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Los Angeles, March 1,
2006
A.C.T Lighting, Inc. has helped to successfully integrate a grandMA
console into the ongoing tour of Staind, one of the biggest-selling
rock bands in America today. A.C.T is the exclusive distributor of
grandMA in North America.
“We were looking to get more capabilities out of our LEDs and
create more complex effects than we could with the console we had been
using,” explains freelance lighting
technician/designer/programmer Mike Cooper who was assigned to the tour
by PRG Lighting. “The grandMA gives us those new
capabilities.
It’s also faster to program and edit cues with the grandMA.
GrandMA keeps up with you: You don’t have to wait for it to
catch
up.”
Since the Staind tour had been underway for six months, Cooper needed
to transfer all of the data that had been programmed in the old console
into the grandMA. He traveled to A.C.T’s LA offices and spent
3
days working alongside Joe Cabrera II, from the company’s
software tech support team, to reprogram the show.
“Any time you take a running show and change over the
operating
system of the console it’s a pretty bold move,”
says the
show’s lighting designer Lawrence Upton. “When you
make a
console change on a current show you have a responsibility to deliver
the same show you had before. That’s why we took the time for
Mike to go to A.C.T”
The “first step” in the transfer process, says
Cabrera,
“was to exactly recreate the cues and presets based on the
data
in the old console” with DMX capture facilitating the
process.
“Then Mike had a DVD of the songs we were reprogramming so we
could look at the cue structure laid out, get an idea of the timing and
effects and make a very accurate recreation in the new console.
“The lighting design for the show is really cool, and there
are
quite a few chase effects with specific colors and timings,”
Cabrera continues. “Since the two consoles deal with effects
in
different ways it took some time to reprogram the show.
Mike’s
DVD was really handy for seeing what we were trying to create in the
grandMA.”
“It was a complex process,” Cooper agrees. For
example,
“The previous console ran our LED strips in 3-channel mode.
With
the grandMA we could recreate the effects in 36-channel mode cloning
one fixture across 12 banks going down the strip. But the tools in the
console made it easy to do this.”
Upton had not operated on a grandMA before. “It’s a
completely different physical set up, but I’m more than happy
with it,” he reports. “The desk is well thought
out; I like
how you assign and read the screens. And it’s easy to use.
The
whole process has been as close to a seamless transfer as you can
get,” he concludes.
Cooper agrees that implementing the grandMA has gone well.
“Everything went better than expected on every level. Our
priority was to deliver the exact same show that we had before. Then we
could build on it day by day. We’re about to expand our
capabilities to take advantage of what new LED technology can offer by
adding some bit-mapped shapes and effects to the LED strips. The raw
speed and power of the grandMA make it easy to create and execute these
new effects.”
Upton points out that the Staind tour, one year in duration,
“is
very indicative of where rock is in America” with the band
playing intimate venues in solid markets. “They have made a
big
investment in very high production values,” he notes.
“We
want to thank the band and our production manager Mark
O’Toole
for believing in us. And we want to thank Joe, (president/CEO) Bob
(Gordon) and the whole team at A.C.T. for making it possible for us to
deliver the goods.”
MA Lighting is
exclusively distributed by A.C.T Lighting.
A leading importer and distributor of lighting products, A.C.T
Lighting, Inc. strives to identify future trends and cutting-edge
products, and stock, sell and support their inventory. The company
provides superior customer service and value for money to all of its
clients.
For more information call 818-707-0884.
Copyright © ACT Lighting 2009. All rights reserved.
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