Hey Everybody,
Just programmed a handful of shows on the Ion, and kept a little notepad next to me while I was doing it, and occasionally wrote things down I either didn't understand, or think could be made better. I'd love an explanation as to why the console does some of these things, or if there's a better way of doing something I've missed.
I've attached the showfile of the most recent show (Buddy Holly) for reference if anyone wants it. There's a handful of scrollers, LEDS, moving lights, and even a couple pixel maps! The console was updated to 1.9.6 with the additional pixel map software. I've gone back and tested most of these I could in the offline editor to make the console was acting In a way I didn't expect it to, however some of these require an actual faceplate to test, so I've noted the ones that I have not been able to double check.
Get a comfy seat... there's 21 things (Look out I got some point cues!) on this list and its long...
1 - I would love to ability to recall individual channels from cues that have had effects applied to them, and keep the effect's altered rate and size. The most recent show I programmed was The Buddy Holly Story, for Flatrock Playhouse in NC, which required a lot of heavy effect usage. What I did was created 10 sine wave effects with no default parameter that were all the same, and whenever the designer asked to make a group of lights flash or the red/blue/green in the LEDs to chase, I would assign one of those effects to those channels or parameters, and then change the rate and size in the cue itself to suit the tempo of the song. Often I would have 4-5 of these effects running per song, and it became a hassle every time the designer would ask "Hey can I get those LED's flashing at the same speed as in the previous song?" Recall from recalls all the data for the fixtures from the previous cue, except the altered rate/size of the effects the channels are in, instead they default to 100. In order to fully recall the effect data, I'd have to go back to the cue itself, see what I had altered the rate and size too, and then go back and enter the data manually.
Another common effect I used was an absolute effect bumping between two colors in our Mac moving fixtures with color wheels, or would bump a handful of LED's between colors, or bump our scrollers between two frames. The designer loved the ability to do this, However every time I applied one of these effects, I would have to remember the altered rate/size so I could apply it later in the song at the same speed when the designer wanted them.
When the designer knew for a fact when he wanted certain looks and speeds in cues, we would use [cue][x][copy to][y], Which would thankfully copy the altered effect's rates and size, however this required forethought and planning (Something most theatres don't often have), and often we (he) didn't decide to add color/intensity effects into the cues till he had already made other changes to the cue, and a [Copy To] would have overwritten those. Unfortunately a [Channels][Copy To][Cue][x] Does not work, the altered rates + sizes will only carry over if you copy the entire cue.
If I can't get the effect's rates + sizes to recall from a cue with their altered rates + sizes, I would settle for an [Effect][Recall From][Cue][x] type of command to work.
Is there a better way to have done this? Instead should I have created 4-5 effects to be used individually for each song? Should I have made a separate "Red to White" color effect for each group of channels for each song or number?
2 - While we're on the topic of altering effects rates/sized live, it would have been a god send to have been able to change multiple effects live. I would have a both a "Green to Purple" and a "Purple to Green" absolute effect for our LEDs, in hopes that I could get alternating LED's bouncing back and for between the colors, so all the odd LEDs would be running the first effect, while the Even fixtures would be running the second. I would place the fixtures into their respective effects, however I could only alter one of their rates live. This caused much confusion with the designer as I would have to say "Look at the speed that every other LED is bumping at, and tell me when it's good for you". Once he was able to watch the altered speed of an LED unit, while trying not to get confused with the slower surrounding units, I would then have to look at the rate of the first effect then manually dial it into the second effect, and then finally update the cue to get them bouncing alternate each other at the same speed.
Again, is there a better way of doing this that I've missed?
2.5 - It would be nice if the [Out] command also cleared any running intensity effects on a channel. If I wanted the (often linier) effect to run with a background of zero, I would put that channel to zero. But when I press [Out], I'd like the channel to go out!
3 - Last time I'm gonna harp on effects, and then I'm done. Promise. We had a hazer, and eventually figured out we wanted it to run at 25% for 30 seconds, then off for 45 seconds and back and forth like that in the background. Ok, easy enough I thought. Created two beam pallets and put them into an absolute effect with the above timing. Everything went as expected. Placed this effect into an exclusive sub master, thinking that I can have this effect running in the background, however whenever I record a new cue it won't be recorded in cuz y'know... it's exclusive.
Well every time I would record a cue, the hazer's blower and haze attributes would be recorded in as hard zeros, regardless of where it was in its running effect from the exclusive sub master. Mind you this is was not an effect submaster, but an effect in a sub master on a fader. This soon became annoying because not only did I all of a sudden have hard zeros all over my cuelist for this hazer, but during playback if I had the hazer effect running and I went into a cue where it had a hard zero value, it would end the effect running.
Finally I came up with the work around to filter out the haze and blower beam attribute, and then If we needed them I would go back later in blind and put them in the cues that way. While this workaround worked perfectly fine, I feel as if an exclusive sub shouldn't be recording into cue lists anyway - much less a hard zero.
Also when I would [goto cue][out], it would stop the effect from running, but the bump button on the fader would still blink because the sub was still engaged, yet the channel was no long receiving it's information from the sub. I guess it is now "owned" by the cue list. Is this intentional?
4 - Abit ago I was in the fader configuration part of setup, where I would assign subs/playbacks/whatever to different faders, and we had an instrument catch fire on stage (one of those Fresnels that's older than theatre itself). I quickly hit the Blackout button, in hopes that would cut all energy going to the fixture. However while inside the fader configuration menu, you can't black out, go to live, or anything until you hit "accept changes". Normally I wouldn't mind not being able to get out of a menu till I accept the changes I've made, however this was a potential safety issue, where the ability to blackout immediately would have been nice. I have not tested this because I don't have access to an Ion faceplate, nor a way to see if the console is actually sending a blackout command or not.
I also suspect the same is true while you're editing an individual pixel map because you also cannot just jump out to live, however I have not tested this either.
5 - I feel like [copy to] should automatically select the copied to channels/effect/sub/pallete/preset/whatever, and when you [copy to] a cue, it should place you in that cue. Often the designer say "Hey Sam... give me a dark blue / lavender chase" So I would double tap effect, and choose one of the previous color bump cues I would have, and copy it to a new effect number. It would save a couple seconds here and there if I was automatically placed into that effect, so I could just change the actions in the absolute effect. Same idea with the cues, I would go back to cues with altered rates/sizes he liked, and copy those to new cue numbers. I would then have to go into that new cue using a [goto cue] command before I could start making changes and finally updating. I guess I could just [update][cue][whatever number the new cue is] from the old one I copied from, that that's another layer of key pressing, and again I'd have to remember the new cue number, and of course I'd have to remember to actually update it, instead of trigger-happily pressing the update button. One more example the Designer would often say "Put Group 413 in the same position as 411 but make it Amber." (All Mac 700 Wash Units). The keystrokes to do this would be [411][Copy To][Group[413][Enter] [Group][413]{Amber Direct Select}, It would be great if the console automatically selected group 413 after I copied to, so I could just tell them to go to amber.
6 - While creating a pixel map, after selecting a group of pixels and assigning the fixture type, I feel like the console should be automatically ready to take address input. I would always forget to press the address button after assigning a range of pixels as dimmers, and end up typing half their addresses in before I'd remember, and go back to press the address box. To me the logical flow of entering data would be grabbing a handful of pixels and assigning them as a fixture, I would then want to address them. If I wanted to do anything else with them, I'd instead press that box to change the data. Maybe it's just me.
7 - In patch it would be great to have the ability to move a channel - including all addresses on it, as well as any record targets that channel is saved to. The most recent show we ended up moving some movers, while leaving some in place, however the Designer wanted to renumber their channel numbers. Thankfully we weren't that far into programming, So I just rebuilt a couple focus presets, however if he had wanted to do this later it would have been annoying. It would also be great to have the ability just to swap two channels around - addresses and all.
Perhaps this is already an option somewhere and I still haven't found it, Any help?
8 - Access to a split live view when you have 2+ monitors would be absolutely amazing. Programming multi-parameter channels on an Ion with two monitors, a touch screen and a non-touch screen is a little bit of a pain. I would leave my direct selects up on the touch screen, but the other screen (shared with the designer sitting a couple seats away from me) would constantly have to be swapped between live and playback status. The designer had his Ipad with him, so he could follow the cue list along on that, however I would be left with no cue list except the small LCD display above the master faders- and that only told me what cue I was in, and the next one. Would not say anything about the timing of the cues or label. It would have been absolutely invaluable to have been able to keep an eye on my live table and playback status on the dumb monitor, and have my touch screen next to me be dedicated to direct selects.
9 - Speaking of the iPad, It would be nice if the cue list showed whether a cue was blocked or not. I understand trying to keep it all consolidated because the app also has to fit onto an iPhone, however when updating a cue the designer needs to know if he should do an update, an update cue only, or track he update thru a couple cues or not. What we ended up doing is whenever I would block a cue, I would add a "*" to the end of the label, so the designer would know I blocked it, however I would have to remember to manually do this every time, and undo it if I ever unblocked a cue.
10 - While assigning dimmers to a pixel map, being able to hit the [data] key and have the information swapped between 2/1 and 513 would be invaluable. The light walls we were working with had a good handful of 4 and 6 dimmer packs, and when we would need to swap one out I would just have to pull up what the electrician should address the pack too, and it was a pain to have to say "Whatever 846 is minus 512". A workaround I found was that the pixel we had on the first channel in the second universe would display as 513, I would grab that pixel and reassign him as 2/1, and that would swap all the other pixels to display in this format.
Occasionally I ran into this same problem in patch, where hitting [Data] would not swap the info around, however I can't recreate this in the offline editor, so maybe I was doing something wrong.
11 - I can't [Group] [x] [Select Active] {Offset} {Even/Odd}, and that makes me sad. I can offset random and reverse, but not odd or even. Sad programmer.
12 - Saving the show clears the undo list. That hasn't caused me any heart ache yet, but I'm sure at some point It'll get me.
13 - I wish the direct select module would display which preset/palette/effect/whatever your selected channels are currently in. Perhaps if one of your selected channels is currently in a direct select a thin red outline appears around the direct select box, or a small dot is placed in the corner of the button. It'd be nice to quickly confirm where channels are without having to look at my live view.
13.5 - I'd love there to be a snapshot-like function with the direct select module. Buttons off to the right of the screen where I could quickly tab between pre-set up looks of the Direct select module. Perhaps one look I have 100 presets, and then next look I have 50 color palettes up top, 20 beam palettes on page 2 in the middle, and 20 focus palettes at the bottom. This would save some time of hunting to find and select the right direct selects I want on each bank. I guess this could be accomplished by having multiple tabs of direct select modules open and tabbing between then, but I personally find having too many tabs open a little annoying.
13.7 - Speaking of having too many tabs open, I might have been dreaming but I remember a function to quickly close all open tabs except live/playback (the locked ones). Was I dreaming or is there a way to do this? Can there be one for the OCD programmer?
14 - While you're in a cue and you have manual data and you update that cue and another one, you're still left with manual data, you're not automatically put into the updated cue. Let's say you're in cue 4, and you [Update][Cue][4] + [2][Enter]. In blind it shows that you've updated cue with the new data, however in live the data is still manual, and sneaking the data returns the channels to their previous levels. Shouldn't updating multiple cues including the one you're in treat that cue as a normal update, where it automatically puts you into that updated cue? Before I can see this manual data as tracked data instead I have to [Goto Cue][x]
15 - I ran into an odd issue that I could not replicate in the offline editor, where under desk setting/record defaults, Auto-playback said it was enabled, yet the console acted as if it was not. Whenever I recorded a cue that was next the in the main playback (ie. I was in cue 10, and I recorded cue 11 and there were no point cues after 10) the console would put me into it, yet when I recorded a cue out of sequence (ie. I was in cue 10, and I recorded cue 4.5) it would leave me in cue 10. Loading up the same show in the offline editor does not recreate this problem, however it happened a lot while I was on the console. The only thing I think I could have done to cause this was hold down help and press the box for Auto-playback, it might have stuck it in that mode somehow, and I could not get it unstuck.
16 - A couple times while pixel mapping the console would lag behind, and the maps would get choppy. I only noticed this happened with some of the more complex default images, those further down the list. The only one we used in the show was Library 0, File 184 (Beam palette 140 in my show labeled "Random Streaks") There was no specific time when this would happen, it would randomly just get laggy and choppy. The only way to correct this would be to home the layer (I don't think just taking it out worked, but I could be wrong I can't remember) then reapply the beam palette. This choppiness would only affect the pixel map itself, the rest of playback would not be affected. I did not test whether other layers were effected or not by this choppiness.
16.5 - Speaking of pixel mapping... The Z rotate option for a layer is not in the virtual ML controls, and that really threw me for a spin (Pun completely intended). In the ML Controls you have the option to set the mode (rotate or index)... but not the actual slider to change that value. In order to change the rotation (or rotation speed) of the layer you need to do it with an encoder under the shutter attribute. This is not immediately obvious and caused me about 15 minutes of heart ache and pain before I realized I could only control this attribute with an encoder.
17 - More of a programming technique thing, wondering if how I did this was the best way or not. The show had 2 light walls made up of simple 60watt lamps, both were 5 wide by 7 tall. At the end of the show these walls were pushed together to form a single 10 by 7 walls. Most of the images we put on the walls I controlled as a single pixel map (Channel 700, with layers 701-709). I also build 2 additional pixel maps, copying map 1 and deleting the pixels not used for the SR and SL walls respectively (Channel 710 being the server SR, 711-719 being those layer channels. 720 being the Server SL and layer channels 721-729 assigned to that map.) Some songs required individual control over each side, and example is during one song we put a heart on one map, and then an arrow shooting in that direction on the other, and we would swap the images back and forth between the maps during bumps in the song. The only problem I ran into here was when 710 or 720 had any value (the individual maps SL and SR), anything I threw up on 700 would be completely overwritten. We never needed to fade between individual controls of the maps to a global image, all of our server and layer fade times happened on a zero count, but I'm not sure how I would have done it if I had needed to. Perhaps two layers on the global map, but panned left and right so they only occupy the leftmost or rightmost side?
Well, that's about all there is on this notepad, I'm sure there'll be more next show I program. Pixel mapping is fantastic, Select last is both a life and a time saver, Editing multiple palettes and cues in blind is amazing, overall the Eos platform is mind-blowingly easy yet complex. Thank you for taking the time to read (or skim) all this, I'd love any and all feed back to these issues I've brought up, perhaps I've just been doing something terribly wrong the entire time!
