Daslight vs Sunlite vs Lumidmx ..what cuts it ?

Having a right ol time deciding what to invest in, in this price range for intelligent lighting control.. all seem very good in their own ways, but each has their niggles.

The bottom line is i actually want the tool that gets the job done and allows easy creation and editing of shows later.

Lighting being driven is 8 off moving heads, a bunch of scanners, some led light bars and some parcans.

Requirements are the ability to easily create show palletes that can be left to do something half way decent when left on automation mode & allow for halfway fun improvised busking to be done on the fly on top.

in addition i like being able to edit stuff in timeline mode as opposed to being limited to step mode sequencer & like having half way dependable show pre visualisation on pc to set things up ahead of deployment of the full arsenal of kit.


What are peoples experiences with these & what gets the job done when it comes to the crunch ?
Also are there any other systems that should at least be considered ?

http://www.daslight.com/
http://www.nicolaudie.com/
http://www.lumidmx.com/

Looked at chamsys, will boot it up again, been a while since i looked into it.. can understand the avolites users love it for being very much like the desks.
Though being someone whos used to the way cubase & video editing software works, i like my interfaces to be extremely visual in their feeback & manipulation of data snippets :)

Mostly pre-programming shows which sync to the music. But with the ability to select appropriate sequences & tweak afew elements directly appropriately for the music at hand when it matters.
Not 'theatre' style work for the most part; although at least one band will certainly require this for what they want to do.

Have some passing experience with messing with intelligent lighting, tho meerly lashed it up before with afew quick and dirty things done in the likes of freestyler. it did in a fashion, but could see a huge depth of potential that wasnt being used.
Setting out to get my hands properly dirty & do the job properly this time.

I still remain open to at somepoint to learning the 'avolites console' approach; however i find navigating & mapping out my intended programming plan of action, like climbing a cliff face with a pocket torch.  ..those menus feel like one of those old text adventure games ;) :)
So unless the more visually orientated options can be ruled out for being ultimately not upto the job, id prefer to start there first at least.
On the hardware user interface thing, this is indeed a strong point; however in terms of "touch typing" with lighting ive got a fair few midi routable devices offering faders, knobs, buttons and joysticks which can be mapped to various things for direct manipulation & hitting cues in with buttons you dont have to look for (ie touchscreen ones ;) ). Im relatively confident that the right things can be mapped for accessability.

In terms of the buskability & timeline business..
There will only be certain events likely to crop up where things are locked hard to a timeline & soundtrack, however there i mainly talk about a visual way of stacking up elements and editing them in sequences whose timeframe is determined externally by the detected tempo of the music.
Mostly its a matter of building shows for events with djs on and the likes where a show of various interesting sequences can be left to play & self sync to the tempo or at least vaguely match it & when the nights requirements are higher, work in semi automatic mode, selecting sequences appropriate for the mood and tempo of the music concerned ..with the ability on top to still be able to isolate elements/fixtures individually for direct live control.

Also the ability to preview something resembling the show sequences virtually is an important element here. means most of the donkey work laying up shows can be done in down time & then they can be polished when its all setup properly. Lack the luxuary of having the space to keep it all setup for programming. So short of somehow patching visualiser software onto the virtual backend of magicq, thats one reason its sorta ruled out. The other, is i just booted it up again and despite abit of digging firmly remembered what it was about it that drove me spare. Im sure its great once accoustomed to the way it works, though its not awfully compatable with the way i work ;) :)

Oh, and added to that... although not perfect, having access to virtualisation allows the evaluation of weather a new fixture would be of benefit to a setup & allows creation of shows for fittings that might get hired in once in a while from elsewhere, but not owned :)


Edited by nineleaves - 13 July 2011 at 12:37am

Based in Leicester, Midlands at this time.
Bit of a trek to Eastbourne on spec i would think; but it is appreciated :)

Thanks, Interesting offer, will have invested in a system by then tho.
However it would be silly to pass up on a offer to have a play & see how more experienced folks in the field are getting the job done; so if nothing gets in the way id be up for that :)


Edited by nineleaves - 13 July 2011 at 2:42pm

Indeed, it may as well be bought alongside anything else used ..as itll at the very least serve as effective "console logic" training for the price of a decent teccie book or two.