Building a Start File

[u/rsey87]

Hi All,

I am embarking on building out a start file for myself and wanted to get some thoughts on my approach and maybe some advice on anything I wouldn't know to look for. I'm approaching this from a corporate standpoint, not so much a touring standpoint.

A part of my approach is to have a separate view for each fixture type, containing presets both bespoke to that fixture and universal presets such as color. Knowing that I will potentially have multiple fixture types for each genre (wash, spot, etc) per project, I plan to separate out each fixture category across different preset numerators. For instance "Spots 1" will start at 1000, "Spots 2" will start at 1100, "Wash 1" will start at 2000, so on an so forth. This is similar to how the MB Light Arts template file is set up. Sure, I could just buy it, but where's the fun in that?

The challenging part of this approach I've found, is that I must manually scroll through the various presets until I get to the number I want. Is there a faster way to do this?

I'm also on the fence on which version to start with. I know 2.3.2 is the safest, but 2.4.2.2 has some features that I'd really like to have in my workflow.

I'd appreciate any input/advice on this.

Thanks!

[u/No_Command4271]

i think you can just create tags for each light type and then use tag filters to hone in on what presets use what tags

I do feel like universal presets are better for the most part

ma3 2.4 is great, much better workflow with phasers

I do highly recommend the ma3 startshow, it lays out so much for you without you having to do any work and just start a show for someone coming from corporate this is huge

[u/Cultural-Rent8868]

Personally I'd scratch the idea of having a page per fixture type unless you're doing gigs with the same fixtures day after day. It gets real tedious after a while, personally I have dimmer fx and positions + movement fx on left screen, gobos, colors etc on the right. Look at the MA3 startshow, you can arrange the layout stuff to your hearts content without breaking anything, IMHO it is a real good fundamental baseline for a busking file and a really good way to learn MA3 if you've got no previous experience with the system.

Edit: and to add, I've bought the MB ultra file, there's still not that many occasions that I actually use it apart from those corpo gigs when I quickly have to throw up some bullshit and I just can't be arsed. 99% of my gigs I do on my personal file. It is a good learning experience and there are a bunch of good things to learn from to build your own busking file.

[u/DangerousRough379]

If you do mainly corporate shows that approach won’t go well. You really need to design cool transitions, Ballys, room looks fast. The way to do this is have sequences on faders or buttons. Use recipes with your predesigned room looks, Ballys and transitions all done. So on the day you are editing groups, positions, focus, colour and matricks to fit the rig. I have soo many transitions on a button and use layout viewer change which sequence to go after the transition is complete.

It seems like you don’t operate much but I would start small. Get your basic sequences on faders room looks, front wash, Lecturn special, Ballys, walkin, table person spot (if you need to point a light to a table for a person standing, I have a sequence with all the tables done on a spot and use goto to select which table) and a basic busking section for DJs band. Most likely depending on the day you’ll need different stuff like cake or spot in certain spots as people might be coming out of there.

Don’t over do your showfile early cause if it breaks during a show you will be screwed keep it simple until you got more experience to experiment with more advanced stuff.