The Avolites Discussion Forum

Hi all,

A few months ago I wrote regarding my difficulties with the Pearl Tiger and Color Blast TRX5's. I've worked with them as "dimmers" taking 5 channels, i.e., not patching them as a fixture but like a conventional, and now I am trying to work them as a fixture with the built in personality profile ColorBlastTRX5- 8 bit.

So here's my issue with color palettes: I patch my units, no problem. I select my color attribute and roll up a color, such as blue. No problem. I choose Store Palette, select a grey button, and the record lights flash.

Great!

I do this for each color, Red, Blue, Green, Amber, White. I then go into Run/Takeover mode, and attempt to select a unit and a color as instructed in the manual.

Fail.

I either get RBG on at full, nothing on, solid green, or green and red together approximating amber (but is not the actual amber LED on the unit). No white, ever. It's like my commands aren't taking, or are merging with something else in the console.

I have tried capturing all the colors but the one I want at 0% and recording, no luck. I've tried patching the units without the preset palettes in the profile, no luck. Plus, I get different results each time I hit the same keystrokes, which is really getting frustrating.

All I want to do is quickly grab units and send them to a color during a live show, manually change them if needed, and then at a later point in time use one of the effects like the rainbow shape. Using the scrolling wheel for this is ridiculously clunky, but if I just have them patched as an HTP "dimmer" I can't use the effects, plus it takes up a bunch of faders on the page.

What am I doing wrong? Or is there a personality conflict somewhere? I believe I have the latest personality, but I've downloaded the file just in case. Halp!

Almost certainly the problem is you are not recording all the values. It is essential that all the colour component channels are in the programmer when you record.

So, taking an approximation of amber as an example, the steps would be as follows:

- Clear
- Select fixture(s)
- Select white colour attribute and set to zero
- Select red attribute and set to 100%
- Select green and set to 50%
- Select blue and set to zero
- Select dimmer attribute bank
- Store palette
- Clear

Note that setting blue (and white) to zero are equally as important as the red and green values. Even if a value was already correct you must take care to nudge it into the programmer before recording. Values in programmer are denoted as inverse text in the LCD wheel display.

Also note that the attribute banks are used to filter palettes. These are 'focus masks'. By default 'dimmer' includes everything. Therefore by setting the attribute bank to dimmer you can be sure everything in your palette will store and recall correctly.

Upon further testing, it appears the problem is not the operator, but the personality for the Color Blast TRX5 8-bit. Both my coworker and I were able to replicate the programming problems, so we decided to abandon the labeled profile and try a generic 6 channel RGBAWx profile.

Problem solved. All our programmed palettes work perfectly as advertised. Since we had such good luck with that, we are working on patching an RGBAWD profile that allows us a dimmer at 0 button on a timed fade out. We haven't figured out a dimmer at full function yet but this profile is working way better than the listed color blast one.

I don't know if anyone from Avolites reads this board, or if it's worth contacting them about this, but it certainly gave us a few grey hairs in the process!

Wow, cool that you got this sorted, albeit I don't see anything wrong on the personalities, at least at the first glance.

Regarding the dimmer, I fear this will not work: the fixture doesn't support a separate dimmer channel, and the pearl tiger (classic) doesn't feature virtual dimmers.

If you can control the fixture normally with the wheels then there is nothing wrong with the personality. There is nothing in the personality that might mean control works but user palettes don't.

As Sebastian says the 5ch factory personality looks fine. If, when you patch RGBAWx the 'x' channel does control dimmer, then there must have been an undocumented change making it a 6 channel fixture with dimmer. In that case you could patch Generic RGBAWD. But be aware that RGBAWx (or RGBAWD) will still work fine for a 5ch fixture as the mapping for the first five channels is the same.
The factory ColorBlast 5 DMX, 8 bit personality is identical to Generc, RGBAWx except for the additional sixth channel at the end and AW is assigned to the fixed colour attribute bank page 1, as opposed to colour mix bank page 2 in the factory Blast.

Well, our issue wasn't with encoder control, but recording color palettes and memory cues. With the TRX profile, we would record a "blue" look, clear the programmer, and try to recall it from the palette button. However, green and red would still pop up in the look. White would never record, and amber always included white at about 30%.

We were able to replicate this issue multiple times, and were absolutely sure that all the other values were captured at 0% when the palettes were recorded.

When we did the exact same keystroking using the generic RGBAWD profile, we had no problems. And, we were able to assign a "dimmer at 0%" palette button that allows us to send the Color Blasts to "black".

We used two operators, following the manual, and both came up with the same results. I understand that the personality might look fine, but there was very clearly something amiss. The only change we made (we used the same buttons, keystrokes, operators, channel assignments, etc) was the personality.

I don't know what to say, other than the generic profile seems to work perfectly, whereas the TRX profile gave us issues. I think we will be using the generic profile from now on.

Much as I am flattered you prefer the generic personality which was my design the reason it is working is just coincidental.

The reason you are having problems is because of the focus mask I described earlier. It is important to understand this is used when recording as well as when recalling.
By default attributes that will be recorded or recalled are specific to the attribute bank selected at the time of recording or recalling. The exceptions to this are dimmer on attribute bank page 1 which includes everything and the three colour attribute banks on page 1 (2x colour mix and 1x fixed colour) which include attributes from all three as long as one is selected.

Because the factory personality has white and amber on attribute bank page two they are not part of the colour focus mask. This means that if you happen to have the white/amber bank selected at the time of recording only these values will record. Similarly, if you were adjusting red/green or blue then only red/green/blue will record but not white/amber.
In the generic personality I put white/amber on the fixed colour wheel attribute bank page 1. This means that if you had white/amber selected when recording it will also include red/green/blue because they all exist on the colour focus mask attribute banks (and vice-versa). However, to try and further reinforce my explanation, if you happen to select the pan/tilt bank before recording then none of the colour information would be stored.

In short the key is to get in the habit of always selecting dimmer bank on attribute bank page 1 before recording a palette.

It is possible to adjust the focus masks if you wish (for example you could make every key include all attributes). This is done by selecting the attribute bank, shift/[user settings], [specify attributes for bank]. A lit LED on the attribute key represents 'include'. You can toggle items in/out of the mask here. However, if you make use of focus masks to filter items out of layered palettes when recalling (for example pan/tilt, gobo and colour all stored on a single handle) then be careful what you adjust or you risk compromising this capability.

Finally, if you do still decide to use generic because you prefer the layout (and who wouldn't?) then you should use RGBAW, not RGBAWD as your fixtures are 5ch without dimmer. Using RGBAWD won't break anything but you will have to address your fixtures at 6ch gaps which might be a pain if they're already set to adjacent addresses at 5ch gaps.

Got it. So the two profiles aren't exactly alike after all.

Here's what bothers me, though: Assuming I grab each color, R,B,G and set them to 0% with the encoder wheel, and roll up amber and white to 100% with the encoder wheel... If I choose Dimmer>Store Palette>(Selected button) my result should be amber and white at 100% regardless of which personality file I use.

That isn't the case. Your RGBAW file (Great job, BTW!) works as advertised, but the factory file does not. I understand the color focus mask and bank pages but I really feel that there is a glitch or a command line in the program somewhere that is holding values at a level that shouldn't be there. Maybe this has to do with the layout of the white and amber on a different bank, but it still doesn't explain why red and green show up in palette that is supposed to be blue only.

That aside, it seems like the generic profile has the color attributes laid out in such a way that it avoids this problem. Additionally, whether or not I chose the Dimmer button (to select all the attributes) or the Color button (to capture only the color) I was able to record color palettes without issue.

Hooray!

Thanks for the help - I think I'll avoid adjusting the focus masks and attributes until we all feel more comfortable with this console though. We are on our own in regards to training and self-teaching, and I'd rather not confuse people any more than I have to. Ha!

Well, I did mention that difference but I will forgive you for missing it!

Be careful that you select dimmer from attribute bank page 1 to store everything. After adjusting amber/white in the factory personality you will be on attribute bank page 2 and it's very easy to hit dimmer on this page which will result in nothing being recorded. I am sure this works as I tested it all earlier.
In the generic personality not only are all the colour components in the colour mask but, as everything is on page 1, you avoid the issue and will be on the correct page for dimmer which is why both methods work without any trouble.

I realise I'm labouring a point here but hopefully it will clear things up for yourself and any others who read it. The factory wheel mapping is not ideal!

I'm finding that I actually like using the 6ch generic profile. One of the nice features we discovered was the "dimmer" channel. I realize that the Color blasts internally only have 5 channels, but using the "dimmer at 0%" function does take them visually to black. Very helpful when programming looks and palettes!

Changing the address to a 6 channel offset is no big deal. We use these blasts constantly in many configurations, so it's just part of the load in process for us.

I am a little disappointed that the factory file isn't the best, but I'm thrilled that someone has created a great solution.