Element 40 Cue help

I work at a tv station. we just got an Element 40. Aside from lights to light talent we also use the board to change set light colors.
So our different shows will have different colors. For example:
Morning show - yellow
Midday show - blue
Late show - white
Breaking News - red
I have the concept of submasters down and have put these light setups on their own submasters and we switch between them by bringing one fader down and the other one up.
i'd like to be able to have these setups on hot keys. So you'd hit the breaking news hot key and it would bring down the current show lights and bring up the breaking news lights, just by pressing one button.
I've read through and made Cues but I have some questions.
It seems like cues are designed to run in sequence. That isn't really how we'll be using them. They will be more like setups you select when you need them.
I've adjusted the timing for the cues but it seems that if you use Go To Cue out of sequence it ignores the set down time and uses a default of 5 seconds. Is there a way to either change the default Go To Cue time or to have it respect the up and down times you've set for the cue?
Also, is there a way to put those cues at hot keys so light setups can be accessed with the push of a button as opposed to using the Go To Cue button? The people that will be changing these have other responsibilities and having labeled buttons available at arms reach to turn on and off light setups would be ideal.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance for any help.

Parents
  • I do this for my theatre's house lights.
    It's simple.

    I created a few Macros and have them as Direct Selects.
    Record a macro for each Cue and label the Macro as the Look.
    Macro should be: [Goto_Cue] (?/?) [Time] [Enter]
    (using Time will tell the console to use the Cue's actual time instead of the default goto_Cue time)

     

    Edit: I just reread your question, and you can do the same thing with submasters if you wish. Your choice.

    If you were using Submasters 1-4, you'd need to write macros to fade down what was up and fade up what you want up.

    [Sub] 1 thru 4 [At] 0 [Time] 2 [Enter]

    [Sub] 1 [At] [Full] [Time] 1 [Enter]

  • Like a lot of things on EOS there are several ways to achieve it and its down to personal taste.

    Rather than using direct selects to fire the macros I'd put them on a Magic Sheet.

    Then you can create a really idiot proof big button screen with just the buttons for your macro for the different looks plus perhaps others for talent lights fade up/down, end of show fade and any other things you might want, but you can keep it real simple for the untrained users.

    In addition to the suggestions of macro's firing cues or subs, you can also just record several presets for your different looks and then your macros would be (assuming the lights you want to mess with are in group 1)

    Group 1 sneak 2 preset 1 enter

    which would take those lights over 2 seconds to whatever you've recorded in the preset for each channel.

    Its probably easier than cues as unless tracking is off you might get a change from an earlier cue you weren't expecting. And its a little easier to setup than a sub as you just get your look right and go record preset 1

    But its really just personal preferences.
  • Thanks for the answers guys. It's very helpful. I'm just a month or so in to using this board so i'm not familiar with everything. What is a Magic Sheet? I don't see it anywhere in the manual.

    thanks again
  • This is a nice overview of what magic sheets are for - they long predate electronic tricks.

    http://www.mikewoodld.com/magicsheets/

  • Should just point out that the article posted above was qutoing from the article " is about the paper versions of magic sheets – not the EOS versions".

    The reason I am picking up on that is magic sheets in EOS can really be used for two different things (or a mixture).

    A paper magic sheet is a picture of the rig and the EOS one can be that but it can also be a simple customised interface the software - think shortcut buttons.

    So in the specific case above you might just have a few buttons for the various looks you want on the set.

    But in a more general case you might do something like what I have on a magic sheet with the rig layout on the left and then a bunch of buttons on the right that are groups, colour pallets, focus pallets, macros to load cue lists on the master fader, Go button, Effects and stop buttons for each effect and big stop all button etc etc. So busking a show I never have to touch the keyboard.
Reply
  • Should just point out that the article posted above was qutoing from the article " is about the paper versions of magic sheets – not the EOS versions".

    The reason I am picking up on that is magic sheets in EOS can really be used for two different things (or a mixture).

    A paper magic sheet is a picture of the rig and the EOS one can be that but it can also be a simple customised interface the software - think shortcut buttons.

    So in the specific case above you might just have a few buttons for the various looks you want on the set.

    But in a more general case you might do something like what I have on a magic sheet with the rig layout on the left and then a bunch of buttons on the right that are groups, colour pallets, focus pallets, macros to load cue lists on the master fader, Go button, Effects and stop buttons for each effect and big stop all button etc etc. So busking a show I never have to touch the keyboard.
Children
  • Thanks for the help guys. Cues, macros and magic sheets are exactly what I was looking for.
    I have a question with building magic sheets. I know you can link the color of an object to channel color or intensity but what if you aren't linking to a channel? what if you're linking to a macro? i'd like the border of the box to link to intensity so that the user can tell which lights are on and which are off (border would turn white because intensity is at 100%). Is there a better/different way to do this when you aren't linking your object to a channel?

    thanks!
  • One way that I have seen it done it is to make a slightly larger rectangle that sits behind the macro button, and assign the rectangle to the appropriate channel with intensity and color linked.

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