Q Light Controller+

Hi

I'm new to QLC+ so apologies if my questions seems very basic and the answers should be obvious.

I was considering using Simple Desk for a theatrical show, but found two problems that I think makes it impractical.

1. The duration times for each step cannot be set to allow automatic progress to the next step. It looks like you always have to use the Next button to get to the next step - which makes it very difficult for specific timed or fast lighting changes.

2. It does not look like you can select a particular cue and go straight to it. When I start a cue stack it always goes to step 1. Sometimes you need the flexibility to go to a cue out of sequence (e.g. an Actor decides to skip a few pages!).

I have now moved on to using the Virtual Console which does not have the same limitations, but still I think the Simple Desk would be very useful if you only have very limited time to prepare for a show. It looks like it could be a really fast and easy to use tool.

Am I right about these two apparent limitations to the Simple Desk?

EDIT: Oh damn, I've overlooked your last paragraph where you say that you do use the virtual desk, so i suppose you know your basic ways around, anyway I hope there's something useful in what I wrote...

I don't think the cue stack in simple desk is in a usable state for what you want to achieve. I might be wrong, but I seem to remember discussion about the limitations it has, and I don't think that much development has gone into it since the fork of QLC+ took place, or will go into it while QLC+5 is being brought forward into usable state which is Massimo's main goal currently.

I regularly use QLC in theater, but always by setting up a virtual console, with a cuelist to play back a chaser that holds my scenes of the shows. I find that to be pretty convenient, reliable and capable, after a few bugs have been squashed a year ago or so. There still are oddities sometimes while setting up a show, mainly this: if I have to switch a lot between functions and virtual console tabs, sometimes channels stop to output their values even when the dmx monitor shows them and then my usual workaround is to save and restart the program. But once the show is programmed it works stable as hell for me.

I set up a chaser so that each cue (typically a scene in the list) has per-step fade in, fade out and duration times. In the chaser editor (functions tab) I select a cue and enter the values directly by double clicking the list item and entering text, like "3s" for 3 seconds. Usually I don't need auto follow, so I set the duration to common and check the "infinite" button in the time edit window (clock icon in top toolbar of the chaser list). If i need one I set it to per-step, and set all the cues to infinite except those that should have an auto follow (you can copy the infinite character when double clicking it, and paste it to the other list entries).

Apart from that I set up faders, buttons, knobs and all the other widgets the virtual console provides, to serve my needs, and automate them with up to three Nanokontrol2 units. Just add them as input to another universe, and they can control any controllable widget in the VC.

I strongly encourage you to go that route, it may be more time consuming than what the simple desk seems to provide, but it's flexible and not too slow once you are used to it.

Edgar