In this tutorial, I'm going to talk a little bit about the different ways you can set up a Cobalt console
to help you when you're busking.
Busking means a number of different things.
It can mean doing a show on the fly because you don't have time to prepare for it.
This could be because you weren't given a lot of information,
you had to sub in for somebody who was supposed to do the show for you.
Or simply, the situation is such that you have time to patch,
perhaps to slam a little bit of information into the console,
and then the curtain rises and you're on.
Busking also could mean that you are working in a show that you know very well
and your playback preference is to play the show manually, to play it live,
because it's a little more exciting that way than hitting a go button all the time.
Whichever solution you're looking for, Cobalt has some features to support
both of those styles of operation, and pretty much everything in between.
So we're using the demo show file that I've been using for a while now.
And in this tutorial I'm going to spend less time talking about how you can do all these things,
as opposed to how you can use the tools of the console
to create a specific type of playback environment.
You can find more information about all the things I'm going to show you
in other tutorials available from ETC.
If you're running a show where you have very little time to prepare,
you can get a show running on a Cobalt console
as long as you have your patch and some additional bits of information to get you started.
This show file was set up for busking and has a lot of information in it,
so it's really at the other end of the spectrum from the
"I just have a patch and I need to get a show going,"
but I'll show you how these tools can be used even with a show that's got some data in it.
One of those tools is, once you've got your patch in, is to use the Channel Database.
The {Channel Database} is found under the {Channel} section in the Browser,
under {Settings and Tools},
and this is just a spreadsheet where you can enter
text information for each of your channels.
This show file has a patch and has, in some cases, in this case for the conventional lights,
more text information entered into the "Text A" cells of those channel numbers.
This step of adding a little piece of text to each channel,
gives you the ability to then use a tool called "auto-groups."
So in my Direct Selects, I'm going to pick a type of data called auto-group.
And when you look at auto-groups,
the information from your patch and from the text cells in your Channel Database
are used to create groupings of channels for you.
So you can see the names of all of the templates shown in the first groups,
and that's all the lights patched with that template name.
And then you can see additional groups, starting at group number 9 and up to 19,
that are using the text information that was entered into the Channel Database.
The Channel Database can be edited with multiple cells at one time,
which means that you give yourself some rough groupings
just by adding a little bit of text to your channel information when you're patching.
You can then just use an auto-group to select lights that have a specific text label on them
and gain control of them very quickly.
You can also use your auto-groups to help you create numbered groups, or recorded groups.
Use the text to create the channel selection for you,
and then record that into a regular group number with a name.
The reason you might want to do this is because recorded groups can be placed onto Masters,
while auto-groups can only be controlled in the Direct Selects.
Whichever one makes you happier.
I'm going to create a new Master page and load it onto the bottom row of Masters.
In this case, I've chosen a page that does not exist.
Cobalt asks me if I wish to create it.
I hit [Modify] to do so, and now I have an empty set of Masters.
So I can quickly load some groups onto the Masters.
And now I get to make a decision.
Am I running completely on the fly, with just parameter control of the lights that I've patched,
or do I have the time to create some Palettes?
Either way, I can put content onto the Masters that will help me to control these lights.
Let's get back to a blackout, and now I can see I have some lights in a random look at this point,
that I can [HOME ATTRIB]
And I can control those lights using the Device Controls, using the device encoders,
so I can move those lights down on to the stage.
And if my show is only going to contain color information, 'cause that's all the time I have today,
I can find my color parameters and place them, just like this, on to the Faders.
Now I can select lights and do live color mixing using my Faders,
to get my show looking like something.
If I have Palettes, I can put Palettes on the Masters.
This is going to be a little more useful because
I had enough prep time to match colors between my spots and my washes.
So now I'll clear the parameters off the Masters and put color Palettes on instead.
I still have to select the lights, but what's interesting now is that
these are my recorded values.
Because I've used Palettes, I can now go between the two
and set up those lights and change their colors either with Fader or with buttons,
using the same Faders for each different type of light.
Another interesting thing I can do with Palettes that I can't do with parameter controls,
is I can use manual timing.
I can do this either with Palettes that are on the Masters,
or with Palettes that are in the Direct Selects.
And that's simply instead of pressing the button which gives me a snap,
I can type a number, [3] in this case,
and hit the button, and in 3 seconds, those wash lights will fade to the color red.
[2] seconds to {Turquoise}.
[10] seconds, which is an eternity, to {Blue}.
But this gives you a way of getting lights doing stuff
and you can be moving on to controlling other things
while those lights are doing a nice long smooth transition.
If you have a little bit more time, you can record Sequences to help you set up your lights.
A lot of people like to busk their shows this way.
And the way we do this is by creating Sequences that contain specific parts of your rig doing specific stuff.
So in the page that I've just loaded, you can see I have some groups assigned
and I have some Sequences assigned.
And there's an empty space 'cause I'll show you how I recorded these Sequences in a moment.
And what each one of these is doing is it's containing, in this case,
focus information for my spotlights, focus information for my wash lights,
gobo information for my spotlights.
And then, I've got space here for color information for my spots
and color information for my wash.
I use masking to help me create these Sequences for specific groupings of lights,
and this is a way to simply
give me the opportunity to very quickly set up some focus, color, and beam effects
and manually control the intensity of those same lights on different handles.
So, as an example, I'll bring up the Sequence for focus positions for my MMX spots,
I'll bring up their intensities as well.
And you can see, as I step through the Sequence by hitting [GO],
the lights are just moving from one focus position to the next.
These are ones that have been recorded as Palettes,
but if you don't have much time, you could also do raw data.
It doesn't matter, whatever works for that show.
I can do a similar thing with the gobo Sequence,
and step through the gobos in the lights on a different button.
This lets me pick a specific focus and a specific gobo, by simply hitting the [GO] button
to move through this looping Sequence.
What's missing in this case is the colors for these particular lights,
so we'll take those down and we'll create a color Sequence for them on Master 4.
I'm going to call that “Sequence 103," [Sequence] & [Master] key.
And because the Sequence does not already exist, Cobalt will ask me what I want to do.
Do I wish to use Presets or Cues?
And in this case, I definitely want to use Cues.
And this is because I'm thinking of these lists as individual items
and not as Presets I'm going to use later on for something else.
Cues mean that each one of these Sequences starts with an object called "1,"
and ends with whatever the last one is I recorded.
And I don't have to worry about unique numbers, like 101, 301, 501,
to find the first object in any of these lists.
It's always going to be 1.
So now that I've created Sequence 103, I can start recording into it.
I've selected my lights, I'm going to put them in a color,
in this case open white.
And all I want to record is color information, so I'm going to apply a mask.
[Mask], you can see nothing is masked at the moment,
and I want to Mask out focus and Mask out beam information.
I only want to record color information.
I'm also going to take out their intensity
because I don't want my color Sequence to turn the lights on,
I only want it to select a color.
To help with this, because I record information about lights that have intensity above zero,
I'm going to use the Mark value,
which is just enough intensity information for the console to find these lights interesting
but not enough to actually put any light out on the stage.
And then I'm going to start recording Cues into my Sequence,
and I'm going to do that with [RECORD] & the [Master] key.
You'll see it offers me a new Cue: number 1.
I can give this Cue a name of "Open White."
And I can use this Master as the general recording target,
which means I don't have to keep hitting [RECORD]& the Master key,
I can just hit [RECORD] and it will store into that particular Master.
When I'm done, I confirm and I've got the first Cue, which is going to be white.
This is my personal choice.
In this show file, Open White is actually stored asColor Palette number 10,
because for this person, they want a color listed first
and Open White was less interesting to them.
Me, I like to know that number one always gets me to an open white beam,
so I choose to record the Cues in a different order.
Whatever makes you happy.
Now I can start typing colors.
You can see my Palette has been applied, the lights are in red,
they're still marked so you don't see anything on the stage.
And when I hit [RECORD], it's offering me to record Cue 2
on Master 4 which is Sequence 103.
I give it a name, "red," I hit [RECORD], and I pick the next color and carry on
building up my Sequence of colors for my spotlights.
Blue.
We'll leave it as red, green, blue for now, I think you have the idea.
And then there's one last step,
because in Cobalt, Sequences insert by default a Cue 0.
And that Cue 0, you may know, creates a blackout.
You loop the Sequences regardless, but it loops through a blackout step.
To get rid of this step, we can open the Sequences List,
find our new Sequence 103,
which I will conveniently give a name while I'm here,
and change my Sequence mode
from normal, which includes
Cue 0, the blackout between the last step and the first step.
I'm going to hit [Modify] until I get to the loop style of Sequence.
A loop Sequence is a manually triggered, so not a chase, it does not run automatically.
It's a manually triggered Sequence, but it defeats the Cue 0, or the step 0,
blackout between the last step and the first step, so that you can run live
and not see that blackout happen or that stagger step.
So let's just see what we've created.
I'm going to bring up my spots.
I will activate this Sequence.
The Fader needs to be above 0 for this to work.
And now you can see, I can step through those four colors, white, red, green, and blue,
that I've added into this Sequence.
I can change gobos.
I can change focus positions for these lights as I go.
And more interestingly, I could say I want you in the third
focus position, this is a go-to command, I want you in the second gobo,
and I want you in the fourth...
Oh, that's a different one.
The second color.
And when I bring this up,
I have that focus information, that color information, and that gobo information
already prepared for me while the lights are dark.
So now I have manual control
over all of that, using pre-recorded, or pre-determined, Sequences
of content that I can mix and match as I wish.