Support Forum

Hi, I've just upgraded to an Enttec Pro and version 3.2.1 and have begun re writing some of our band cuelists. I've just realised that i can't seem to have a strobe on an overide button like i used too . Basically i used to be able to cue in a strobe effectively 'on top' of the scene already running but now it Kills all of my other lights if i hit the strobe overide (NOT GOOD ). I was using a JMS USB2DMX lead and version 3 without this problem. Can anyone confirm why this is happening please and if theres a workaround

Just to confirm i already have multicue selected in the setup ( i just read the post a few down)

I can think of a reason why this would be happening.
What do you mean by 'Strobe Overide'? Do you mean an overide button that you have programmed to operate the strobe?
How do you run your sequences / cues etc? Are you using the submasters or just the cue page or cue list buttons?

It maybe that you just need to rewrite the strobe sequences.

Thanks for the quick response,
I'm running from the cue page at the minute, i'm working my way through the various features and the submasters are on the list( i did try it and it had the same effect.)thought i had this bit nailed as we'd done a couple of gigs using freestyler.Any help on programing techniques is much appriciated.
By Overide , i basically created a one scene cue that fired the strobe and added it to the overide buttons. I guess it worked as the pc processor was doing the work with the old interface and now its just feeding the PRo unit which has its own processor so i'm thinking its sending a buffer full of zeros except the strobe and then of course when i release the button the moving heads and led pars ( Thoman units -seem to work well so far) have 0's for their inputs.
As i said help would be much appriciated here ,thanks in advance.

Is this what you did:

1) Opened the sequence creator window
2) Created a single scene with the strobe flashing (say at full flash)
3) Saved the scene
4) Opened the override button panel
5) Inserted the scene onto a button

Other than that, try using the strobe controller that you can find here:

http://www.freestylersupport.com/fsforu ... robe#p7029

Cheers!

That seems a good work around for the strobe , thanks.
Of course now i move to the next problem which is my moving heads . As we play live i had a set of moves relative to certain parts of songs etc. Like the strobe i used to simply use an overide button to fire these 'set pieces' at any point without effecting the rest of the lights. This is no longer the case as when i hit the overide or even run the que in parrallel to my pars etc LTP seems to decide that everything bar the moving heads should be at zero!! I know i must be doing something stupid here but like a lot of things in life the obvious is often in front of you where you just can't see it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Normski

I think you need to get your head into submasters! Its gonna make what you are doing work better for you I think!

I will post a tutorial later today if I get time.

Thanks for the response, a tutorial i guess would probably answer a thousand questions

: tendril made a good detailed discription about how to use the Submaster and what benefits it will give you.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=623&start=0

LJ_krede.dk wrote: : tendril made a good detailed discription about how to use the Submaster and what benefits it will give you.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=623&start=0

Im talking about a far more detailed tutorial. This will get posted to the FS wiki when its finished!

Again thanks for the info, i think submasters are def the way to go for me. I await the wiki 'how to'
Thanks

Normski2020 wrote:That seems a good work around for the strobe , thanks.
Of course now i move to the next problem which is my moving heads . As we play live i had a set of moves relative to certain parts of songs etc. Like the strobe i used to simply use an overide button to fire these 'set pieces' at any point without effecting the rest of the lights. This is no longer the case as when i hit the overide or even run the que in parrallel to my pars etc LTP seems to decide that everything bar the moving heads should be at zero!! I know i must be doing something stupid here but like a lot of things in life the obvious is often in front of you where you just can't see it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For this problem (as for the strobe problem) goes:

Please tell us EXACTLY how you made the sequences, what you've clicked and how you run them.
What you do with the strobe and heads, I do all the time without any problems. The problems you have, are not because you are using another interface.

I have on thing to say:
If you create the strobe sequence (or any other) make sure you don't touch any other controls or other fixtures that have nothing to do with the current sequence! So, create a new sequence, make sure you select the strobe only (as it is possible to accitendly select multiple different fixtures at the same time, recording the same changes for the DMX channel index to the sequence), only adapt the values needed for the sequence, save it and add it to the override buttons. It now must work without destroying other active fixtures that are not recorded in the sequence.

Hi Remco_k
I made single scenes that move the heads to a set position , sweep a set arc, sweep the room etc and then add them to my cue list.
I have a basic low level Parcan array that i use as a fallback situation where 12 Led cans are illuminating red at 50% dimmer. This scene i run and the run others to change the light output from the cans as the band plays. This way if all goes a bit wobbly i simply reclick the first scene and unclick the rest.
Ok as i have the cans going , every so often i may need to run the moving heads or strobe the stage. For this i would have the scene to control this on the cue list or an overide button enabled.
Now as my pars are doing their stuff i click the moving head scene on the cuelist and would expect the pars to stay doing there sthing and the heads start their scene as would happen in the past . What happens is the outputs to the pars are all being set to zero whilst the heads are running.
I will later today rewrite the moving head scenes and tripple double check that no other fixtures are active. and report back.
Hopefully i have somehow enabled 12 parcans whilst programming the heads and all will be rectified!

I know i keep saying it but thanks for the help , i got an idea of how freestyler works using a cheap interface so a decision could be made on if it was suitible for us and am now on a bit of an indepth learning curve to become able to cope with all situations with it.

As i tell my guys , The impossible i can normally do at once but it takes a cup of tea before performing miricales!

OK So i've just got back to doing some testing and i find that the mysterious zero signal is still happening . I now copy all my cues to a seperate hard disk and wipe the folder clear followed by removing freestyler then reinstalling my previous version and writing a basic cue for the strobe and a basic parcan cue.. Still the same problem. Getting frustrated with it all so shutdown pc and go at look at setup which i can't see working this saturday at this rate. Calm down a bit and come back to pc , fire up freestyler, open the 2 basic cues and hey presto all works as did 2 weeks ago. I can run a cue , fire the strobe and the pars stay on . Stop the strobe and the pars stay on . All as was!!! So now i get adventurous and set a simple moving head cue and whooa it still works as it did at our last show! I now feel pretty cocky and re upgrade to 3.2.2 and blow me it still works . IF Anyone can work out what the hell happened i would be most interested. I just hope that i don't sit down tomorrow and the same thing happens again.
Remco _k your tutorial on submasters will be most useful i'm sure as i just discovered that if i have my scene dimmer level to 100% the dimmer slider in the submaster has no effect. If i drop its value from 255 to 253 the slider works giving a normal variable output.
God this is wearing me out but hopefully i'll get it sorted by saturday!

I did'nt write a tutorial on submasters... Maybe youre mistaking me with someone else.

Strange story you have there. You can't check anymore as you don't have the problem anymore, but if it does come back, could you check if the output window (Edit->Show output) also display 0 values on the channels?
Maybe something is going wrong in the driver (or hardware) of your DMX interface, and FreeStyler always sended out proper values but your driver (or hardware) did'nt do what it was supposed to do.

I'm curious: did you ever rebooted the pc after installing the Enttec interface?

Sorry for the identity mistake , i had a long long day.
I did reboot the pc after installing the enttec drivers etc and then when i still got the problem i used their driver remover to take all the drivers off and then reinstall . Still had problem ( i rebooted then as well) The output window showed all the pars etc being driven to zero as the other cues were selected. I guess this will be one of lifes mysteries !!! On another note i dropped freestyler and the drivers onto one of my vista pc's and all worked fine !

DMX Lighting , sorry i misplaced your name .

Okay, we know now that whatever the problem was, was likely a problem in FreeStyler (as the output window showed the zero's as well), not in the driver or hardware.
Thats good information to have when trying to solve a problem like this.

Hopefully if and when this problem comes back, you are able to figure out what is causing it.
And if you do, I'm curious...