Pearl2004 basic playback help needed

[Beaker]

Here's my problem. I'm trying to store basic looks on my playback handles. When I play them back in run mode I get wrong colors and gobos. I'm programming by channel. Nic's told me to be mindful of m & w in the LCD display in the past. Problem- I don't know what m & w mean and I always see a w, never an m. ie:

1w46
2w54

etc. I asume these are values being stored?

More information- I'm saving in mode 0.
What are the modes? Is that important? Does my problem have to do with LTP & HTP? How do you set the board to defalt to one or the other if that's the case?

[niclights]

'w' or 'm' mean the same thing. 'w' means it was altered by wheel, 'm' by preset fader (dimmer handle). I'm not sure why they are differentiated. They both mean that the values are in the programmer and will be stored.

Procedure should be:

Select fixtures.
Select attribute.
Wheel in value (or type numerically, or recall palette etc.).
Store.

HTP & LTP are defined by personality. As a rule, dimmer channels will be HTP and all others will be LTP.

Modes determine whether memories containing LTP are fadeable, either by timing values or manually. Timing values = 1, manually by fader = 2.

None of this should be important to basic storing of colours/gobos. These will almost certainly be LTP. Follow above procedure.

[Beaker]

OK. I undertand the values and w and m thing now. Thanks! Looks like were online at the same time! Fun. Hey I'll be in your time zone in a week! LOL. OK, so i'm going to try your proceedure here, and i'll document everything including the results. Stay tuned to this thread, shoud take me 15 minutes or so to post. Got my computer and Pearl right here in my office today at work!

[Beaker]

OK. Got my Pearl with a Mac250wash in handle 1 & a Mac250Entour spot in handle 2. All my Playbacks are empty. Following your proceedure of;

Select fixtures.
Select attribute.
Wheel in value (or type numerically, or recall palette etc.).
Store.

Here we go;
Key to Program/Both lights selected and located/Deselect spot
Wash P/T to location 1. Color to Blue.
Deselect Wash, select spot. Spot to location 2. Select Gobo Fan.
Memory/Mode 0 Record by fixture (to get all attributes)/Playback 1
Spot to location 3, no gobo, yellow.
Wash to location 4, red.
Memory/Playback 2
Wash to location 5, green.
Spot to location 6, blue, Eclips gobo.
Store Playback 3

Clear/Run/Clear

OK lets see what we have.

Playback 1 up: Correct!
Playback 2 up: Correct!
Playback 3 up: Correct!
All down
Back to 2: Correct!

What the heck? What did I do different this time to get everything to work???

[Beaker]

Hot Dang! 6 Playbacks now and all is well! Clear must have been the key.

[Beaker]

Another important step I needed was to "clear" the programmer after each save. Thanks to Jeff my local LD. I had missed that one and was getting some inconsistancies in my playbacks. All seem well now.

[niclights]

You don't necessarily have to clear the programmer while creating memories, so long as you have are confident about what you are editing it can sometimes be faster and more efficient to leave and make adjustments - for instance if you were storing a set of positional palettes for a fixture there would be little reason to clear prior to each save.

It is important to clear before running though since programmer will always take control.

[Beaker]

OK. That makes sence, but I wonder why is gets screwed up sometimes and plays back the wrong colors or gobos? In any event, being "clear happy" seems to be saving my sanity for the time being.