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    rphipps
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Third party wings with Nomad

Hi all,

TL;DR: Poor uni student with Nomad dongle needs faders but cheap ones please so I can afford to eat.

First post, so hopefully not too stupid.

I have seen the lxkey [http://www.lxkey.co.uk/] for Nomad for about £300 (minus student discount) that looks like a decent alternative to the Ion programming wing despite not having the intensity wheel, but are there any more third party fader wings? As much as I'd like to, I just can't justify (or afford) to drop £1k+ on an official set of faders or a programming wing... :(

Firstly, does Nomad even support third party wings? (I'm guessing the lxkey can get away with it as it is effectively just a keyboard with some funky keymapping) If so do you have any suggestions for the cheapest you can find? If not, is there any kind of student deal for the wings?

As a bit of background I am a student at the University of Edinburgh. We have an Element in the student theatre here, so when I was tech managing a show in an external venue I opted to rent a Nomad with the 2x10 universal fader wing - I loved it so much that I ordered myself a Nomad with the (fab) student deal, although the wing is well out of my budget.

I'd like to build up a small collection of my own kit so I can learn it inside out and hopefully be able to turn up anywhere and have the core kit I need already with me. Also remote controlling an Element with Nomad running on my laptop from downstairs is fantastic for get-ins. (and kinda funny watching people in the tech box when stuff moves without them asking it to)

Cheers,

Rob :D

  • +1
    Nomad supports OSC which allows for all kinds of accessories. Not many have been built yet but prototypes and one off have been made for faders, encoders, buttons, etc. If you are just looking to get the functionality without the physical hardware elements I would suggest looking at oscRFR. It is an iOS and android app that gives you encoders, faders, and almost every button that exists on the console. There are ways to make other hardware talk to the console but it generally involves additional software and setup to convert midi/usb/other things to osc that the console understands.
  • 0
    If you are just after faders and not necessarily need like "real" faders, you could use a decent touch screen and open the faders tab. Touch screen is useful for quite a lot of things besides having faders....
  • 0 in reply to johannes
    Ooh I didn't even know that tab existed (shows how long I've been using Eos!) - far better than dragging a load onto a magic sheet.

    But yeah, I would use a touchscreen but I'm on a (rapidly dying - it's had a hard life) ThinkPad x220 from 2011 - waiting for a decent but cheap convertible with GTX-10 series graphics which could be a while haha
  • 0 in reply to rphipps
    Not 100% sure but Iguess a 2011 laptop is able to drive a second display, which could be a touch. AFAIK the Dells for example run arround 300 something bucks.
  • 0 in reply to Druuka
    Ahh, that's really great to hear, I was beginning to fear that ETC had locked it down to their proprietary equipment. Hmm, it looks like there are OSC libraries for Arduino - I feel a project coming on..... also oscRFR looks fantastic - very glad I haven't bought the ETC one (whatever it is called). I shall have a dig around for some documentation on ETCs OSC support.
  • 0 in reply to johannes
    Yeah, it could, but then it makes the setup a bit less portable, plus my display port connector has gone a bit wonky... I think it is just time for a new laptop tbh but I can't bring myself to replace what I have while it still mostly functions. Bring on the Surface Book 2 with a GTX1060!
  • 0 in reply to rphipps
    The arduino libraries are good. I have built several projects with arduino as the controller. I've also used particle photons for wireless devices. The osc implementation on the eos platform is the best in the business. It is being used for remote controls, integration with other software for live tracking and updating of paperwork and ml tracking. It is very exciting.
  • +1
    Just an update on this, I have built a .NET app for Windows PCs and an accompanying Arduino firmware to allow you to build very simple fader and button wings incredibly cheaply. If anyone else is coming to this thread, the Github repository is here: github.com/.../WingMan
  • 0 in reply to rphipps
    Cool!
    What are the capabilities of your wings? (How many faders, how many buttons, can the faders be motorized)
    Can you post pictures?
    Why the .NET app - shouldn't it work directly with the Eos software using OSC?
  • 0 in reply to Druuka

    hi! i am also a student with a Nomad. I have a MacBook Air that I'm running the Nomad on, but it isn't touch screen and is difficult to make work. I also have an iPad Pro, and I'm wondering if I download the oscRFR software, if I could hook up my iPad to work like the console, and my computer to be the monitor? Or any other suggestions?

    Thanks!

  • 0 in reply to kyork

    that should work, you might need a wireless access point to connect.

    just to phrase this correctly: you would be running oscRFR on your iPad to be the facepanel, the macbook would be the inside of the console and the display the monitor. oscRFR is a third party app that sends control commands to the macbook which will run the Eos software end interpret those commands. all calcualtions would be done in the macbook.

    last but not least: if you want your macbook to output lighting control data (DMX, ArtNet, sACN, ...) you will need to more things: a nomad dongle which is the output license for a certain amount of addresses and a box that converts either USB or network into DMX. if USB that would need to be an ETC Gadget II, if network you can use ETC products or thirs party devices that convert lighting network protocols to DMX.

  • 0 in reply to kyork

    You can also use your ipad as a touch screen on a mac using something like duet display thats in the iOS appstore.   I've not used it but it allegedly can work as a second monitor and behaves like a touch screen so would be a neat way of extending a nomads setup without buying an additional monitor. 

  • 0 in reply to Mike A

    I've used Duet Display (https://www.duetdisplay.com/) and YAMM air (https://www.yamdisplay.com/aboutair/) with nomad recently. I can confirm that the virtual face panel  and fader wings work, but there can be some significant lag between pressing buttons on the iPad and commands being processed by nomad.

  • 0

    Luminosus also deserves a mention if you have a little cash to pick up a midi fader wing. I grabbed a Behringer BCF-2000 from ebay for $160 and managed to get the Cherry programmable keyboard on sale for $30. It didn't take much tinkering to get these set up to work as a programming face and motorized fader wing.

    My biggest complaint about the fader wing is it doesn't work well with global effects faders that have a value over 100%. If you set one up at 200 for example, if you move the fader to 25% it will jump to 50%. 

    One of the added benefits to having the Cherry keyboard is I have assigned some keys to execute macros. I am not a heavy macro user, but I wanted to option to experiment with them more. I am not sure if the xkeys lets you do the same thing as I never had one, but I'd imagine it does. 

    Next step, make a custom case to hold and transport everything! 

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