Nightclub - make the switch?

The nightclub I been helping out with has a older dmx widget, which I think it needs to be upgraded to work with hog 3. (any help on how to go about this?) They had this widget sitting around for maybe 4-5 years. Currently they have 4 design spots, 14 scanners, rgb laser system, and some par cans.

The current board is a show designer 3, which I don't think the dj's want to spend time trying to remember which faders are to which as they are pretty busy since they do broadcast live on the radio on some nights. I haven't work with hog too much (just played around with the software) and wanted to get a general idea if this is a good move. I was suggesting that they use hog 3 since it "seems" easy cause the main dj was asking should he just get light jockey, I said no way. you got a $2,500 board and a hog widget, if anything, upgrade the widget and get 2 touch screens.

So basicly what I was wanting to do is setup 2 touchscreens and using the palletes to go with flow. They do not have any wings or programmers. So everything would lauch off of touchscreens.

I was thinking 4 palletes, 2 on each screen.
Pallete 1 - general idea
Row 1 - Design spot groups
Row 2 - Scanner groups
Row 3 - Colors. - I was thinking to have 1 set of colors that I can apply to either fixtures. So I assume record "Per Fixture Type" will do this? Hit Scanner groups - red, then hit Spots Even Group - white, then hit Spot Odd Group - blue... Do I got the right idea?
Row 4 - Gobos / Strobes.

Pallete 2
Use this as a effect pallete.
I am confused on this section. So if I make a circle effect, side to side sweep, and some other random effect, how do I go about adjusting the time, offset or would it be better to make multiple types of same effect with different offsets, and timing? Not sure if I can create buttons that I can have offset values and buttons for timing values.

So maybe rows 1 - 3 - Effects, row 4 different offset values, row 5 timing values? So I could hit one of the Scanners group - some effect, then one of the Spots group and some other random effect.

I would prolly put some static scenes here as well such as design spots - dj booth.

On second monitor, would prolly be dedicated to the laser. Pallete 3 would be general laser control, and pallete 4 would be shapes the laser can make. There are 24 channels to this laser and very confusing to use on the show designer 3 since you have to cycle through a lot.

So any tips and suggestions? Good idea? Its just dj music so we don't really need to have a lot.

Thanks,
Josh
:p
Related