Programming for a concert - most effective way?

You have to decide if you are busking (on the fly) or a cuelist for each song.
For this I would busk it.

Then, decide if you want to play the lights from the faders or from the touch screens (list pallete).

For faders (assuming entours)...
First the entours
1. Intensity and positions
2. Colors
3. Gobos
4. Gobo rotate speed (set fader as IPCB)
5. Prism rotate speed (set as IPCB, and when you pull down it will release and go back to open)
6. P/T Effects

Then the LEDs
7. Intensity
8. Colors
9. Color chases

10. Flash all to white?

That's what I would do given a few hours.

When you say "Intensity and positions" on the 1st. fader… can I program different positions on the one fader? I thought that I have to record the different positions on palettes.
Same question for the the 5 other faders… how can I set different colors or the gobo speed to a fader?

Thank you very much! :)

On all of these keep in mind you are programming just the parameters you want on those faders. Another way of saying it is, only touch the things in the programmer that need to go in the fader.

So,

Fader 1, Cue 1
Intensity at 100% and fixtures in a nice position

Fader 1, Cue 2
Next "nice" position
(you were careful to only touch position)

Fader 1, Cue 3
next position

Keep doing this for all the positions you want, or come back later during the show/s and add more.

Now here's the critical part, CLEAR THE CONSOLE!

Use Fader 1 to bring up the fixtures in a position.
Bring the same fixtures into the programmer.

Fader 2, Cue 1
Color 1 (only Color touched)

Fader 2, Cue 2
Color 2

And so on.

A couple of tricks...

When you record the gobos you'll need to record the other wheel to be open. Like if cues 1-9 are gobos from wheel 1 then gobo wheel 2 needs to be touched in those cues as Open. And the reverse for gobos from wheel 2. Also, record the rotate as 0rpm on the first cue.

For the Gobo Rotate fader, record the gobo wheel 1 rotate at say 200 rpm as cue 1. Then go into options and set the fader as IPCB.

For the prism rotate record 1 cue witht the prism in and at the top speed you might want. Then set it for IPCB too.

For the Pan/Tilt Effects try choosing something like Circle from the Effects Pallet, set the size and speed at reasonable settings. When you record it do this; RECORD EFFECT, then select from the right monitor USE E. Now it will apply the effect to whatever position you are in on Fader 1.


Phew, that will keep you busy for a while. ;)

Thank you Chris! But how do I switch from cue 1 to cue 3 and back to cue 2 ? With the buttons above the faders?

I thought about programming a few 'scenes' for the intros of the songs. How would you solve that? Record cue lists on palettes (is it possible?!)?

Is it possible to create different pages (why not one per band or something like that) so that if I go the next page, the faders become new functions?

As an example..
- page 1, faders get the settings you wrote in your last message
- page 2, faders controls cuelists for band #1
- page 3, faders controls cuelists for band #2

Hey Max,

Use the > and = to Go Forward and Go Back.
Helps to change the back time in Options to something quick enough.
Also, Record the sequence of Position cues in a progression from say Upstage to downstage to audience. That way you can hit the Go button multiple times to go from say Cue 1 to Cue 5.
And you don;t have to have the fixture up when you move.
Pull the fader down, move, fader up.

Scenes are good.
You can playback Scenes right from the Pallet
(turn off Guard at the top of the pallet)

Another way to Busk the show is directly from the Cuelist Pallet
(Open List).
(again, turn off Guard at the top of the pallet)
And you can spread out the Pallet across both monitors.
That way you can go directly to positions/Colors/Gobos as you would record each one separately.

Pages are good too.
It gets a bit trickier doing this.
Maybe not a good idea given skill level and time.

Keep in mind... Set lists change at the whim of the band and you only have a few hours. Time FLIES when you're programming, or when you're stuck trying to get something to work.


Hope this helps.

I like to use the scene window for busking as well that way you can have special looks and can jump right to a look or position or color or combination.

So record scenes with only one parameter, so scenes for each position, color pan/tilt effect and gobo. Then maybe some specials like: pos:guitar right/color:open white/gobo:fan/gobo spin: slow , for a guitar solo type thing or whatever.

Then I do believe that your ICBP faders will still control spin rate etc once they are moved. But Im not 100%.

If your hazer is DMX controlled you'll want scenes for that too so it doesnt take up a fader. SO a 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% most likely. Or just on and off .

Also you'll want a fixture strobe playback on one of the faders.

One more point, its nice to set "go on flash" on in the master options on faders that have cue-stacks on them so you can just hit the flash button to cycle through them. (Double-tap Choose, hit options, master, scroll down) Thats also where you'll make the fader into an ICPB for those gobo spin and pan/tilt playbacks.

Just my humble opinion but I'm a relative noob and have questions open on this forum so i'm certainly no expert.:)

I like to use the scene window for busking as well that way you can have special looks and can jump right to a look or position or color or combination.

So record scenes with only one parameter, so scenes for each position, color pan/tilt effect and gobo. Then maybe some specials like: pos:guitar right/color:open white/gobo:fan/gobo spin: slow , for a guitar solo type thing or whatever.

Then I do believe that your ICBP faders will still control spin rate etc once they are moved. But Im not 100%.

If your hazer is DMX controlled you'll want scenes for that too so it doesnt take up a fader. SO a 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% most likely. Or just on and off .

Also you'll want a fixture strobe playback on one of the faders.

One more point, its nice to set "go on flash" on in the master options on faders that have cue-stacks on them so you can just hit the flash button to cycle through them. (Double-tap Choose, hit options, master, scroll down) Thats also where you'll make the fader into an ICPB for those gobo spin and pan/tilt playbacks.

Just my humble opinion but I'm a relative noob and have questions open on this forum so i'm certainly no expert.:)

Thanks you guys! Tomorrow is the D Day…!

I downloaded Hog 3 PC a few days ago and tried out a few things… When I record a cuelist to pallet, I can click on it to fire it but I can't open the 'Editor' for this cuelist? What I mean is if I record the cuelist on a fader, I can open a sort of 'Details/Editor'-Window but not if the cuelist is recorded on a pallett. Any idea why?

About the scenes… Are they only there to record a look (position+colour+gobo+etc.)? Like 1 scene = 1 look?

But when I want to record a sequence of 'events / a sequence of different movements that I want to playback by pressing only one button, then I have to use a cuelist, right?

A question about the pages (they would be really helpful for tomorrow)… I tried out working with pages on Hog 3 PC and noticed that if I switch from page 1 to 2, the cuelist that was active on page 1 stop? Is it possible to the active cues on page 1 stay active until I fire a new cue on page 2?


Thank you very much!

Max,

You can open the cuelist from the pallet. Hold Open and press the List in the pallet.

You can move the cuelist to a fader so you can work with it there.
List # Move Choose (button)

Start by building the cuelist on a fader, do all the testing of it, then remove it which leaves it only in the pallet. Called Virtual Masters.
To remove it hold the Choose button and press Delete.
Make sure the fader is at 100% when you remove it!

Scenes are 1 cue long (just one look per scene).
Cuelists are a series of cues (looks).

Again, I haven't used pages much, but look at,
Setup > User Preferences > Misc > Page Change Options
I believe you want the next thing you do on a new page to be a blocking cue. That means it touches everything.

My advice is, do less cleanly, rather than trying too much and failing.

Build the base control first then add "extras" until you run out of time.

And post here when you're done and let us know how it went.

A couple ways around the page changes blacking out your stage are:

Using Template pages- If there are several playbacks you use on every page i.e. Mover intesity, PAR intensity, Strobe etc you can build a page with those on them and hit "use current page as template" at the top if the page window. Then those playbacks will show up on every page as long as the page doesnt have a playback there already. The template pages playbacks wont change value when you change pages. But make sure all your subsequent pages leave those playback slots blank, otherwise they will cover the template ones

another is:
Capture page activity- You can set your faders to any value you like (even released) and hit "capture page activity" on the top of the page window. After that, any time the page is loaded the values you "saved" will automatically output from the playacks.

If you separate the intensity playbacks from position, color, and effect playbacks you can save the intensity at 100% or 0% or whatever you'll most likely be at when you change pages.

However, the color, position and effects playbacks will have released from your other page and playback whatever you save the activity as on the new page.

good luck!

a secret i learned many years ago is how to use the Virtual List. you create 1 cue that you like and want too use> "2 things" i like to save good specials in a specific cue like 22,33,44 and so on, or you can save it to a fader. remember to name it. now here is the secret enter the cue list options and click on "add blank 1st cue" what that does is when you press list22 boom what ever you programmed is happening then hit list22 again and the releases the Virtual master. sounds confusing i know but i learned on the 500 with only 8 faders and i needed more faders to do what i wanted.

and earlier someone talked about templates that is great. you set your 7 faders the way you need for quick bumps and flash and trash, then you set template. then on the 8th fader you program song per song on page next page. so if the band changes the line up you just go into pages and move them around in order so all you have to do is press next page and you are ready to go.

hope this helps

speedyg

"add blank 1st cue" is a HOG 2 option.
I believe Max is using HOG 3

In that case a RECORD with the Programmer empty gets the same result.

for the correction. i admit i use Hog II alot more then Hog III thanks for the heads up.


speedy:D

With the current Wholehog software, you can change the cuelist option for "Action at end of list" to "Add release end cue". Then you can have a single cue cuelist that one press of GO will play and another press of GO will release.

Be sure to adjust your release time for the list accordingly as well!