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    Rylee
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Capture & Effect Behaviour while Busking

I am new to posting in the forums so if I should be formatting any of this differently please let me know and I will change it!

I have been experimenting with different workflow concepts in a busking environment and I have encountered some interactions that seem odd to me, specifically surrounding Capture vs Capture Enable while running manual effects and triggering cues.

I'll explain the setup and then describe some examples of behaviour that I am experiencing. I'm busking with a mix of submasters, cue lists, and manual data. The cuelists are new and where most of the problems are stemming from. I've set a few different looks/states on cues so that I can easily bounce between them (in this instance, different chase effects on some ETC Linears mounted on booms as eye-candy behind a band) with a macro to take me to the first cue to reset myself. The cue list is set to Cue Out on Back From 1st and Wrap on Go From Last. Now since I am also working with manual data (grabbing other fixtures, altering colour/positions and running effects) I don't want this to be interrupted by triggering cues. If I hit Go when a cuelist is out, all manual data will fade out, if I hit Go on the last cue (wrapping to the first) the manual data fades out, and if I hit Go To Cue (like my macro to go to the first cue) manual data fades out. If I hit Go or Back within cues, the manual data stays, and it is the same if I hit Back on the first cue, taking the cue list out (manual data stays). I think this is expected behaviour, but only losing manual data on the first cue seems odd to me. So to keep the manual data I started using the Capture feature and while it solved the above issues, it stopped working once I started using effects.

Example Channel State: Channels 11-20 in a Cue List, Channels 1-5 uncontrolled in a Home state, Channels 6-10 manually set with Intensity (50%), Focus (0, 0), and Colour (OW, same as Home) data.

Desk in Capture Enabled mode.

Example 1) Channels 1-10 running a linear intensity chase

  • Hitting Go/Back (while Cue List is active): Channels 1-10 remain the same, effect running.
  • Hitting Go To Cue: Channels 6-10 remain the same, effect running; channels 1-5 go out.

Example 2) Channels 11-20 running a manual linear intensity chase (cue has intensity at 20% for all), channels 11-15 are manually adjusted to 10%

  • Hitting Go/Back or Go To Cue (within same list): Channels 11-20 Effect stops, 11-15 revert to cue state, 16-20 hold 10% Intensity
  • Hitting Go/Back or Go To Cue (of a different list): Channels 11-20 remain the same, effect running.

Example 3) Channels 11-20 in a Cue List of different Colour Palettes, manual absolute effect of Colour Palette (Red) over background state running

  • Hitting Go/Back or Go To Cue (within same cue list): Effect stops

Example 4) Channels 11-20 in a Cue List of different Colour Palettes, manual absolute effect of Colour Palette (Red) over background state running, Channels 11-15 manually set to another colour palette

  • Hitting Go/Back or Go To Cue (within same cue list): Effect stops (but is still "displayed" on tombstone in a captured state; E1 C), Channels 11-15 don't change colour palettes

Now, if I instead have the desk in Capture Disabled mode and specifically select and Capture the manual data as in the above examples, it ignores basically everything above. Whatever state the light is in, it remains so. Including effect data.This is my desired outcome, where I don't have to be worried about a manual effect I have running stopping because I triggered a cue, but I also don't want to be constantly bringing up manual data then re-selecting it to Capture it, then reversing the Capture when I want to release that data.

I have a couple other examples that I can't recall specifics of right now, but when I'm back on the desk tomorrow I'll try and update this with them. There's one in particular involving a Priority 10 Assert "button" cue (set to Cue Out) and having lamps fade down from their state in the cue to 0, then snapping back on to their captured value. I think the value on the tombstones remained constant, but the output changed on stage.

So, to summarize the above issues:

  • Capture Enable mode operates differently than specifically selecting fixtures and hitting Capture.
  • Effects aren't captured in Capture Enable mode if they are running over a "home" background state (no other manual data for that parameter assigned)

If there are other ways to achieve a functional blend of using both cue lists and manual data successfully I am completely open to hearing them. One of the reasons I am trying out Cue Lists for say, colour info, is that if I have a sub master with an OW Strobe function on it and I hit it while my lamps are manually set to a colour, when I release the strobe the lamps stay white as it "forgets" the previous state they were in. But doing this creates issues if I want to run colour effects and change cues to switch the background colour up as the effect stops as soon as I do. I feel like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place with instances like this to get an optimal busking setup working.

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  • 0 in reply to Mike A

    For the examples I listed above they were assigned to faders on my wing, not the master fader. I do have my "button" cue loaded onto the master fader (and another virtual fader) and it's currently a single cue with Cue Out set for hitting Go or Back while in the cue itself to release control back to whatever held it previously.

    And to clarify the last example that I was hazy on in the post (I can't find a way to edit the original post) if I have the desk in Capture Enable mode and I have a manual intensity level on channels which are active in the cue when I trigger that cue the lamps will retain the captured intensity and try to fill out any other commands the cue had for them (which is expected). The interesting behaviour is when I hit Go again, triggering a Cue Out the channels that have captured manual data, but also are active in the cue, will fade to out then snap back on to full once it's done. Additionally if I have colour data controlled by another cue list, when I hit the button cue it takes control and changes the colour (expected) but when hitting go again the colour doesn't fade back to the other cue list, it fades out (as above) through the colour set in the button cue. Snapping back on to full (as above) in the colour of the button cue, and then fading back to the colour set in the other cue list (which has remained on/active the entire time). This behaviour occurs when I trigger the button cue from either location (virtual fader or master fader).

    However, if the channels are specifically captured (when desk is not in Capture Enable mode) then the manual data stays and is completely unaffected by the events listed above. That is what I would expect to happen in either scenario as Capture data should (in my head) behave the same whether it's a specific capture or Capture Enable mode.

    So I think my main question would be: is it possible to get the capture behaviour to be consistent? Or what the logic is for why they are not, just that I could understand?

  • 0 in reply to Rylee

    I think rereading your posts that what I was talking about is the same kind of issue just a different way of getting the problem.

    I think in both cases the root cause of the issue is that nothing is owning the channels when in my case I load the cue list on the main fader or in your case you goto cue out.

    It seems to be that at that point the manual data kind of doesn't have a place to live and disappears.

    You might find the following counter intuitive but without using capture at all,  if you create a cue list and put all fixtures in cue 1 at zero and load that onto a virtual fader that you put to full and leave there,   I think there is a good chance that then if you do all your normal stuff and set manual levels etc, it will behave as you want.  (Doing that and unload the master fader worked for me with manual values not going away as I switched cue lists etc in a fairly complex busking setup)

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