Figuring Out an Inhibitor Sub for Blueouts with LED Pars

I've been scratching my head trying to figure this out for a while and can't quite find a solution that works. Hoping someone here might be able to help. 

The scenario is this: I work in a multi-use performing arts center with a lot of dance events programming on an Ion. Often we are programming lights on the fly for a show, director tells us a color, we create the look while the blueout submaster is on using a magic sheet to point everything towards those colors, dance starts, submaster is off and the look is up. 

The issue is that we were always able to park the blue lights in our strip lights for the blueout, but we've replaced our strip lights with LED pars. Now if we park a blue value, even super low, it messes with any color we try to make with those pars.  To work around this, we've made our blueout look a cue on a fader, but every time we raise the fader, it erases the manual data we put in with the magic sheet. The changes from dance to dance are quick, so being able to just pick colors instead of intensity is really important (we're also changing cyc floods on faders too in the time in between dances, but that's fine since they are on faders and not erased by the blueout cue on fader). 

Essentially, with the workflow we've made, how can I still have a blueout on a fader that doesn't erase manual data entered prior to that blueout now that we have LED pars?

  • I keep a sub recorded specifically for blue outs in my specials bank, used mostly for videos on the screen. I'll record everything I want in  blue at whatever level looks good for that stage setup and then record everything else that is currently or possibly being used onstage and anything that could wash the screen at 01 %. I then set the priority of that sub to 10 so that it takes down all the specials and everything washing the screen and dims all the colors to blu and the levels that work with that event in the show. when I don't need it for a show I copy it to a sub out of my normal usage range so I can easily bring it back when needed.

  • Thanks! Excuse me if I'm being dense, but are your manually programmed values (not on faders or in cue) from before the blueout preserved once the blueout sub is off? Is the priority level or fact that everything is set to 01% and not null making that happen?

  • The reason why this doesn't work is that you're using manual values. To make your blue out sub suppress values (i.e. not only bring the blue stuff up but also the rest down) you have to set it to LTP. The moment you move your sub the values from sub take over and replace the manual values. And since they don't exist anymore you can't return back to them.

    From this point of view it would be preferable if you changed your workflow to use playback values rather than manual ones. These can be cues, subs, presets and palettes. Cues, presets and palettes can be stacked, i.e. one fader with multiple color palettes.

  • In my case, no manual values during actual shows/events, The only time I have manual values in use is before the show when I am tweaking my core subs/cues for each specific performance/event. I only use playback values, either by sub or cue stacks that reference palettes and presets. So, in my case all values revert back to whatever was up before bringing my BLU VID sub up. The reason I do it as a priority 10 and not  LTP is so that I can then preset sub/cue (remove walk in COLOR MIX 6 and bring up emcee COLOR MIX 8, mover look Qs and LEC SPEC) in the background of the BLU VID sub so when I bring it back down it goes into the new look. Think, walk in look, transition to intro vid, after vid host or first act lighting look comes up. I also use the same VID BLU sub for the 'blue outs' for the end of each act to safely remove their stuff without being in a true blackout. Now I am almost entirely self taught, so I defer completely to anything the eos expert below say that differs from the way I do it.

  • Thanks so much. I was afraid the answer was to change the workflow, but I understand it's necessary. Stacking a single fader also sounds like a great use of the fader wing space, I hadn't considered it, but I think it'll be super useful for figuring out what to do. Again, thanks!

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