckily we'd done some excellent training first and played with the offline editor.  Jeremy was also great at the other end of a mobile phone whilst we were sitting at the desk wondering what we'd done wrong this time!

 The basic desk is good, but with the addition of the fader wing it's excellent.  40 faders which can be channel faders, subs, chases etc. along with 40 buttons (with 5 pages) which can be used as pallettes for colour, beamshape, position or "all pallettes", flash buttons, buttons to tap in the speed of a chase etc. etc. make it a very versatile tool.

 It takes a while to change from the Strand way of working to the Congo way of working (keep remembering to press "ALL ALL" before recording anything, for instance) but once you get the hang of it you realise how precise and quick you can be when plotting.

Also useful is the ability to load any little bit you like ffrom a previous show.  For instance you can pull in some subs you recorded from the last show, or some pallettes you made last time you had a particular fixture, without having to start with the whole thing and delete stuff.  There's also the ability to delete a step from a sequence without deleting the preset: in other words when the director cuts a cue you can remove it from the show, but when he decides next day to put it back again, it's still there in the preset list and easily reinstated.

These are just a few of the things we've found useful in the 4 months we've had the desk and I suppose we probably only know about 25% (if that) of what the desk can do.

Get a demo and see what you think.