Life after Expression 3...to the Congo we go!

Question

Hello everyone, first post! 
 I studied lighting in college in the late 90'sand got work in a venue for the last 10 years, pretty much only using the Expression 3. Now our venue is getting a full upgrade and our brand new ETC Congo Jr showed up today. 
 Well you guys can guess, things have been a bit rusty for me, I got used to the "Yoda" syntax ok, but what tripped me up worst is the lack of a release button. It is second nature to use that in the E3, and I have not yet found an equivalent on the Cjr. 
 Of course I have a new show to program with only less than a day behind the board, so any tips or tricks would really help me out. I work in a small community venue, so I have relied of my submasters a lot to quickly program lights since we have a new show almost every day with pretty much no turnaround. 
 My Cjr came with a master playback wing, and dont even get my started on that one...cuz it also works differently than I expected. 
 Anyways, thanks and any tips and tricks would be awesome.

Richard · Accepted Answer

The two consoles do the same when you've put that kind of Sequence/Cuelist onto the Main Playback(s) - however the syntax to remove the Sequence/Cuelist is different. 
 In Congo, [C/Alt] & [Playback] does a temporary blackout of Main Playback - Expression had no equivalent. 0 [Seq] & [Playback] removes the sequence from Main Playback - that's (sort of) the equivalent of [Clear] on Express(ion). 
 The core difference to remember is that Express(ion) had exactly one cuelist and two Playbacks (A/B and C/D) - while Congo has a thousand Sequences, 80 Master Playbacks and one Main Playback. 
 This means you will basically never want to put a 'chase' sequence onto the Main Playback - chases will usually go onto a Master. 
 To put Sequence 2 onto the Main Playback, type the following: 
 2, hold down [Seq] & press [Playback] 
 To put sequence 2 onto a Master it's: 
 2, hold down [Seq] & press the 
[Master Key] by the fader 
 If Sequence 2 doesn't exist, Congo will ask if you want to make it. 
 The LCD box by the master will now show "C2" or "S2", followed by the name of the Sequence. - If it's an empty box then the Master is empty. 
 
 The Fader is the Intensity of the Sequence - it must be up above 1% for the Sequence to do anything. 
 The "Master Key" becomes the Go/Pause button. 
 
 If the Sequence is in Normal mode "S2", then it will wait for you to hit Go (the Master Key) before it steps onwards. 
 If the Sequence is in Chase mode "C2", then the chase will start when you move the fader up and stop when you pull it down. 
 Some general info (apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs): 
 We write out the syntax in the Congo manual and help like this: 
 
 # indicates typing a number 
 [KEY] is pressing a key 
 [ACTION] & [TARGET] means holding down the [ACTION] key and pressing the [TARGET] key. 
 
 Most of the commands in Congo are of the form # [ACTION] & [TARGET] - You can often miss out the number if you want the console to pick one for you. 
 The entire manual is built into the console: 
 
 Hold down the [?] key and press any key to see help on that key. 
 With Help open you can also press [Text] to get a search box. 
 
 There are also some tutorial videos both on the ETC website and included in the console - look in Browser > Media > Movies.