Where is the love for Congo?

Hi Guys,

David Lincecum here - I duck in and out. Ducking in. We at ETC love Congo!

You are correct that the education center has not been offering Congo training.  In the US the Congo user base is widespread, not as dense as the Ion user base. We have had some Congo events that did not make or had low attendance. Since the user base is very large in Europe we have many more trainings there. You can understand that it is hard to have trainings that are not attended or have low attendance.

We would like to offer you the training you need and help your crew improve their skills. We are discussing options for doing that.

Can you make suggestions for cities you are willing to travel to?

What kinds of topics should we focus on?

Would Video trainings - beyond what we offer - be of more value?

What would best serve the Congo community?

Thanks for your responses.

David Lincecum

Marketing manager, ETC

This is a conversation I've had several times with Ellen, Spencer, Ulf, and several others. Like David said, Congo just isn't as popular in the United States. It's not as if every school, church, and mid-sized facility is picking these up like they are the Element and Ion.

While the people who like Congo, love it, there are just as many people who don't understand the syntax and don't want to spend time getting used to it. For people who have spent their lifetimes working on Express(ion) and Obsession desks, getting into the groove of how Congo works is difficult -- it's not an intuitive syntax or thinking process for them. That's my theory as to why it's not caught on as much here in the States.

I sent Ulf an email a while back  which I unfortunately can't access because I sent it to him while I was interning at ETC, using my ETC email account that I no longer have access to. Several paragraphs beat to death the point that to understand the brilliance and efficiency of working with Congo is (literally) physically impossible until you've been working regularly on the desk for nearly two weeks. Until the muscle memory is developed and you've learned not to use the mouse for anything, you just can't reap the benefits of the console.

It's just not the Express or the Strand 520i -- desks where you can give the same command dozens of different ways and however you "talk" to the desk, the sentence you string together will give you the right keystrokes. [Ch.] [80] [Thru] [90] [At] [75] is how people are used to speaking and communicating, so just about anyone can walk to up an Express and punch the right keys. Congo screws that up for people because they have to stop and think, instead typing in, [80] [Ch.] [90] [Thru] [75] [@Level].

Having worked with Congo almost exclusively for the last year, it's become my native language. I think the RPN, and when someone else is sitting at the console and I'm telling them what to turn on, I often do the thinking for them and speak the RPN. Once I have my show files setup and have my groups setup on masters and if it's a larger show I might even have a channel layout -- it's not at all unusual for me to get the levels on something changed before the LD finishes his sentence telling me what to change.

The flip side of that is that when I go to program on an Express at a roadhouse about 30mi from here, I look like a total idiot because I've changed my thinking to the Congo syntax and when I sit in front of an Express it's a catastrophe waiting to happen. Randy will say, "Channel 30, 32, 43, and 45 at 85" and I'll stare blankly at the desk while trying to type the commands in. Now that I think and speak Congo, one of the easiest consoles to use in the world is a thousand times more difficult to use because I always find myself doing the keystrokes I'd do for Congo. Randy and I laugh about it and he understands where I'm coming from, but learning Congo has cost me some of my professional backwards compatibility because it took the world I knew and the language I spoke and shook it like a magic eight ball.

I want to emphasize that there's no joking when I say it's physically impossible to embrace Congo and comprehend how quickly you can program on it until you've developed the muscle memory. Until you've got the syntax down and you can hit the keystrokes like it's your native language, you just sort have to trust that it's as awesome as you've been told it is -- something that customers and end-users aren't often crazy about doing.

• What kinds of topics should we focus on?

Putting screen layouts on masters (Matt showed me how to do this in the Consoles lab several months ago and I've not only forgotten but can't seem to find details anywhere on how to set that up again)

What a streamlined preset-recording process looks like. I feel like I'm doing it wrong because the process seems obtuse when I have to say, "Stop, give me a moment -- I have to switch navigate this dialog box to add in the fade times."

• Would Video trainings - beyond what we offer - be of more value?

Yes. The only topics covered right now are basics. It's alright when I want to just sort of figure out how workflow in Congo looks like, but I'm beyond that now -- I own a console and have to setup entire show files. The first time I used Selador fixtures also happened to be the first time I used intelligent fixtures on my Congo and it was an adventure. I spent way too much time on the front-end of a tech rehearsal just trying to figure out why my intensity levels on my ColorBlasts were recording into presets but not on my Seladors. The moment I resorted to pressing the "?" button I knew I was in for it because I had 50 people waiting on me to dig through that behemoth of jargon which eventually was in vain and didn't solve my problem anyways. I had better luck just throwing spaghetti at the wall, eventually changing settings haphazardly until something worked. Really, anytime myself or any of our programmers resort to pressing the "?" button, we know we're screwed and that it's time to toss a 15 or 20-minute break out for the cast so that we can get things in order without them waiting on us.

Despite the fact that I've watched the video on making Effects work several times, that's another thing I've had terrible luck with. I've actually given up on the feature to automatically setup chase effects because it's only ever been a feature I've sunken time into in the middle of a rehearsal. The director will ask for something, I'll try to provide it through that feature, and end up killing 10 minutes, stopping the rehearsal, and eventually scrapping the idea altogether as I start to just record my own sequence for the effect step-by-step, only to then spend another several minutes trying to get the timings accurate. A well-intended idea  to the effect of "Hey, what if we just try..." that should only take a minute or two to setup ends up killing a full half an hour.

(I seem to recall Sarah or Ulf telling me that more advanced video tutorials were in the works, but I haven't heard anything on that in a couple months.)

• What would best serve the Congo community?

A user manual and more video tutorials in a series that's aptly titled, "You're doing it wrong and 100 ways we think you can suck less at programming."

The reference guide is completely accurate but at the same time entirely useless. I've spent hours in front of that guide trying to figure out how to do something but the guide doesn't make clear how to accomplish certain goals and the video tutorials don't go into all that much depth. Programming Congo is an art -- I get it. Every programmer I've spoken to does things their own way; how they setup groups, masters, channel layouts, live screens, and even just how they setup their tabs. When I first learned Congo, I really struggled putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together because I couldn't ever really get a solid answer out of everyone on a comprehensive how-to on setting up a show file from scratch. The first time I added intelligent fixtures to a show file was quite the adventure because I was making it up as I went along. Like I said earlier, there's a lot of different ways to do things, some of which are a lot easier to do and others that take a long time to setup, don't work very well, but get the lights on. It'd be nice to see a video series AND a written text just on "Streamlining Your Congo Workflow."

(As to what city I'd be willing to travel to, Middleton, but that's because I live only about an hour away.)

I'm just in a very weird position. We have an Express -- it's usually only used in the black box for on-the-fly stuff. When I need real programming in there, I often bring in the Jr that normally resides in our main theatre.  We also have a SmartFade. It's never used on events I do but I'm always the one who's approached when someone wants to use it for some small one-off with a couple SmartBars and I grunt a little bit and shrug because I've never learned how to use it myself and neither have any of our programmers. Then there's the Jr, which is the only console we really spend a lot of time teaching people to use, both our professional staff and our high school students. It's always a blast because for some people, they've never setup a show file in their life and now they need to build one from scratch in a way that makes sense with groups, masters, screen layouts, channel layouts, multiple sequences, presets, independents, and if you see where I'm going with this, you'll understand why we only have a couple people who are experts and a bunch of people we've really only taught how to press a "Go" button. While we had a lot of students and staff take a training session at Mecca this August, many of them won't sit in front of the console again for several months at a time because of the way the high school's events pan out.

It really is amazing how many shows we'll have the few "real" programmers setup by tossing groups onto the wing the night before and then someone who's never touched Congo before ends up running their event off of the sliders. 

The answer to your timings question is pretty quick - don't bother doing it in the dialog.
- The timing options in that dialog are really there to help the 'first time' users and those using the offline editor or client as they don't have the benefit of a real console in front of them.

It's much faster to record the Preset, and then set the times afterwards.

- Look for the little black arrow in Main Playback. This indicates the Times To option, whether times are going into the A (last crossfade) or B (next crossfade)
[Time] & [A] sets it to A, [Time] & [B] to B.

# [Time] - Set both In and Out time to # seconds.
# [In] - Set the In time to # seconds.
# [Delay] & [In] - Set the In Delay to # seconds.

[Out] works the same way for Out times/delays.

Eg: [Record][Record] 6 [In] 3 [Out] would do a new Preset with 6 sec upfade 3 sec downfade (assuming Build mode and Times to A)

As to the syntax thing - At Mode gives you the 'Express(ion)' syntax for selecting channels, groups and effect playbacks. This is a console setting that you can choose in System Settings.

We are indeed in the process of creating some more videos, but as you'll appreciate it does take a fair while to script, film and edit such things.

Thank you for the info.

On the note of syntax, I have no desire to use At Mode. I know it exists, but IMO it defeats the purpose of buying a console with a syntax intended to speed up programming. Like using the mouse to navigate, it's a crutch -- a crutch that'll always prevent you from being able to ever run again.

MN

mnicolai said:

While the people who like Congo, love it, there are just as many people who don't understand the syntax and don't want to spend time getting used to it. For people who have spent their lifetimes working on Express(ion) and Obsession desks, getting into the groove of how Congo works is difficult -- it's not an intuitive syntax or thinking process for them. That's my theory as to why it's not caught on as much here in the States.

I

I have to applaud this awesome post. This is very much the situation here as well. There are very few Congos in Australia unfortunately, and we are in much the same situation. We chose to move away from the Strand offerings ( which were really not a step forward) as we had used the Strand 300 for many years, and embrace the Congo as a move to catch up to modern desks.
We do feel that we're on our own locally as there is just no-one nearby who knows anything about the desk ( forget the local supplier, really...) and as a result have developed our own ways of working with it. We have no idea if there are easier/better/faster ways to do things, and have spent countless hours building our own palette of effects etc. 

I am travelling to the UK for Christmas and have asked on the Blue Room forum if people who have Congos are available to spend a short  amount of time with me, showing me how they use the desk, but so far have had no offers.

Due to our location (Australia), online videos of advanced programming, effects uses, and any other tips & tricks, would be of enourmous benefit.

Cheers,

Ric

Ric said:

We do feel that we're on our own locally as there is just no-one nearby who knows anything about the desk ( forget the local supplier, really...) and as a result have developed our own ways of working with it. We have no idea if there are easier/better/faster ways to do things, and have spent countless hours building our own palette of effects etc.

I feel much the same here, Ric, barring the "we" and the "countless hours" as it's just me, and I work per-show, so there's not much time to branch out. Self-taught, I generally stick to what I know and explore rarely given time constraints. Certainly the desk is capable of operating far more efficiently and flexibly than I default to.

I hardly know how to frame my training goal, so forgive the awkwardness, but what I'd like to learn to do is set up the Congo to mimic a grandMA, or a Hog, or an Avo Pearl, or any of the mover desks my occasional guest designers wish they had. It's very typical here in our 50-mover concert hall that a show's usual lighting rig will get crossed out in favor of using the house gear, and designers unfamiliar with Congo will want "a bunch of stuff put on faders," which can work out any number of different ways depending on how their favored desks run content. Without being an expert in any other desks, or, indeed, this one, I tend to ask extremely detailed questions about what they want to happen when they push that fader or click that button, and it generally achieves some level of competence, but it's not glorious. So I'd welcome a "Make My Congo Act Like A ..." course. 

Oh, and Ric, if you should ever find yourself in the Midwest of the US, do drop in--we can put our heads together. At the moment, I've got three Congos in the building, so you could bring a friend and we'll do as much damage as we can!

You know, I got a survey in my inbox a few weeks ago regarding ETC wanting to float the idea of a conference at the Middleton factory. Would anyone find it practical/useful to have a few day session on delving into the deep end with Congo?

If we can find a way to get the ideas and tricks thrown into a pile with a bunch of Congo programmers in the same room, maybe we can get some screen-recording software on some desks or PC's with offline editors installed, capture the tricks and information, and expedite the process of getting that information out to the worldwide public faster.

I'm thinking similarly to how ControlBooth.com's Wiki works. An article exists showing all of the different glossary terms we want the "experts" to define for the rest of the users, and then as people have time and opportunity, they add/edit the Wiki entries they have the most experience with, filling in the blanks. If something like that existed for Congo, outlining areas where we, as programmers, want to improve, would anyone be willing to help out and submit their tips, tricks, and programming steps? Everything said and done, we'd have a online video library of Congo "hacks".

So as users, would people be willing to help provide content for something like this? And would ETC be willing to foster that kind of program, mainly providing a section of the website for that library and also sending out some emails to Congo users to ask people for their help and input?

mnicolai said:

I'm thinking similarly to how ControlBooth.com's Wiki works. An article exists showing all of the different glossary terms we want the "experts" to define for the rest of the users, and then as people have time and opportunity, they add/edit the Wiki entries they have the most experience with, filling in the blanks.

Since Mike mentioned it, I feel a shameless plug is not unwarranted:

ControlBooth.com: Please Help the Glossary.

(I think it's a great idea, Mike.)

Derek

Maintainer of ControlBooth's wiki

dlincecum said:

Can you make suggestions for cities you are willing to travel to?

What kinds of topics should we focus on?

Would Video trainings - beyond what we offer - be of more value?

What would best serve the Congo community?

Hey David, thanks for your reply. Thanks also to the others who commented. Personally, I disagree with the one comment that the RPN has anything to do with the lack of users in the US: I think it has far more to do with terminology and programming style; there are far more aspects to how you record a cue that are different between Express(ion)/Ion/Eos terminology and Congo thinking. Like the fact that a PRESET is used instead of a CUE, but you can have the same PRESET run multiple times with different fade times... that kind of thing. I do agree with most of the rest of what has been said. I run a Congo Jr with Master playback wing in a touring one-off road house with 6 (hopefully soon more) movers and a bunch of color scrollers, and I can't begin to tell you how much of a difference the upgrade from an Express made. And we demo'ed the Ion before our purchase and decided there was a lot that we needed to do that the Congo did great that the Ion just doesn't do. BUT.... most high schools and colleges and churches are looking for a cueing console, not a busking console. Whether that suits their needs or not (I'd argue it does for theatre programs but not for music programs, for instance) that's what they think they need, so the ION is the console that's taking over the US. Which is great, because ETC is one of a few companies in our industry that I have no problem with them taking over the world.

Anyway, enough rambling... in response to your questions...

Cities I am willing to travel to: depends on scheduling and costs. For sure, you do anything in Seattle or Portland and we're there. (2-4 people depending on expense)  Beyond that, I'd REALLY like to see an intermediate-to-advanced class (also a beginning class) on the Congo at LDI. You provide that, I'm there.  I would think USITT would be good too, but due to timing of the schedule for me and my staff we typically are at the height of our busy season and can't make it ourselves.

Topics: This is tough. As someone else suggested - a theme of how to program properly - I know I'd like to get my LD's hands off the trackball and back on the keypad. That was something I learned at LDI before I bought our Congo, and Sarah and Ulf did a good job of teaching that concept in the basic class.

I'd think a few things I'd like to learn more on would be ways to really use the masters, such as putting stacks and effects and palettes into them, as well as good use of the channel layout screen... I know one thing I struggle with is getting the color palettes specific to our color scrollers into a direct select in a way I can select them faster than holding down the appropriate encoder and then hitting the direct select that matches the color I want. That kind of thing. Setups that make programming or busking faster.

Video training would be AWESOME. We've all gone through the ones you have available, and I would LOVE to have more advanced training videos. Maybe particularly geared towards quick use of effects and palettes.

How does that sound?

Agree with Mark that the main stumbling block in the US market is likely to be conceptual gap between theater-style unique cue lists and music-style repeats & multiple cue stacks. 

Looking forward to meeting up with any and all other Congo programmers this summer, if that happens.

So I'm totally jealous right now of all those of you in Wisconsin at the CUE conference... you have no idea how much I wish I could be there.  And I'm pleased to see that the Congo classes are not only being offered at CUE but also that they filled up!!

So the question I have is... considering the success at CUE, (when y'all finish up with it and have time to breathe again) is there any chance you might consider adding a class or two at LDI? I suspect there are many people in my situation that would love to be at CUE but can't get the funds or time free to make it out there specifically, but do have the time and funds for LDI. (Or USITT, or whatever...) I was basically given the choice by my administration to attend LDI or CUE but not both, and since LDI also includes other training I need and my wife is already going to LDI regardless, the choice was pretty clear.

CUE is brilliant and wonderful and a steal for the price, but I can't be the only one who can't make it and really wishes there were Congo classes at LDI.... any chance you're ever going to bring those back?

Also, how are the more advanced training videos coming?