A couple of minor issues

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calfredson
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Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:44 pm
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A couple of minor issues

Post by calfredson »

I have found a couple of minor bugs while building my latest show on LX Console:

1) I use MIDI and MSC triggers extensively both in and out to Isadora as well as a MIDI controller. In the Preferences I have it set to listen to all devices, which usually works fine. When I restart my computer however, it seems to lose connection to the MIDI devices and I have to go into the preferences and refresh them. This doesn't seem to happen when I only select one particular device.

2) When I use the setup channel dialogue box to set a particular fixture as an I-Cue mirror or a scroller, it asks me what I want the base address to be and I select the DMX address of the accessory. When I close the dialogue box, it kicks out the dimmer address that I had previously assigned for that channel.

Again, neither of these are critical errors, but cause some inconveniences to my usual workflow.

Thanks,

Craig
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Post by admin »

There are some MIDI issues with older drivers and newer versions of OS X. This may have something to do with needing to refresh the MIDI connections. In particular, I think this may be true of older MIDISport drivers. Removing those drivers solved some MIDI issues for me. Unfortunately, it does not appear that there is incentive to update these drivers.

Importing a channel setup replaces the previous setup. If you choose to import a patch, the base address is used to patch the new sub-channels. Previously, if you did not select "patch" from the import options, the imported sub-channels replaced the previous sub-channels and were not patched at all. In the latest build 3.7.4 (8516.2) when you do not patch according to a base address when importing a channel setup, the patch of previous sub-channels that remain in the new setup are preserved. For example, consider if you have a regular channel, only intensity patched to a dimmer. And, then you open the channel setup sheet and import a channel setup for I-Cue. If you do not select "Patch" in the import options. The result, after closing the channel setup sheet, is that the dimmer remains patched to the intensity address while the Pan and Tilt sub-channels are added but un-patched.

This example illustrates what is probably preferred for cases like the I-Cue or a color scroller. In these instances, you are adding sub-channels going to a device and combining them with a regular dimmer and the relationship between the dimmer address and those of the I-Cue are not likely to be fixed. Other types of automated fixtures have a specified sequence of DMX addresses and patching them with a base address makes more sense. For a particular fixture you can always know that intensity comes first, followed by pan, then tilt, then gobo, etc. (or whatever has been decided on by the manufacturer). With an I-Cue, it is much less likely you will know that all I-Cue DMX addresses in your setup start exactly 300 addresses above that of the dimmer that is powering the light that the I-Cue is attached to. The I-Cue's addresses will always have the same sequence but that relationship is not likely to be always the same between the dimmer and the I-Cue.
calfredson
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:44 pm
Location: Canada

Post by calfredson »

I'm back working with LX Console on a new show and I'm having a new issue (I just downloaded version 4.0.0). I'm trying to create a new light type in the Setup Channel dialog box. I create all the required Subchannels (red, green, blue, white) and I number them 0,1,2,3 and then intensity 4. I then exported my light type for future use. Now, when I import the light type and select the base address, it doesn't populate the channels properly. In fact, it seems to screw up the addresses of the lights I'd previously set.
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Post by admin »

The latest build of LXConsole 4.0.2 (9405.1) improves import and export of channel setups.

In most cases if you import a channel setup and elect to import the patch, it will replace the existing patch.

If the channel setup file includes offset information and the offset for a particular subchannel is blank, the new version will keep the existing patch information for that subchannel. This really applies to scrollers and i-cues where you want to keep the lights dimmer that is currently set in the patch and add the accessory. In other situations either the patch is replaced or it isn't.

Previously, LXConsole required that a channel be patched in the desired order when it was exported in order for import/assigning a new base address to work. In 4.0.2, you can add subchannels and specify offsets in the table in the channel setup sheet. When a channel is exported, the patch order of subchannels is set using the offsets.
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