There are several issues that I have come across while using the Smartfade ML:
1. When editing single step times for sequences, the times that I set don't always hold true. For instance, I set for step 4 to have a fade down level of 0; however, when I play the sequence back, step 3 has a fade down time of 0 and step 4 fades out smoothly. What could be the issue?
2. For our Christmas production, we had all the lighting cues programmed into Apples's Logic Express. We then ran all the lighting and effects on the console via MIDI. A portion of our rig was made up of 4 Elation Opti Tri Pars. At times, they would fade on in a different color than was programmed. At one point during a performances it was like they couldn't make up their mind what color they were going to be. The result was a magenta - flash of red - magenta - flash of red - magenta. We did the show 3 times and this happened only one time. The other 2 shows, these lights did exactly what was expected of them.
3. We had several more issues during the same production with the same rig. During our first performance, one entire light show did not come on. Logic was playing over the cues, we just weren't getting any output. The lights worked fine before that portion of the show, and they worked fine after that portion of the show. There was also one point during a different performance, where the lights didn't fade out as programmed; instead, the stayed "on" and we had to manually fade them out on the board.
Is this an issue with Logic or the Smartfade ML or both? I really like having the board MIDI controlled - is there a way to do this that is more stable, reliable, and consistent?
Mac Pro w/ Logic Express
M-Audio MIDIsport 2x2
Smartfade ML
