Out of focus points/ different way of recording ML effects?

Try writing a macro to switch pages for you and have it linked into your cue stacks at the appropriate times.

I tried that, and it works when I have a hand free to hit the button. But since i'm doing it all with submasters, both of my hands are frequently holding down a bump key right when i need to switch

Hi Jonathan!

Back a few short months ago when I was still in high school, I had an almost identical setup that you describe, and I found myself in your position often.

The problem with doing what you are doing with your Expression board is that it was (and still isn't) really designed for moving light capability. I am reasonably sure the ML capability was added to the firmware on the board as sort of an afterthought, if you will. I am not sure if you have had the chance to play with true moving light/effect boards, but they look considerably different and are really designed to structure cues, effect, and the like in a much more convenient manner.

On to the reason for my post... To be completely honest I never used focus points once for any of my shows, perhaps I felt the system I had been using was good enough, so I stayed away from them opting to use groups to help me record the various steps in an effect. While you could not modify the group after effects were recorded and have the settings propagate back into the rest of the show, I did not really ever need to do this, as rock show lighting isn't usually a precise art, it's more about having all the lights available to you moving around at some point in time, and making it look good...

I might suggest you look into using groups to help you record the steps in your effect submasters. I have used cues linked to macros to fire the subs with the effects or whatever recorded into them. In reality, the biggest constraint with that board in my opinion is the 24 sub limit. Sub Pages have good intentions, but I found almost as soon as I started using them in cued shows I could not control them with adequate flexibility and would tend to freak out during a complex live show, so I also never used the sub pages...

As for your second question, you do not need to record a cue first in order to take it into a sub... I believe the proper key sequence is to do Blind > Sub > {sub number} > Type > 4 (if I remember the number for an effect). From that point on you can hit Record > Enter whenever you are ready to record and it will put it in the sub you specify. I can go get the offline editor and make sure of those keystrokes if I am incorrect.

Hope this helps.

---landon

Johnthan,

I was in your seat for many years with 4 moving lights on an Express 48/96 and running out of options! A great tool I started to use was a combination of subroutines and macros. Subroutines are like effects; but their steps are actually cues and by firing them on the C/D fader (assuming you are using A/B for primary playback) you can layer your effects on top of your beam looks and conventional intensities. So say you build many cues with different beam looks, leaving gaps between. Now jump up in your cue list say up to the 500s, and build cues with different combinations of focuses; for instance, different steps in a ballyhoo, circles, boxes, can-cans, etc. Now comes the little bit of cleanup: you need to go back to your cues with beam looks and create a sequential cue that clears out any position info in the same time as your subroutine's first step (since all channels are HTP on the Expression, your effect would only move your lights "beyond" where they are in your beam look cues, if that makes sense; also mimicking the timing of your subroutine allows effect to "fade" in.

Now create the subroutines in Blind by pressing "type" and I believe subroutine is option 4 or 5. Subroutines can only be recorded as cues, so you can pick another bank of cues (maybe the 700s) to record the actual subroutines. You can get some great effects by combining cues from different subroutine sequences to create new effects.

Now.....if you're in a cue with a good look onstage and want to add movement (say, on a build in the music) you can write a macro to fire your movement subroutine on the C/D fader while also taking a cue on the A/B fader that is the current beam look sans position info. To get out of this, make another macro that releases the C/D fader and jumps you back into sequence where you want to be.

This sounds a litle daunting, but with some planning and a numerical organization plan; you can create many different types of effects an lay them out in a way for easy running on-the-fly.

Let me know if you need some clarification.

As far as your sub issues; try looking at macros to switch between pages; keeping in mind that macros can also fire one other macro as well as execute a full string of commands.

-Nick

Never done it myself, but you can actually make channels on Expression be LTP.  Go to Setup -> Channel Attributes, Select the Channel, and mark the LTP field (or use S6).