Q Light Controller+

Hi everybody!
I’m just doing my first steps with qlc+ to check out if this programm is suitable for our purposes. We are a school theatre group and we need a software to control our light equipment:
+ several dimmer channels
+ several different types of rgb pars and bars
+ several moving heads

During my experiments with qlc+ I had a few questions:
1. I guess the best way for programming light for a theatre is working with sequences, right? Otherwise I would produce an incredible amount of different scenes which would be rather confusing. On the other hand I would have to add all my devices to each scene. (First I thought adding scenes to a chaser would be a good idea because I thought I could only add the fixtures I want to change to each new scene. But when running the chaser I found out that the DMX values for the fixtures I didn’t add were set to „0“. I tried this as a possible solution of problem No. 3 but this doesn’t work, right?)
2. Is there any way to select all devices of a certain type when programming the steps of a se-quence? If I want to set e.g. all rgb pars to the same color it‘s a little bit impractical if I have to change the values for each device separately. The only opportunities I found were copying the values to all devices (but this means really copying them to ALL devices not just to the special type/group of devices I want to change) or change the values by copy and paste (which means to go to every single device and paste the values there).
3. Is it possible to change the arrangement of the different parts of the function screen (without just changing their size)? For me it’s really confusing when I change to the tab vieuw (I hope I’m using the correct vocabulary but I am using the german version of the software) because due to the big amount of devices I only see e.g. „l…1“ instead of the complete name of the device. For example it would be nice to arrange the devices to groups like it is possible in the device screen.
4. If I am setting the fading and hold/wait time for the different cues of a sequence I could do this either for all steps or for each step seperately. When I set a standard time for all steps and want to change only some steps afterwards individually qlc+ deletes all the settings I have made for all steps before. Is it possible to keep these standard settings somehow? By the way: if I tag Standard in this window for changing the times I don’t see the fading times.
5. Is it possible to show the name of the function of the different channels of a device? Because the icon I can select in the fixture editor isn’t always clearly. The software we’re using now (LumiDMX) shows the name of the function on the slider.
6. Or is there a bigger selection of icons for the fixture editor somewhere (e.g. strobe, zoom)? Or is it possible to design icons on my own?
7. It’s not possible to programm sequences and scenes with the virtual console, is it? If I put e.g. sliders there for channels I have to change often I won’t have to scroll through the different devices in the function screen to find them.
8. If I change the properties for a cue list on the virtual console to step forward to the next cue by a button on the keyboard this button also STARTS the cue list. If I use the same button (e.g. the space bar - which is very handy during a theatre performance) in different cue lists (e.g. one cue list for each act of the play) I’m running all cue lists at the same time. Is there an opportunity to change this?
9. Is it possible to edit an audio track in the shows screen (e.g. changing the length, speed or volume level, maybe as well to different levels within one track, fading in / out …)?
10. We don’t own one yet but we are thinking about buying a midi controller. Could we use it for programming scenes and sequences as well or just for live control?

Apart from these problems I like qlc+ very much: It’s really easy to handle, running sequences from the vir-tual console e.g. by cue lists is very handy for the way we work – a big advantage compared to LumiDMX!

I’m looking forward to further explanations. Thanks a lot!

Wolfgang

to 1) Yes, you have to create a lot of scenes for that, but I don't understand why they are so many if you are using RGB pars or just dimmers with one channel per par. You can create groups and then it's easy. You can also use the virtual console, create the scene you need and press the 'create dump' button in the upper right hand side corner (and eventually select just store values not equal to zero. Finally you can add all scenes you have to a chaser and use a cue list in the virtual console. Keep in mind, that a chaser can contain the same scene more then once.

to 2) If you are using RGB pars or dimmers I would recommend to use channel groups (fixture tab -> channel groups tab). If you have groups, you can select all needed fixtures for a scene (in the function tab) and you'll have an group tab where you can modify a group value, for instance all red channels or all dimmer channels or all master channels (using master channels is very useful to split the dimmer and the color especially if you use more rgb fixtures). Hint for using groups, in the dialog to create them you'll find a checkbox 'apply to equal fixtures'. With that it's easy going to create the groups. Even easier is using the function assistant. It can create scenes for a bunch of colors and also widgets on the virtual console if you like.

to 3) Check out the view mode (upper left hand side corner). it's grouping the sliders by fixture and then it's easier to distinguish them if qlc+ group them by device. But finally I would create all slides on the virtual console, if you need them. It can be really confusing, if you use both live, because, if you modify a slider in the slider overview, they override the sliders in your custom virtual console (they become red, if you change them). If you want use a corresponding slider in the VC again, you first have to reset the slider (using the cross button below one slider or reset all by pressing the cross in the top menu).

to 4) Switch to standard, set up the values, you need most and then select per step and modify the ones, which are different. I hope I understood you correctly, I guess you mean a step/scene with cue and a chaser with sequence.

to the others maybe later.

Hello Schorsch,
thank you for your explanations - and sorry for doing this so late. But because of some other projects ans holidays I just forgot my post in this forum.
So now I have to get into the theme again. Maybe I'm getting back to you with more questions later.
By the way: Schorch? Georg Müller? Maybe it's easier to correspond in German?
Greetings
Wolfgang