Best lighting desk for around £200
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Category: Other Chat
Forum Name: Lighting Talk
Forum Description: All your lampy, laser and 'other' special FX needs....
URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=78404
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Topic: Best lighting desk for around £200
Posted By: Electrikal
Subject: Best lighting desk for around £200
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:05am
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Anybody got any suggestions on the best lighting desk for around £150-200? Cheers! |
Replies:
Posted By: Heathrow_B_line
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:14am
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chamsys dongle and laptop? ------------- Produce a killer sound. Take no prisoners. |
Posted By: Electrikal
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:24am
| Dude you are a hero, i was looking at something similar but it was £150 and a £90 software license. What software would you recommend with this? |
Posted By: nineleaves
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:49am
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http://chamsys.co.uk/magicdmx" rel="nofollow - http://chamsys.co.uk/magicdmx chamsys magic q & dongle is a one stop solution.. you use their dongle with their software (downloadable off site) http://chamsys.co.uk/download" rel="nofollow - http://chamsys.co.uk/download this licence gives you access to running the software on pc but you can only trigger shows/elements via pc controls. if you want a control surface, those cost considerable money, enough that they dont advertise it on site: http://chamsys.co.uk/pcwingcompact" rel="nofollow - http://chamsys.co.uk/pcwingcompact their concept is also available as a dedicated 1 box controller: http://chamsys.co.uk/mq100expert" rel="nofollow - http://chamsys.co.uk/mq100expert ...if you want hardware faders, and just need to control some rudimentry scenes/sequences say for a bunch of parcans and not tons of intelligent heads, then a small dmx console like behringers eurolite might be a fair bet. http://www.gak.co.uk/en/behringer-lc2412-eurolight/952?gclid=CKzkpYLH7rYCFcNQ3godgHYAQQ" rel="nofollow - http://www.gak.co.uk/en/behringer-lc2412-eurolight/952?gclid=CKzkpYLH7rYCFcNQ3godgHYAQQ horses for courses, depends on your lighting needs/expectations :) on the otherhand.. if the budget has allowed for purchase/hire of professional heads which can easily cost thousands (or stratopherically more) each, then expect that the control hardware required to run them comfortably to cost abit.. all out concert lighting gets so expensive, it makes the pa side of things look like the cheap part of the investment ;) its definately a key part of the equation and shouldnt be skimped on. in anycase learning on a simple controller with some basic cheap lighting is going to be a great way to learn the rudimentry stuff whilst planning for fancier things in the future as needed :) |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:01am
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...for that sort of money i just bought the basic one.... i have to learn to use DMX at some point! cheers for that fella ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:03am
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...would you consider this a contender nineleaves? http://www.whybuynew.co.uk/lighting-effects/transcension-dmx-baby-jc-1-controller.htm" rel="nofollow - http://www.whybuynew.co.uk/lighting-effects/transcension-dmx-baby-jc-1-controller.htm ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
Posted By: nineleaves
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:19am
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im no seasoned veteran ;) ..i just use what i get along with personally & not got bucketloads of experience of the myriad of other controllers out there. never heard of the transcension jc1 before ..it falls into that category of "budget generics" ..it seems aimed at allowing basic show control specifically for moving mirror type fixtures, with only 64 channels availble and equating to 8 heads max based on 8 channels each ..its not going to exactly reprosent great value if you want more than that form it, probably avoid. |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:24am
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If you want to do 'proper' lighting, get a proper lighting desk, or at least some software that behaves like one. You will learn how to do it 'right' and many of the skills are semi transferable between the big common manufacturers. I've never understood the mindset of controlling thousands of pounds worth of moving heads on a £200 disco controller. An Avo Azure can be had for under £1k these days and is a capable little desk. Or even an old Masterpiece if you can spend the time getting to know it. Something with physical buttons and faders is a big bonus too, clicking stuff on a screen is a really nasty way to interact with a lighting rig. ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:26am
P.s. buy the MagicDMX dongle and a cheap ELO touchscreen, you'd be surprised how far this combo will take you  ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: nineleaves
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:31am
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in keeping it simple, just follow nortys advice.. he really does know what hes doing ;) :) |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:53am
....can i not just use any touch screen? those ELO ones cost a fortune and i could prob get hold of one for free from somewhere sorry for the hi-jack  ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
norty303 wrote:Posted By: nineleaves
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 1:56am
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any touchscreen thatll work with your pc in the first place will do :) (im not aware of any exceptions here, elo just make decent ones) |
Posted By: tall_mike
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 10:04am
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I use a samsung touchscreen all-in-one PC with our Avo Titan Moble. Cost us about £600 and works really well - better than the tiger touch screen!! ------------- http://www.livesoundhire.co.uk" rel="nofollow - Live Sound Hire Ltd |
Posted By: supremesoundz
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 11:20am
Got this but to be honest I found it difficult to use and gave up in the end. Wish I could have a basic one to one tutorial with someone to get to grips with it! Lighting control with Dmx in general confuses me! (Not ashamed to say) |
Posted By: James Tengo
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:13pm
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Go to Southampton and get training from Chris Kennedy himself. Straight from the software designer. Lovely chap |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:13pm
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I only suggested ELO because: 1. They are robust for a gig environment, with a good solid base and hard wearing screen which can tilt flat for when you're standing up. 2. They come up on ebay 2nd hand for £50 to £100 regularly (it is the serial version, use a cheap USB to serial adaptor) I paid under £200 for both my 1525's
Read the manual, learn the terminology, use for 8 hours, go back and read the manual. Approach it as you would a dedicated piece of hardware, i.e. completely remove the fact it's running on Windows from your mind. If you can use Chamsys, you can have a pretty good stab at Avo, Hog, etc Cues, cue stacks, playbacks, attributes, palettes are all standard fare in DMX control world. ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: supremesoundz
Date Posted: 29 April 2013 at 7:37pm
| Yeh you are right. Will dig it out and try again. Came close to buying a lime light verse which people have used with freestyler and have said how good it is. Not bad at £50 |
Posted By: monkeypuzzle
Date Posted: 30 April 2013 at 10:14am
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Yes, pound for pound, Chamsys and a touch screen are THE most cost effective and flexible system going at the moment. Remember however, its nothing like using a mixing desk, its like learning a whole new piece of software like Photoshop and at the end of the day, what would you rather use? Windows Paint or Photoshop? Stick with it and feel free to ask questions on here, there are plenty of user's on here who are happy to help and loads of good tutorials on line. ------------- blah blah blah blah blah...... |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 9:46am
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got my usb... thingie... DMX lead today!! gotta find a good laptop for it now and some extra DMX leads and im off. gonna find loads of tutorials on youtoob me thinks... im a lazy like that ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 1:33pm
It doesn't need a good laptop to run MagicQ. A half fit hamster in a wheel will do it nicely The visualiser will take a few more resources but you're better off running that on another machine over your network anyway.I run mine on a single core Atom ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 2:27pm
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no no no... sir norty, you misunderstand. "good laptop" means one that wont break... not one thats running 2x flux-capacitors in parallel to make a 4ohm load i have a indestructable netbook.... ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
Posted By: nineleaves
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 4:57pm
 if you want a really good rugged gigging laptop which can stop bullets & is literally hewn out of magnesium for the millitary, check the panasonic toughbook range on ebay: The CF 29 is a nice size (13.3" screen) and the value sweetspot between price and performance right now £150 to 190 delivered. you can spend more, you can spend less on other models.. but i rather reccomend them: Review: http://www.trustedreviews.com/panasonic-toughbook-cf-29-rugged-notebook_Laptop_review Also, some models also come with a passive touchscreen onboard too, which you have to use a stylus with ..not everyones going to like that, but you can still plug in an external screen or retrofit a conventional touch surface onto it :) |
Posted By: kristoffdj1
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 5:19pm
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I'd say at this price level it depends on what fixtures you wanna run with it. My lighting is controlled by 3 x dxm master i's (eBay £50 each) in a flightcase. That does the lasers, the led par cans and bars and the hid barrels. Then I have a NetBook, an entec USB interface, a korg nano-pad and freestyler running my pearl river moving heads. Togther that gives me all the control I need for the fixtures that I own. Useless for producing a proper show of course or if you chop and change fixtures all the time, but for me its great. Dead easy to use and loads of control. Makes such a difference to gigs having the lighting under control. Even the small gigs like I do. |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 5:37pm
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Not quite as rugged as the Toughbook, but still with all the goodies like semi waterproof keyboard, shock protected disk, titanium chassis, keyboard light, etc are the T series Thinkpads. £150 to £250 on eBay depending on spec. I've got a 3 year old (to me) T61 that I bought for £225 with Core2Duo 2ghz, 2GB RAM, which was 2.5 years old when I bought it, but still had 6 month onsite warranty remaining (corporate support contracts FTW!) My Chamsys runs on an Acer Revo that is piggybacked on one of my touch screens. I find its a bit less desirable to nick than a laptop too ;) ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 7:52pm
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LOL.... toughbook would be my 1st port of call buuuuut.. i already have the netbook and two mostly similar models for back up parts ... but saying that i havent tried the Chamsys on a 1024/600 rez screen. we'll see..... i can always pick up a cheap 1U rack drawer jobbie with built in screen and keyboard and tuck the netbook down the back of the rack somewhere. ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
Posted By: nineleaves
Date Posted: 02 May 2013 at 8:15pm
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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 :) |
Posted By: Blaize110
Date Posted: 03 May 2013 at 11:54am
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I've just started playing around with the new Martin MPC software. The free version allows you all the bells and whistles, including MIDI, except you're only allowed one universe. However that can be through an Enttec dongle or ArtNet, so you can also feed a visualiser if you so choose. Not had a proper play with the software, but it looks like the most generous package out there in terms of free features.
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Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 05 May 2013 at 8:04pm
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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 ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: James Tengo
Date Posted: 05 May 2013 at 10:12pm
| We'll have to get you on a Coloursound gig, an mq300 execute version rocks. |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 05 May 2013 at 11:14pm
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I would just be happy to find a second hand Extra wing now ;) ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 05 May 2013 at 11:26pm
two touch screens you say?.... mmmmmmm..... two screens..... ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |
Posted By: norty303
Date Posted: 06 May 2013 at 12:40am
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Even on a 15" screen I can still get an 16x14 grid without it feeling too small ------------- My laser stuff: http://www.facebook.com/SubsonicSystems" rel="nofollow - Frikkin Lasers |
Posted By: mini-mad
Date Posted: 06 May 2013 at 12:52am
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i think most of the time it will be alot of preprogrammed for myself but thanks for all the tips none-the-less norty! ------------- If it sounds like a gorilla is trying to escape, turn it down. |