New user here, don't think I've posted yet - mostly been content to peruse the forums and wiki so far. I've been putting together a light rig for a cover band controlled with an Entec Pro dongle, laptop (Freestyler of course), BCF2000, and FCB1010 (for control by the singer). I recently had some success incorporating a BCD-3000 as a control wing with good success, and thought some users may be interested. The BCD-3000 is a midi (over USB) controller in the same form factor as the BCF-2000 and costs a bit less. It is designed for DJs with two large infinite encoding wheels for "scratching" - but they screamed moving head programmer when I saw it.
I am happy to say that with a couple hours learning MidiOX, I have it working very well. I use one infinite encoder for pan, and the other for tilt. They provide fine control yet with fairly rapid movement through the range. There are plenty of other faders and encoders available to control the various beam, gobo, and color effects on the typical mover, plus cmy/rgb on mixing fixtures. It is also fairly intuitive to set up the needed buttons to page through fixtures individually or by group, and left (odd) or right (even).
The setup would be almost perfect if I could have a few more Freestyler commands exposed via MIDI
. I have plenty more buttons and encoders available. With the one group of four buttons near the top-center of the BCD, I can rapidly create a sequence and insert/remove/or add steps - but I can't preview the sequence or step through it without reaching for the mouse. I would also like to be able to use the block of 10 buttons in the middle for macro activation of the selected fixture(s), but I don't see how to accomplish that. Deselect all fixtures would be nice as well.If anyone wants more details on how or what I did to set this up, I'll be happy to share.
Matt