Hi,
This question mainly goes out to the dev team and Gonsman. I have the unfortunate circumstance of having to work with an Element 2 in my venue that was purchased before I started working as their TD. I am both the house LD and Audio Engineer, and we often do live concerts and more up beat rock ish shows that would greatly benefit with multiple cue lists. As you all know, the Element was not built or designed for this purpose and while it works (barely), it’s not ideal and often makes my workflow for shows far too complicated and tedious. This extra work cuts significantly into my programming time, especially if I’m running both lights and sound for a show. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have recommended that they get an Element 2, but like I said, they got it before I got here. My current plan is to hopefully convince somebody to give us some money (we’re a 501(c)(3) non profit, and 137 year old historic theater) so I can buy an Apex FP with a MFW 20, 2 TK10’s and 3 multi touch monitors, but until then I’m stuck with the Element.
I am wondering, because the specific version of the OS is installed based on an ID in the firmware/bios, how hard would it be to throw in a mostly experimental hidden “unlock” option in the ECU that would let you enable multiple cue lists and playback faders on an Element 2 with a code given to you by tech support, or whomever? I have my bachelors degree in software engineering, so I understand the whole development pipeline and priorities and all that, but now that we have an all LED rig, the Element is proving to be a genuine hindrance on my ability to program and busk shows just on subs and staging mode. I also get this is a super specific issue that not a lot of Element users have, but I will be willing to do what ever it takes to get the ability to use playbacks.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the ability to run nomad because I lack any sort of fader wing or programming wing, and I don’t have the ability to get any touch surfaces. Not to mention I greatly prefer having physical tactile controls as they’re way easier to use while not looking at them. I’d be happy to talk privately about a solution for this because again, it is a significant issue that is getting in the way of being able to put out my best work. Thank you!