The Avolites Discussion Forum

Looks like I'll be doing a bunch of shows at a venue with a Pearl Expert running V10.1 (with additional touchscreen). I won't get that much time on it beforehand and I've not used it before.

I have a quartz+wing on which I'll do some pre-production- I'd prefer to do this than use the simulator if I can.

I'd appreciate any input on pros/cons in moving between the environments before I head off in the wrong direction.

So far I understand that:
- Top row of fixture handles map to Fixture presets page 0 in the showfile
- Middle row of handles map to Playbacks page 0 in the showfile.
- Grey keys on those handles mapped to Preset Flashes page 0.
- The Fixtures & Playbacks window and Palettes and Groups window map to the above Page 0 locations and the order/location maps to the physical layout (this is a key question !) ?

I assume therefore that I can create/test a showfile on the quartz and then move groups/playbacks/palettes to the appropriate handles in Fixtures&Playbacks and Palettes&Groups windows and they'll show up in the right physical faders/buttons ? Are there any issues with this on V10 ?

Any other thoughts/hints greatly appreciated.

Yes, it should be fine to program on the Quartz and transfer the show file to the Expert, just make sure to run the same software version (v10.1) on the Quartz when programming the show. I am not sure that I entirely follow your points but this is what I would say:

• The Fixtures and Playbacks workspace window, available on all consoles, is equivalent to the 60 blue preset swop keys and faders on the Pearl Expert.
• The Palettes and Groups workspace window is equivalent to the 60 grey preset flash keys on the Pearl Expert.
• The Page 0, 1, 2 and 3 change between the first four pages of both the blue keys/faders and the grey keys at the same time although you can set the Handle Paging to Locked for specific items to make them appear on all pages.
• Playback fader pages alternate between the left and right roller so page 1 becomes left roller page A, page 2 becomes right roller page A, page 3 becomes left roller page B and so on.
• If they have an Expert Touch wing then the 10 macro buttons are the first 10 from the Macros workspace window.

You could create an additional handle world which would allow you to have handles (fixtures/playbacks etc.) stored in different locations depending on which handle world is loaded. One downside to this is that any additional handles that are recorded will only appear in the current handle world unless you specifically assign them in any other handle world.

Thanks Gregory, the handle world insight was exactly the sort of thing I was after.

One thing I have noticed - on the quartz I can change the pages of the Fixtures and Playbacks workspace window using the built-in Macro "Change to Fixture Page 1 etc" but I can't find the equivalent for the Palettes and Groups workspace window - it stays on the same page and there is no equivalent macro that I can see ?

I'm sure there used to be palette ones. Not sure where they went (or I imagined it). Anyway, you can make your own quite easily. Record macro, select destination handle for macro, select palettes and groups page, end recording, repeat for all required pages.