MIDI Notes question...

Agreed :-D. Yeah, I just gave up on the bored.... bought a dmxKing Micro (only $60+$10 shipping) and it's GREAT! Got it working with Luminair on an iPod Touch which is a great program. Controlled all parameters with a lighting using LightJams which allows you to turn Wii data or any MIDI OSC and many other formats into DMX data and that works great as well. Tomorrow I'm gonna hook up my Kinect to my macbook use Synapse to turn Kinect data into OSC... do some conversion with OSCulator and then use LightJames (PC Only) with Parallels and turn that data into DMX and hopefully I'll have a moving fixture that follow my movement :-D.

Don't get me wrong. I know that it costs good money for HES to develop the software for their consoles, and I don't expect them to give hardware away for a few hundred dollars. What I just can't seem to wrap my head around is some of their overpriced accessories and upgrades. When I purchased my single universe Hog2PC widget, I paid more than a super widget goes for these days. If I want to upgrade it today, I'd have to pay my local HES dealer slightly less than the cost of a new Hog3PC widget. How does that make any kind of sense when I can just go out and purchase a brand new widget with a full warranty for less than $200 extra dollars?

There once was a time when HES accessories were actually within reach, but over time they have slowly increased the cost of their wings to be pretty much be in line with their entry level console. The reason we will never see encoder or fader support via midi is because HES is concerned that people will start using ENTTEC midi wings or the BCF2000 (which can doubles as a programming/playback surface for Hog2PC) in place of their programming and playback wings. What HES don't seem to understand is that if they did open up encoder and midi support for the people that can't afford the wings, they might actually fork some extra cash over to buy HES widgets instead of purchasing some of the other less expensive solutions out there. Heck, I'd be willing to upgrade my Hog2PC widget and get an additional Hog3PC widget if they opened it up. Not everyone would be using the HES playback and programming wings, but HES would still be selling widgets and have more people using their console. So when a few of these people make it in the industry, they will most likely continue using HES gear, which would lead to future playback, programming, widget, and console purchases. I hope someone at HES actually reads this.

As far as the iPhone/iPad remote goes, I don't understand why HES hasn't hired an iOS app developer to create a remote control app for their console. As another member said in another thread...

I personally think that this is the one thing that Hogs are missing... I am a programmer that uses many boards in addition to hogs, Grand MAs, Jands Vista, Chamsys... to name a few. I love Hog consoles, always have, but when I can remote control all of the other consoles from my iPad and stand on stage and in the Aud to "fine tune" my looks it makes my life a lot easier and my shows look better as a result... Just putting my 2 cents in.

Agreed :-D. Yeah, I just gave up on the bored.... bought a dmxKing Micro (only $60+$10 shipping) and it's GREAT! Got it working with Luminair on an iPod Touch which is a great program. Controlled all parameters with a lighting using LightJams which allows you to turn Wii data or any MIDI OSC and many other formats into DMX data and that works great as well. Tomorrow I'm gonna hook up my Kinect to my macbook use Synapse to turn Kinect data into OSC... do some conversion with OSCulator and then use LightJames (PC Only) with Parallels and turn that data into DMX and hopefully I'll have a moving fixture that follow my movement :-D.

Don't get me wrong. I know that it costs good money for HES to develop the software for their consoles, and I don't expect them to give hardware away for a few hundred dollars. What I just can't seem to wrap my head around is some of their overpriced accessories and upgrades. When I purchased my single universe Hog2PC widget, I paid more than a super widget goes for these days. If I want to upgrade it today, I'd have to pay my local HES dealer slightly less than the cost of a new Hog3PC widget. How does that make any kind of sense when I can just go out and purchase a brand new widget with a full warranty for less than $200 extra dollars?

There once was a time when HES accessories were actually within reach, but over time they have slowly increased the cost of their wings to be pretty much be in line with their entry level console. The reason we will never see encoder or fader support via midi is because HES is concerned that people will start using ENTTEC midi wings or the BCF2000 (which can doubles as a programming/playback surface for Hog2PC) in place of their programming and playback wings. What HES don't seem to understand is that if they did open up encoder and midi support for the people that can't afford the wings, they might actually fork some extra cash over to buy HES widgets instead of purchasing some of the other less expensive solutions out there. Heck, I'd be willing to upgrade my Hog2PC widget and get an additional Hog3PC widget if they opened it up. Not everyone would be using the HES playback and programming wings, but HES would still be selling widgets and have more people using their console. So when a few of these people make it in the industry, they will most likely continue using HES gear, which would lead to future playback, programming, widget, and console purchases. I hope someone at HES actually reads this.

As far as the iPhone/iPad remote goes, I don't understand why HES hasn't hired an iOS app developer to create a remote control app for their console. As another member said in another thread...

I personally think that this is the one thing that Hogs are missing... I am a programmer that uses many boards in addition to hogs, Grand MAs, Jands Vista, Chamsys... to name a few. I love Hog consoles, always have, but when I can remote control all of the other consoles from my iPad and stand on stage and in the Aud to "fine tune" my looks it makes my life a lot easier and my shows look better as a result... Just putting my 2 cents in.