Best lighting desk for around £200

1024x768 ;) ..from what i recall it was designed to run on that as a default res ;)

I first encountered the toughbook series in person when i reccomended an older model to someone who does the bike rally circuit, he needed something which he could use on his stall which could take the weather and the revellers ;) ...its lived upto that alright, been on my personal hit list for a while & pretty much just now bagged one upon finding that the perkier ones finally hit the price bracket second hand that im comfortable with (new these are about 3 grand !) ..got it specificially as a lighting control laptop & i expect i will use it with an external 15" 1024x768 medical grade touchscreen as the main button surface (its a repackaged elo screen in a harmatically sealed cast aluminum shell). with other stuff displayed on the laptop screen.

whilst i own a basic copy of magicq, its not currently my main goto.. i currently find it far too bloody confusing & dont like the fact that if you insist on a hardware fader board to go with it, that has to be theirs and thatll set you back at least a grand from what i recall o.o


Currently using the slightly more theatre orientated nicolaudie sunsuite, the dongle and software set me back about £300 for the package version im using, it can accept external in dmx signals/consoles & also will allow use of midi devices for control ..and includes a show pre-visualisation package, which whilst not total perfection yet, nicely fills the gap between the basic ray tracing offerings from many & the eyewateringly expensive & confusing as hell to configure/program cast wysiwig.

would be very interested to hear about other visualisation packages worth their salt. its very handy not having to setup your entire physical show to try out ideas/configs + roughly program shows before the real events.

Where i go in terms of software/consoles in the future i dont quite know, but for now thats the situ here :)

P.S. I've just found out today that 2 touchscreens on MagicQ is just flippin' awesome! HUUUUUUGE execute window..... and still have all palettes handy    

I would just be happy to find a second hand Extra wing now ;)

Even on a 15" screen I can still get an 16x14 grid without it feeling too small