LED Submaster Mixing

Hello ETC,

 

I'm having a problem writing my new LED CYC fixtures into a workable color mix state on my fader wing. I am using 6 Ovation B 2805 FC in 1c RGBAL full mode for my Cyc and GR units. I have them channeled at 304-309. We're replacing conventional fixtures with RGB mixing. I'd like to keep the same logic of a submitter on a fader controlling cyc at full R,G,B,A,L but I'm not able to mix with them. When I bring up any of the color subs, everything is fine, but when I go to mix in another color, they mix up to 50% and then override the first fader. How do I set the subs to mix one into the other without override?

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  • you have to make sure that you only record the value for one emitter per fader. you recorded R@full, G@0, B@0, A@0 and L@0. but what you need is R@full and nothing else. 0 is a value too...
  • I get that. Is there a new syntax for "null" that I'm missing? What's the proper way to clear 0 absolute values within the sub?
  • At Enter had worked for ever and still does. Since 2.4 you can also place a filter on a sub so values don't play back, but removing the value is cleaner.
    Or of course by recording selectively you can make sure that the value doesn't get in there in the first place: Chan 1 Red Record Sub 1 Enter
  • I'm mid-show, so can't make the edit at this moment, but would you also suggest keeping intensity on a separate fader from each color?
  • Intens is the only thing that's mixed by HTP (Highest Takes Precedence). so let's say you mixed a color you like and now want to fade out by using the subs and maintaining the color. with subs including Intens that's gonna be hard because you have to fadeout all color components proportionally and at the same time. with Intens separate that's simpler.

    and can i say, the console has a great color picker. especially in the world of 5 colors and upwards the console usually knows better which base colors are supposed to be part of your traget color. e.g. did you know that a deep blue needs a tiny amount or red?
    i get that some people prefer the "old school" approach, but chances are you miss out on some features. and 5 colors is not the end. do we know enough about colors to get the brightest version of a color when using an 8 color system?
  • Thanks @ueliriegg for these tricks and tips. I know this is a recurring problem:
    I undersand the concept to record one color into a sub [channels][color][record][sub], but, what happened when you want to record a whole scene or, for example Lee147 into sub1 and Lee205 into sub2? its possible to do something similar to mix these scenes or colormixes? I try differents commands, but it result in the same, I can't mix. Last sub override the other...
    Thanks in advance!
  • I think what you are saying is you want the desk to take the "average" of the two different colours that are coming from each fader?

    It may be you've got your fader set as an Intensity master, which means the non intensity parameters just jump to their value and the fader controls the intensity only. You probably want it set proportional which means the fader controls all the parameters.

    From the manual
    To toggle a submaster between a “Proportional” or “I-Master” fader:
    • [Sub] [8] {Fader} [Enter]
  • no, mixing subs that have information for the same parameter doesn't work. it's LTP and there is no option to change it (and from what i know it's not planned either).

    this has nothing to do with I-Master or proportional. the concept of a sub is that you get the content you programmed if the fader is at the top end of its travel. and this is what you see. yes you can mix with faders that don't have data for the same parameter, but even this is not what the color control design of the console is. you're supposed to use the color picker, that's what's integrated best. the forther away you go from the original intensions of the concept of a console the more complicated it gets and the more workaround you need. and at the end of this is stuff that's not possible.
    unfortunately that's where you ended.
  • Although you can still mix like that if you patch your LED fixtures as conventional Dimmers.
    Run it like an old school Express.
    You will not have any of the fancy options that the Ion has. (Colour picker)

    But if this is a function you need, this will get it done.
    ( in other words, the Red Address into one channel, the Green Address in another channel, & the Blue Address in another channel. )

    and if you need a certain colour, you can pull the data out of the Colour Picker's displayed level values for that colour and record those levels as an Intensity Palate. (So your IPs act as CPs)
  • I suppose it depends exactly what you mean by mix.

    If its set to proportional then as you push up the second fader the colour will gradually become the colour that sub has loaded in it and if you pull it back down then it goes back to the original colour. So with the second fader at 50% and the first one at 100 then each component of RGB will be the average of the two subs, which is certainly a mix in many senses of the word. (what is perhaps different from how you might think of a mix is if the two faders are at 100% then true the second one is delivering 100% of the colour and the first one none, so the behaviour of the fader is more like that of a T-bar on a video mixing desk, cross fading from one to the other)

    If its set to I-Master then this doesn't happen and moving the second fader snaps the colour to the colour in that sub.
  • You can still do that old school manual RGB mixing without needing to patch as conventionals. You simply record only Red in one Sub and Green in the other and Blue in the Other as per what Ueli said earlier

    Chan 1 Red Record Sub 1 Enter
    Chan 1 Green Record Sub 2 Enter
    Chan 1 Blue Record Sub 3 Enter

    Having set chan 1 to white to start with, it will then record each part of RGB seperately into the 3 subs and mix them as required and the colour picker will track then and can be used as well.
  • I've done that many times, but with one addition.

    The background or 'home' color has to be BLACK. Default color for all the built in profiles is white, so just intensity gets you some light! So if the color values are already at full the sub doesn't have any effect. Setting the home preset to black lets you pile on subs or anything else. It's great on an X7 fixture!
  • Hey Mike,

    I understand exactly what you're saying. You can do that.
    But what you can not do with that method is make:
    Sub 1 - L102
    Sub 2 - L106
    Sub 3 - L181
    ...and mix using those colours.

    or do CYM mixing with an RGB LED fixture. The NPs will always snap on you.

    With the way I detailed, you can totally do that.
  • yeah you're not talking about the same thing...

    yes, you can make subs with one parameter per sub work to do e.g. RGB mixing.
    no, you can't make subs with overlapping parameters to do some color mixing. no, not even making the parameters dimmer will do what you want. it's not only a thing of HTP/LTP. it's about keeping proportions.
  • It took me a little while to get what you were saying, and once I did, my reaction was: of course not.
    I assumed people realised that a LED fixture is still one single light source.
    You can not actually get the product of one fixture with L102 and a different fixture with L181 in this fashion. That's totally impossible. I didn't intend to mislead anyone.

    My only intention was to say they would blend together in a way that LEDs would blend when mixing colours.
    The end result being the most desired result, you would not get the snap function associated with the NPs!
  • I think I am still disagreeing that you cant mix L102 and L181 on the single fixture.

    If the fader is set proportional then putting the second fader to 50% results in each of the RGB channels having the average of the RGB from the two gels. It doesn't snap.
Reply Children
  • I made this question because one week ago, while working in the small hall, the "light technician" of a theatre for kids, told me to put into subs (because they don't have cues or similar, they wanted to mix manually with subs.): a day light, a evening light, a night and one morning. He just wanted to work in the simplest way possible.
    Some of the subs contains blue, and here is the problem.
    Sometimes I used the led light as channels, and of course, it works. I loose the color picker, no problem. But if this were with movers, all will be more complicated to use as channels.
    Thanks
    Sorry my english, regards!
  • No worries.
    I've had 3 large road shows come through since we upgraded our Console / LED fixtures, and each one had difficulty working with the LEDs. People just aren't used to the way they react. They think they can do everything all at once.

    All the other NPs make sense when you have them be one thing or the other. You don't want those things to blend.
    Colour is a thing we in theatre like to mix.
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • But it really does mix colours if you set the sub to proportional.   You may get into debates as to whether you like the mixing (additive/subtractive/average) but it certainly mixes.  

    But you have to treat the fader as I said in an earlier post more like the Tbar fader on a video desk where 50% up will mean equal contributions of colour from the two sources and 100% up with mean all from that sub.

    In reply to sanfe earlier comment "Sometimes I used the led light as channels, and of course, it works. I loose the color picker, no problem. But if this were with movers, all will be more complicated to use as channels."  he absolutely does not have to make the channels to do RGB mixing,  that as everyone has said earlier can be done by assigning the Red to one sub, the Green to another and the Blue to another,  just making sure you dont set a value for the other two colors in each sub.

  • It just hit me.
    The fatal flaw in my argument is that I was advised to get into the habit of using Palettes. and Colour Palettes do not react the same way as absolute values.
  • I'm at home on my Nomad, and I was shocked to see Mike was 100% correct in what he said.
    Then I realised I ALWAYS used colour palettes for mixing, so I tried that and I can't be totally sure, because switching data views goes from palette name to gel name, not percentages. (What did I miss there?)

    I'm just really flummoxed at the moment because I can't say why my colours all snap, I just know that they do even though you all say what happens is impossible.
  • Yes if you are running it without the lights it does have a slightly confusing display, on the channel table as you move the second fader up it changes the label to the colour pallet or gel code immediatlety. Pressing control D to display the data seems to show the data, although I've not tried a colour pallet, containing a gel name to see what that does.

    Interestingly moving the slider down seems to cause it display the actual values unless at zero or 100%.

    If you setup your screen with the channel table, colour picker and faders all on the same view, you can see it tracking the colours in the colour picker xy display as you move the faders
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