Magicq programming help

[withoutfear]

I'm using magicq with 8 par 64's, 29 colorkey LEDs 3 rocklight LEDs an 4 chauvet int spot 250's for an upcoming flash mob dance skit. I wan to be able to program crazy club like movements with the spots and some strobe stuff with the LEDs! As I tried to do this today, I would program all the lights how I wanted them a d then press record and click a playback. I did this five or so time but the only thing that would change when I pressed the go button was the movers! What am I doing wrong in saving these scenes. Also any idea why the movers were going to black when moving to the next playback step?

[Esoteric]

Did you run the fader up under the playback?

You got the Chauvets up and running? Yay!

[withoutfear]

Yea I got them running. There are still some inconsistencies I'm running into. Sometimes they will only move while dark other times they will adjust position with the lamps on. I can't figure out a pattern as of why but I'm sure it's just something I'm over looking. To answer your question, I only turned the fader up on the first channel. I can't access the faders with my Mac book pro due to the icons being In the way. I will fix this issue tomorrow and give it another go. I have a question for you. In the beam options if I choose "macro" it will only do the set presets then it's really hard to regain control or "undo" the macro option. Why is this and what exactly is macro? Also is there a blackout option on magicq?I've found blind which seems to let me change stuff then fire it off all at once and dbo which I have to keep holding it down or the lights come back on. is there some way to set it up for the cleaning ladies to just push a black out button to turn certain lights on for cleaning(whichever lights I choose obviously)? Sorry for all the questions, I know it's a lot.

[waynehoskins]

DBO is momentary for a reason: it's a button that, largely, should never be pressed, and if it is, it should only be momentary. If it were latching, it would get you in trouble fast.

I think what you want to do is write, for lack of a better word, a "submaster" playback. Bring up the cleaning lights, whatever set you decide that is, and record that to a playback. I'd pick next to last for that, or even on another page, and then write houselights to the last playback the same way. It's a habit of mine, writing houselights to the very last physical submaster.

[Esoteric]

Okay, several issues here.

The sometimes moving in dark and sometimes not seems like some cues are marked and some are not. The ones that are it will dim the units, move them and turn them back on. it is a very handy feature. If they are not they will move while on.

Yeah, I am not talking about the channel faders, but rather the fader that is underneath the playback you are working with. How moving light consoles work is that when you hit play, the cue is set (everything moves into position, picks colors, gobos, etc) but the units will not be dimmed on. When you slide the fader up, then the units turn on.

'Macro' can mean a lot of things. How you are looking at it though, a MACRO is a program built into the moving light that does a certain thing. It moves the unit in circles, or something like that (usually strobes, color changes, gobo changes, etc are taken care of through those constructs so most MACROS are just movement presets). The problem with MACROS is that to get to one you have to go through all the ones in between. But back in the old days before fx engines this was very useful (unless you wanted to spend hours and hours building huge cue lists to do the same thing).

Now we have something called an FX engine. All moving light consoles have them. They use things that I didn't really pay attention to in high school like sin and cosin and such to make the unit do pretty movements. This has a number of advantages. First you can define things like the size of the pattern and the time it takes to complete the pattern. In addition the units can fade into and out of the movement patterns. FX can also do all sorts of other cool stuff as well.

What you want is the FX engine in your console.

What I do is set up a palette called "cleaning" that has the lights needed for cleaning. Then all they would have to do is hit that group and turn the intensity to 100% and turn it to 0% and turn off the computer when they left.

Don't be sorry, that is what we are here for!

[withoutfear]

Thanks guys this has been super helpful. Ive learned more in these two days than in six months on magicq...A few more questions have come up since solving yesterday's problems. What I did was set nine different Scenes and put each one on a play back so I can cycle through them to change the lights up frequently during the skit( flash mob )! I have some leds strobing and the some snapping from color to color, and I want the movers going nuts. Am I approaching this the best way using individual playbacks? I'm having to turn one up before turning one off so all the lights don't go dark. It seems to be causing my mover presets to change( though thats inconsistent) Is this possible? Is there a better way to achieve my goal. I know I can put multiple scenes on a play back,would it be better to turn the fading off on the playbacks and some sort of "push go" to fire each scene on the playback?

[Esoteric]

Well, that is a preference issue. I know guys who do each playback as a type of lights (so LED would have one playback, movers on another, etc), I know another guy who does each playback as a scene as you do.

I prefer to do a cue stack in the fader and go from cue to cue. This is not always possible (if you don't know the song list, have multiple operators, things like that) but if it is that is my preferred method.

So, I do cue 1, cue 2, cue 3, etc. Then play it from the top.

You have to find which is better for you.

Keep the questions coming if you have them.

[withoutfear]

What the heck is "locate" and why did it mess up all my cool fx movements? It made them go from very large movements to small crappy ones. I had to start all over from scratch! Other than that I went ahead and put movers on one channel whites front lights on a channel and all LEDs on another that works pretty good! I did run into a couple other problems but I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough.
Ps... I need a wing!!! This whole one fader at a time business sux!!!

[Esoteric]

Wings are great. I have the PC wing. At $3k its not in everyone's budget, but man, I love it.

Some people like the wing, some people NEED it, and some people seem to get by without it.

At what, $1400 a playback wing isnt too bad.

Locate is used for you to go into a rig you are not familiar with and say you don't know which fixture fixture 1 is, you click fixture 1 locate, and it turns it on in white and points it at the floor.

I bet it has other uses, but that is the only thing I have ever used it for on a consistent basis.

A note to everyone reading this. Moving light consoles have HUGE advantages over conventional preset, DJ, or even theatrical computer consoles (when dealing with LEDs and moving lights) but for someone with no experience with them, they have HUGE learning curves. Anyone can learn them, but how long depends on the person. I have seen people pick them up quickly and get going in 40 minutes or an hour. I have seen people invest 80+ hours getting the hang of it.

[withoutfear]

I would like to add onto mikes post about moving light controllers, specifically magicq. While it does have a steap learning curve, the concept is relatively simple once you figure it out! If someone would have made an easy road map for me in the beginning I would have been well on my way months ago! ( i may do something for the begginer since i know what thats like and what you will encounter)Once I got serious about properly using my movers it's taken me two days and this blog to get it fully up and running the way I vision it! While I still have many many questions and much more trial and error to contend with I'm comfartable in saying that I can make magicq do nearly anything I want it to! I owe mike a big shout out for that! From selling me the lights to telling me step by step how to add lights to the library and patching my first LEDs to running my first full show including all my movers. He has been nothing short of awesome in guiding me through this.... Big up's mike!

[Esoteric]

No problem man, its what I do. Like I said, I don't want you to have some expensive doorstops, I want you to love your gear (so hopefully you will come back and buy more ).

You know I had been thinking about a beginning MagicQ blog. But I got kind of busy here recently. Its on my list of blogs to write, but that is no guarantee.

[withoutfear]

When you get around to it, I think a blog would be super helpful to a lot of people just getting into LEDs and movers!
Here's a funny story I'll share because it's crappy, frustrating, and funny at the same time! So I get my first real show programmed for a big series we start Sunday called "Going Viral". There is going to be a flash mob erupt in the middle of the preaching that we are filming with hopes of it going viral on YouTube. Anyway, I spent the better part of two days figuring out magicq, making scenes getting awesome movements from my movers ect,and go into work today to find another one of my movers has died. ( second time). It really didn't effect the over all look of the show, it's just a bummer. I knew when i was buying the int spot 250's there were several warnings about them breaking but it fit the budget at the time. Im not discouraged though and am still excited to have learned all that i did. I'll be getting up with esoteric for some more sturdy and reliable movers soon. Another testament to the saying " you get what you pay for" especially in the light world! Stuff happens! I'll let you all know how it turns out after Sunday!