new controller ideas

Your gonna need to step up to one of these.
http://www.elationlighting.com...telligent%20Consoles
These three can do exactly what you want. Or a Magic 260
http://www.elationlighting.com...20By%20American%20DJ
I am a mpls MN native. whereabouts are you?
sincerely,

What is your current controller?

I am a LIVE SOUND GUY way the hell before I am a lighting guy. In fact, I'd drop lighting entirely if I could, and I'm using MyDMX just fine, thank you very much. But I also have a DMX Operator. The DMX Operator lets you set a "cross-fade" time, which while not super accurate, should provide more than acceptable results. You do know you're going to have to manage scenes and banks and perhaps some documentation.

I'm adding stuff to my laptop to help facilitate scene changes easier. The first thing is using the laptop's keyboard to quickly access things. The other is adding external controllers to help aid in triggering.

Using this and programming your fades into your scenes, there's no reason why MyDMX needs to be an unecessary distraction. I'm managing 76 channels at once while monitoring and maintaining up to 16 monitor sends, outboard and EQ, in addition to tracking and monitoring multi-channel audio recording and video. Hitting a key quickly on MyDMX isn't a big deal for me.

But if you want a controller, take a look at Jingle's suggestions. I won't give up my DMX Operator, because in case MyDMX fails, I've got my back-up right there. Swing a cable and I'm done.

Chris, sorry man, i did not mean to stir up so much emotion. i will work on my pc controller a bit more and try to figure out some of the shortcuts so i don't have to sit there messing around with a mouse during a show.
James, thanks for your suggestions. I am an eden prairie resident.

sorry chris, i didn't answer your question about my current controller. i am using the standard eliminator controller. i guess it's kind of their version of the DMX Operator.
okay, so i have read both manuals of the 260 and the show designer 1. on the show designer it specifically has a section on fade type when programming scenes. i do not find that on the 260. it looks like the 260 would do pretty much everything i want and i would be interested in the 260 if i can in fact program fades into scenes.

i have a magic 260 and when you record the scene you can select fade and hold times as you record the scene. so its there.
sincerely,

Thank you very much for your information. I have just one more thing to know about the 260. And this would be a some serious amounts of frosting on top. Can this unit control how fast a scanner/moving head scrolls through the gobos or the color wheel? I don't mean the time in between changing colors but the actual rate at which it goes from one color or gobo to another. I saw someone with a controller that could do that and it was one of the coolest things. when he had the scanners behind the singer during the verse of a song he could set it so the colors just slowly scrolled from one color to another behind the singer, so you could watch it take a second or two to go from yellow to blue. Maybe it is just something that is offered in his high end lights too. He was using some really nice martin moving heads and it might be that they just have a fader specifically for that function. But it doesn't hurt to ask, right?

again, thanks for all the info

That would be a feature programmed into the software of the movers. There should be a feature for gobo and color scroll on most fixtures. Which fixtures are you looking to program like this?
Sincerely,

i have two of the x-scan LED scanner that i use. every light in my system is LED.

According to page 14 on the X-Scan LED manual, the value for color scrolling is hex value 128-254 (50%-99%) on channel 3 and the same values for gobos on channel 4. Both go from slow to fast as they increase in value.

unfortunately that only controls the tempo between changes not the tempo of the changes themselves.

Are you trying to set a time between changes in a a bpm type arrangement or in a time between changes?

I know the DMX Operator can do a time between changes, but getting it just right isn't exactly easy. It's just that I don't think it provides enough "tiny control" to really dial itin right. You could probably get close with some practice.

Ahhh, okay. Well, you can program a sequence that holds the color for x amount of seconds, however the X-Scan LED doesn't do split colors or scroll through colors like a Mac would. So the color would snap change instead of smoothly change. You are correct that this feature is something only seen on higher end lights.

The only AMDJ/Elation units that do that are the PS575/700, but only split colors then, not smooth fading. The DS1200 I think can do smooth fading between colors since in 16bit extended mode it is listed that the color wheel has a fine adjustment, which would only be useful if scrolling through the color wheel. Don't hold me to it though since there is no manual/DMX trait chart on the DS1200s yet, just speculating.

Sorry I didn't understand the question before, I only skimmed your response and didn't fully read it like I should have.