In my last post, I explained why I don’t think the ETC Element is a good replacement for the ETC Express.  When I was at LDI 2009, I ran across the Rendition series of consoles from Lehigh Lighting.   Based on the literature I picked up, and the extensive demonstration that I received from the Lehigh representative, it looks like the Rendition might be the true heir to the Express.  It is targeted at a similar market: small theaters, churches, and schools.  The physical layout will be familiar to anyone with theater console experience: 24 or 48 submasters on the left,  dual cue playback controls in the center, and hardkeys on the right, with channel faders (48 or 96) along the upper right portion of the desk.  The submasters are traditional theater-style subs.  Each sub records a fixed look rather than an independent cuelist.  Shows can be saved to a flash drive via a USB port.

While the console hardware is finalized, several additional features will be added in an upcoming version of the operation system.  The console currently supports one external monitor, but dual monitors will soon be supported.  An Ethernet port is already included on the console.  In a future software release, it will be possible to add wings with additional submasters or channel faders.  The advantage of Ethernet over USB is that a wing can be placed hundreds of feet from the console, and connected using existing Ethernet lines.  This feature would allow a wing to to be used as remote focus unit.  Using a wireless Ethernet bridge opens up even more possibilities.

The main difference between the two models, the 24/48 and 48/96, is the number of hardware faders.  The software capabilities are identical.   The price of the console depends on how many channels of conventional dimming are “unlocked.”  You can choose from 125, 250, or 512 conventional channels.  All models support 1024 channels of moving-light control.  The two hardware DMX ports each support 512 channels, but two additional universes can be accessed via Ethernet (I’m not sure of the details on how this works).  The console seems to support all the basic and advanced cue and effect functions that you’d expect: multiple cue lists, flexible cue timing options, macros, subroutines, and effects.  I can’t really comment further about that, since I would need to spend a lot of time with the console to accurately gauge its reliability and ease of use.  Moving lights are also supported, with fixture profiles for easy patching and a trackball for focusing.  Once again, it looks promising, but the only way to really evaluate these features is to try to use them and see how intuitive the process is.  Download the offline editing software and try it for yourself.

A more sophisticated console called the Rendition Pro is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2010.  The Pro is aimed at more experienced users, and appears to compete with the ETC Eos and Ion.  It will run the same software as the Rendition, so many of the features that are expected to be added to the Rendition are actually being developed for the Pro.  The layout is similar to the Rendition, with playback masters on the left side, traditional cue playback controls in the lower center, and keys to the lower right. Two LCD displays with encoder wheels and softkeys occupy the space above the keypad, with no hard channel faders.  Further, the submasters  have LCD displays and additional buttons–probably “Go” and “Pause”  buttons to support a cue stack on each sub.

From my limited experience, both of these consoles series are worthy of further investigation.  They seem to be solidly built and well-engineered.  The Lehigh personnel that I spoke to were helpful and friendly, and I appreciate their assistance in answering my questions.

Head over to Technologies for Worship Magazine and check out my recently-published article about backlighting.  It’s my first publication in print (outside of technical journals).  I’m looking forward to writing more articles for a general audience!

We recently got an ETC Element to replace an ETC Express 72/144 that had become unreliable due to a hardware problem.  I’d like to point out that ETC equipment is generally very durable, but this particular console only lasted about 8 years due to abuse by the high-school students who use the console during the week.  The Express was a great console.  It had a hardware fader for each of the channels that we commonly used, and a bank of 20 submasters.  Recording a submaster was as simple as creating a look onstage with the channel faders, then pressing “Record” and hitting the submaster bump button.  It had one external LCD screen for output, which had a very simple character-based interface.  Just about anyone could learn to use the Express.

The Element is, in many ways, a much more sophisticated console.  While the Express didn’t have any real capability to run moving lights, the Element has many features to facilitate the use of moving lights and programmable LED fixtures.  It supports two external LCD screens with a full graphical interface, a keyboard, and a mouse. Unfortunately, the Element has lost all of the simplicity that made the Express so successful in its target market.  Let’s start with the physical design.

The greatest disadvantage of the Element, especially for untrained users, is that all of the forty faders (60 in some models) are multi-function.  With the bank switch in position 1, the faders represent channels 1-40.  Position 2 changes the fader function to channels 41-80, and Position 3 changes the faders to channels 81-120.  Position 4 changes the fader function to submasters.  While it’s nice to have 40 subs, it’s also extremely confusing to figure out which channel fader or submaster is currently controlling the output.  Here’s an example.

Let’ s say that you use faders 2, 17, and 31 to set a look on Bank 1.  If you switch to Bank 2, faders 2, 17, and 31 are still up, but they are not controlling anything.  Bring those faders down, and continue setting up the look on channels 41-80 using Bank 2.  Now switch back to Bank 1 to tweak the look on channels 1-40…but the faders are no longer up!  The LEDs on the bump buttons will flash to show which channel levels no longer match the fader positions.  To take control of these channels, bring the fader up until it matches the current channel level.  Then you can control the channel again.  Are you confused yet?  Did I mention that the faders have no numbers?  I find this slows me down when creating a look, and makes it harder to edit a look “on the fly.”  To top it off, the bank selector is a little plastic twist switch, and it’s hard to see which bank it’s pointing at.

With many consoles, you can work around the limited number of faders by adding an expansion wing with additional controls.  Unfortunately, the Element does not support expansions–you have to upgrade to the Ion to get that feature!  I’m not thrilled with the layout of the keys on the Element keyboard, either.  It’s difficult to guess where a key is going to be–they don’t seem to be grouped in any particular way.  Compare to the Hog 1000, in which the keys are grouped as “verbs” and “nouns” for command-line programming.  One final gripe about the hardware: it’s difficult to run my finger down the row of bump buttons to  find a particular light–this was easy to do on the old Express.

So, after all my complaining, I want to leave you with a great feature.  I love the “Exclusive” submaster setting that prevents the output from a sub from being recorded in subsequent cues and submasters.  I use this all the time to keep some lights up onstage or in the house without having them recorded into cues.  I’m sure there are more little gems built into the Express.

Here is my conclusion about the Element: it is NOT a replacement for the Express.  Do not expect this console to be a “drop-in” replacement for any traditional theater console.  The learning curve will be very steep for brand-new users, and slightly less steep for Express users.  In the end, the Element will be far more capable than the Express–but that’s not the target market for the Express.  If you are buying a console for a school, small church, or community theater where the users are generally inexperienced, there are probably better choices than the Element.

I attended LDI (Live Design International) last Friday in Orlando, FL.  This was my second time at the show (read my report from 2007).  Overall, I’d say this year’s show was scaled back from 2007, which is not surprising considering how the economic recession has affected the entertainment industry.  There were fewer booths this year, and they weren’t as fancy.  A few manufacturers, such as Chauvet and Coemar, brought pretty spectacular booths.  Other companies brought large booths (such as ETC and Martin), but they were not as flashy.  I’m not sure if Friday is normally a slow day for this conference, but there wasn’t much of a crowd.  I didn’t have to wait in line to see anything.

In 2007, I went to LDI to try out control consoles to replace our Hog 1000.  That plan fell through when the economy tanked, so this year I was just looking around.  Apparently a lot of people were, because the sales people were rather aggressive about jumping onto any apparent interest in their product.  One girl tried to scan my badge as I walked by–I don’t even know what she was selling!  Actually, that’s a common occurrence at LDI–it’s hard to tell what the actual product is in the booth.  All the larger booths seemed to consist of truss, truss warmers, banners, drapes, moving lights, and video.  I often had to stop and look for a minute to figure out which one was actually their product!

I will post some photos when I get a chance.

We recently learned the hard way that the use of haze can lead to reliability problems for some LCD projectors. We have two rather large LCD projectors (don’t know the specs offhand) permanently mounted to the ceiling, projecting onto the front of screens located on both sides of the stage.  A third LCD projector hits a large rear-projection screen that basically forms the back wall of the stage.  We also have an oil-based hazer mounted above the stage.  We had some old, tired projectors, so we assumed that they were just old and unreliable.  However, after replacing them with new, more powerful models, the reliability issues continued.  After sending the new projectors out for service for the second time in less than a year, the service center informed us that a film of oil had been deposited on the LCD.  You can buy expensive sealed-optics projectors, which should work reliably in dirty environments, but we saved money and bought standard models.  We don’t have the budget to replace the “new” projectors, so we’ve had to stop using haze altogether.  The stage doesn’t look nearly as good without it, and our moving lights are much less useful.

On a side note: you should be aware that haze can also damage moving light fixtures that use a fan to cool the power supply or motors.  The fan sucks in haze and coats the internal components with a film of oil.  Eventually, something overheats and the fixture can actually catch fire.  Fortunately, we have older High End Studiospots and Trackspots that apparently don’t use forced-air cooling, so apparently the haze doesn’t really get inside.  Be warned!

Normally, we stay far away from anything marketed to DJ’s, but we’ve been experimenting with cheap LED fixtures as an inexpensive way to put more colors on stage.  LED fixtures have a few advantages: they efficiently produce light without much heat, they don’t require a dimmer, and they can produce multiple colors without gel changes.  They also have some disadvantages.  Color mixing is produced by combining LED’s of different colors (RGB) at different intensities, so the color is only “mixed” at the surface it is illuminating.  It can be difficult to produce white light that matches light from other fixtures.  LED’s cannot be dimmed by lowering the voltage, like a conventional light.  Instead the LED is strobed (pulsed) at a rate too fast for your eye to discern.  Unfortunately, the Chauvet ColorPalette fixtures shown below use a pulse rate that is slow enough that it can be picked up on a video camera.  When the fixtures illuminate a set piece like this one, which is in the background of many IMAG shots, the flicker is very distracting if the intensity is run at anything less than 100%

Practically speaking, when a Color Palette is visible on camera,we can only get seven full-intensity colors: red, blue, green, white, purple, blue-green, and yellow.   We’ve since moved them out into the auditorium where they are used to illuminate the walls.  We did find one really cool application for these lights.  We have a number of deep-purple, “blacklight” Color Palettes mounted backstage to enable people to move in the dark.  They stay on all the time, draw very little power, and are totally invisible to the audience, even during a dead blackout.

This is a Chauvet COLORado 1, which is meant to replace a small par can. It’s mounted on a pipe above and behind the musicians and lights them from behind.  This is the view you get from the front row in the audience.  See the red, blue, and green LEDs?  That’s producing white light, but you wouldn’t know it from this angle.  That’s what happens when the colors don’t mix at the light.  We don’t have the strobing problem on video with the COLORado’s, but I don’t know if that’s due to their positioning or their design.

For more information, see the LED lighting reviews by onstagelighting.co.uk.  There are also pro-grade LED fixtures that are much better…but I haven’t used them.

After a longer-than-expected holiday break, I’m back with a slightly different topic: set design and construction. Someone else designs and builds our sets, but I get to light them, and I’m usually tasked with documenting them. Our lighting console evaluations have been on hold for the holidays, but I plan to get back to it later this month.

The set I’m writing about today is one of the more exotic ones we’ve tried. Here’s how it looked when lit

Pieces were cut from white Styrofoam and stitched together to make a wall of crazy curves:

The set was lit from below with cheap LED panels. The black boxes in front of the fixtures are cinder blocks that are basically sitting there to keep people from stepping on or kicking the fixtures as they enter and exit the stage.

These LED fixtures are handy, but they have their drawbacks. That will be the subject of another post.