[Solved] Best way to use lights off step in chasers

[Mibmusic]

Hi all,

So I am pretty new to QLC+ and I am working on a new show for my band. I have created fixtures, scenes and also chasers. Within a chaser I need (for example) a light to go ON for 1 second and then to go OFF for 1 second. I did this by adding two scenes. picture 1 and 2 and then put them in a chaser, picture 3. Is this the way to go?

[edogawa]

That's how I would do it too in order to achieve a precise 1 second timing and a blinking rather than flashing effect, otherwise I would use the device's strobe channel directly.

I just wonder why you repeat the on/off scenes several times in your chaser, I'd expect just one step for on and off respectively should be enough?

[Mibmusic]

Hi edogawa,

I use the chaser in a show and so I think the only way to have this work a certain time is to exactly define every step.

Or am I wrong?

[Mibmusic]

And do you also keep the dimmer to full but the lights off?

[edogawa]

Honestly I don't know anything than the basic concept about shows, sorry. I tried a few tmes and always ran into massive problems like consuming lots of CPU and slowing the PC almost to a halt, but that's 2 or 3 years ago, so I probably should look again.

But then again I really have no need for a synced timeline playback, the cuelist paradigm with Go button/Crassfade sliders better matches what I need in theater performances. That is, some static look for a certain time that differs a bit from one day to the next, and a change with or without fade time to the next look, at a certain point (stage action, text cue etc.).

If, like with your Ayra device, there is a master dimmer channel, I'd rather keep the RGB channels at full/whatever desired colour, and do the strobe with the dimmer channel, just to save editing time.

Also, as this is just one fixture or the same set of fixtures, you could define a Fixture group containing your Ayras, create a RGB matrix blinking effect with your desired colour/brightness, and convert that to a sequence, instead of programming scenes and chasers. See the manual for the difference between sequence and chasers and how to create a sequence from your RGB matrix.

In the Sequence editor (functions tab) you still can alter each step of that sequence as you like, at a later point in time. And you can quickly generate variants of the same RGB Matrix and have them ready in several sequences.

[Mibmusic]

Thank you so much for this! You know, programming shows with qlc+ is pretty cool, haha. But a ‘shame’ that creating shows doesn’t work properly. In my case the show is leading, unless there is another way. I am the drummer of a band and we play a lot of songs with backing tracks. These backing tracks are started via a pad of a Roland SPD-SX and at the same time it can sent a MIDI note to qlc+ to start a show. That proces works very good and so we have fog machines, blinders, etc marching along with the tracks. But it seems programming shows is not stable nor reliable and I don’t think Massimo will fix it.

So for now I am creating all the scenes, chasers, etc and after that I hope to find a way to put them together and start them via MIDI. Ofcourse I am also looking at other software and I am willing to pay for it too.

[Mibmusic]

But that is a bit of topic. I will try to change the approach and see what it does. Again many thanks!

[Mibmusic]

Creating a Sequence from an RGB Matrix is very nice! And indeed you can alter the steps manually in a later stage! Thank you for this! That will save time and it will help keeping things simple. Now the only thing I need is to figure out is why the last light never goes off. So when all lights are off, the steps are: first led 1, then 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on. So they follow up. But when led 5 is on, it stays on while led 1, 2, ,3 and 4 behave as expected.

[edogawa]

Can you explain further? I tried with your workspace version 57, made a sequence from RGB matrix "23 - xxx - Bass" which uses the blue opposite pattern, and the fifth led turns off as it should... for simplicity I turned up the Ayra's master dimmers in simple desk, and tried the generated sequence both from the sequence editor preview and a button in VC.

[Mibmusic]

I think it happens when you open the sequence, select a step and then run by pressing the play button. When entering show mode (the green play button) is works fine. So no big deal at the end. I am now cleaning up chasers and collection to go back to a simple config with (is possible) only sequences and simple chasers.

[Mibmusic]

Ok, I am probably responding to myself in the wrong topic, lol. I think this one is done. Sorry for this!