I have been trying to find out if these desks are still available to purchase or would there be a similar desk produced? As it suites all of our venues needs. As we are a training facility for school students and figure that a half manual desk is an easy way to teach students.
David writes: “We do still have a few Express consoles if you just have to have one. We understand that there are reasons you may prefer Express at this time. We’d like to see you make the move to Ion and we feel you will be happier if you do – but we respect your opinions too. We are not 100% out of these consoles and while we have officially stopped taking orders you can speak to your ETC regional manager (or ask your dealer to do so) and they may be able to get you a console. (They will kill me for posting this)”….and now they will also kill me for passing on the information yet again. (Please keep in mind that David posted this about 3-months ago so current availability is in question.)
Please note that you should not be too concerned about a newer style board being too complicated for students. ETC has constantly been amazed at how quickly students, even in elementary schools, learn to use the newer consoles. {The harder nut-to-crack is the 15-year, or longer, Expression (Express) line user who is going for psychiatric help in order to deal with not being able to get those boards in the future…..I’m actually one of these people J}
I’m confident that other readers of these forums can also offer some good advice on making it through this transition and I would personally recommend that you give the Ion a good look. I was a bit scared to change (and I work in ETC Service where we will always have access to an Express) but after my first show with the Ion, I was good to go and realized I was just being pessimistic about changing to something new.
Easy or not (and quite debatable), teaching a "half manual desk" is doing a disservice to your students. As David Lincecum stated elsewhere, quoting another, "the two-scene preset console encourages bad lighting." In today's world of controlling moving lights, LED fixtures, and other non-dimmer devices, the two-scene preset model just doesn't fly. The Ion/Eos is well on its way to becoming just as popular as, if not more than, the Express(ion) family. Would you purchase a Windows 95, 2000, or ME machine with which to teach students today?
The Express may very well suit all of your venue's needs today, but what about tomorrow? LED fixtures can be had for as little as USD100, and costs will only continue to come down. While one could control these with an Express, why would one want to? The average life of a lighting console is ten years or more. Don't start with a fifteen-year old design.
I've been running manual consoles since 1976, memory consoles since 1979, and Expression consoles since 1987; and haven't felt the need to seek psychiatric assistance yet. Ion's operating system is much less complicated than that of the Playstation3. The teachers, because of ill-pre-conceived notions, are going to have more difficulty than the students. Kids (those under thirty) today can touch-type text using a cellular phone's keypad. Not having a handle for every dimmer isn't going to phase them.
One point I neglected to put in my previous post is that our venue runs with 1 technician on duty, We train other people to operate their own show, we have a lot of schools that come through but also a few larger companies. We currently run with a 2 preset desk, this is very good for us as we have very little bump in/ tech time to work with the new operators to get them up to speed with our desk. Also we have a few live shows that just come in on the fly and don't allow for any tech time at all, this maybe a bit tricky with a fully dedicated pre programed desk I feel.
For larger show that come through that are running for longer then a week session we have in stock a vision cira 1980 which is a lot easier for people with a bit more background to use, otherwise they are more then welcome to use their own boards, with the more then common pc with pclights which we shudder at.
How ever I was just putting this out to see what other desks would suit our needs. Or if they are still around as I have had no reply to emails that I had sent off.
When 'handing over' an Ion to an untrained user who's not seen the console before and doesn't have any time, the fastest option is probably to give them a Wing with a load of pre-programmed Subs on it, containing various useful groups of lights. (If you've a standard rig this is easy)
A user who can handle a two-preset desk can easily handle a set of submasters - many would prefer it, as it's much easier to 'go back' or 'jump over' a set of cues. I've met a few people who prefer to run shows by crossfading between subs - even at times where having a Go button or AB crossfader would have been easier (for me at least).
When the user is going to pre-program, then you can show them the basics of recording cues - if they aren't used to the idea of tracking, put the Ion into 'Cue Only' mode and they'll be happy.
Almost anyone can be taught '[Channel] x [@] y" and "[Record] [Cue] z" in a couple of minutes, and that's enough to program their show if the patch is already done.
I've yet to meet anyone who can't wrap their head around an Ion in Cue Only mode - even the guys who love their submasters!
I remember (many years ago) being dumped in front of a Strand 300 when I'd only ever used a single-preset desk before. I never learnt the 300 itself properly, but the local tech took ten minutes to show me the basics and that was enough for my show.
