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This week’s Quick Tip comes from Joe Cabrera of ACT Lighting.

The setup: You select a group of fixtures and recall an existing pan/tilt preset. As they move into position, you see one of the fixtures move in a different direction. They all end up pointing to the same spot on stage, but the transition just isn’t uniform for all of the fixtures.

This is, of course, one of the pitfalls of having a wide pan range on a moving-head fixture; there are often at least three different orientations the head can be in and still point in exactly the same direction. And it’s sometimes very easy to get a few of your fixtures flipped around differently than the rest.

Thankfully, the grandMA includes a very handy Flip function (available in the QuicKey Pool), which will cycle your selected fixtures through the different orientations that all point in their current directions.

The trick becomes figuring out exactly which fixtures out of the lot need to be flipped. In times past, this meant re-running the transition, keeping an eye on the stage to try and pick out the unruly few. But the Fixture Sheet in the grandMA includes a very subtle display that will quickly show which fixtures you might want to flip.

In this image, all of the ACT Spots are in the same USR preset, but one of them is in a different orientation than all the rest. Notice the white square just to the left of the names of the fixtures. This is a very basic indicator of the pan range. Looking at the placement of these dots, it’s easy to see that the pan for Fixture 203 is in a very different place than all of the others. So, we know this is the fixture we need to select and flip. Keep in mind that it may need to flip twice to find the same orientation as its friends.

Quick Tips are exactly what the name should imply. We’re adding these to our blog in an effort to help programmers and operators of all levels. If you’d like to suggest a Quick Tip, drop us a message on this blog, or on our Facebook page, or even via Twitter.

ACT Lighting is participating in the Vendor Showcase at 4 Wall Lighting in New Jersey today. We’ll have a grandMA2 for you to poke!

From 4 Wall Lighting’s Press Release:
It’s back! 4Wall Entertainment, UsedLighting.com, and UsedAV.com will hold their Annual Vendor Showcase on May 20, 2010 at 3 PM at the 4Wall facility in Moonachie, NJ.

4Wall Entertainment- NY
2 Empire Blvd.
Moonachie, NJ 07074
201-329-9878

A Group Master is a Fader Assignment that allows for a maximum intensity to be held for a group of lights in your showfile. Some consoles call this an “Inhibitive Fader” because it can inhibit the output of your lights regardless of any other higher values currently in playback. Think of it as a GrandMaster, but only for a particular group of fixtures instead of all fixtures.

To assign a Group Master, you first need to have a Group of the fixtures you wish to inhibit in the Groups Pool. Then, enter the ASSIGN menu of any Fader and enter the FUNCTION tab. Here, by pressing the GROUP MASTER option, you can then pick from your established Groups- which will show up in the list.
Alternatively, you can simply press the Group you wish to inhibit from the Groups Pool, followed by any button on an empty Executor Fader.

Using these Group Masters are simple, but if you’re likely to be changing pages a lot in a show, keep in mind that your Group Master might be on a different page- and might have been previously lowered- which might result in less output on stage than you might expect. A quick way to locate all of your Group Masters is to press the GROUP key twice. This will open a new window showing all of your Group Masters and their respective levels. Here, you can press the FULL or OUT options to quickly change the master levels without changing pages (there is also an ALL FULL option). However, if you would like to go to the page containing that Group Master, simply press the name of the Group Master.

Quick Tips are exactly what the name should imply. We’re adding these to our blog in an effort to help programmers and operators of all levels. If you’d like to suggest a Quick Tip, drop us a message on this blog, or on our Facebook page, or even via Twitter.

We’re not talking cutting color and then getting out the china marker. Rather, if your apt to be using grandMA3D to pre-render your programming and you’re using conventional fixtures (lekos, pars, fresnels, etc) – your rendering will look more complete if you add color to your fixtures.

This process can actually be completed from within your showfile on the console. Enter LIVE ACCESS or FULL ACCESS and locate your conventional fixtures in their respective layers. If you scroll to the right, you’ll find a column labeled “Color.” Select any cell(s) in this column and click to open the Change Color window. At the top of this new window, you’ll notice a button with an arrow pointing up. If you click this arrow, you’ll be presented with various gel manufacturers. Here, pick the manufacturer of the color you’re using, then you can type in the Gel number, or scroll through the list to find the color you’re looking for. No cutting required.

Quick Tips are exactly what the name should imply. We’re adding these to our blog in an effort to help programmers and operators of all levels. If you’d like to suggest a Quick Tip, drop us a message on this blog, or on our Facebook page, or even via Twitter.

Looking for a quick way to give your musical show a tighter look? Try using Speed Groups. The basic idea of a Speed Group is to link the playback speeds of multiple Chases and/or Effects. With the speeds linked, not only do they begin playing back at the same rate, but adjusting the speed of any member of the group (or the master control) adjusts all members of the group. This way, if the band happens to speed up or slow down, you only have to make one adjustment to keep your whole rig in line.

Assigning a Chase or Effect to a Speed Group happens in the Edit Menu for the object. In the Chase Edit Menu, you will see an option that is labeled Individual Speed above the choices for the different groups. When editing an Effect, you will see a button, marked Speed Group Individual. Touching this will open a small menu, which will allow you to choose a group or set the Effect back to Individual.

Although you may see your Chase or Effect initially jump to match the current speed of the group, you shouldn’t think of it like a preset speed. Once your Chase of Effect is a member of the Group, you can adjust the speed as per normal. The addition being that you’re actually adjusting the speed of the Group.

While adjusting the speed of any member of a Speed Group is a viable way of adjusting the whole group, you can also assign one of your executor faders as a master control for the group. Simply open the Assign Menu for the desired Executor, touch Special Master, and choose the desired Speed Group from the list.

Using Speed Groups to control multiple parameters during the same song adds quite a bit of utility to the Rate adjustments of Chases and Effects. For instance, you might set your Pan/Tilt chase to follow the beat of the song exactly, but you might like your Strobe Chase to subdivide the beat. So, while both are set to follow the same Speed Group, a Rate of 4:1 on the Strobe Chase will multiply the the speed for that chase.

Quick Tips are exactly what the name should imply. We’re adding these to our blog in an effort to help programmers and operators of all levels. If you’d like to suggest a Quick Tip, drop us a message on this blog, or on our Facebook page, or even via Twitter.