The Water Street Project Week 8: Photos, Website Update and Lighting Tests
This past week, I made some great progress with my thesis project. I am really excited to see the work coming to a head as we reach the date of the performance.
Perhaps most importantly, I have started working with the physical lighting board at Traditions to write the lighting scenes for my songs. With the help of instructor Mark Kalinowski, we figured out how the controls to each of the lights work. The stage has two different kinds of lights: Elation 200 SixPar LEDs and Elation Rayzor Q7s. The SixPars are static lights that I was able to control and write scenes with effectively. The Q7s are smaller moving lights that are each addressed to a separate channel, which (when working properly) add some really cool visual effects to the performance. However, these moving lights were likely addressed poorly (and one light does not even work), and as a result, none of the faders that control the colors of the lights work properly. The only thing that I can manage to get the moving lights to do is flash a bright, blueish-green mess and swivel uncontrollably. So far, so good.
The solution that Mark proposed to this problem was to reset the lighting board to its default factory settings. In order to do this, I will first need approval from SFB, since the equipment is owned by them. SFB does not have any data saved to the board, so they will most likely be in favor of me resetting the board if it means that myself and Mark would then work on re-addressing the board properly.
To summarize:
The good news: All of the Sixpar lights work and can be controlled. My computer recognizes the USB to MIDI cable running out from the computer into the lighting board, which means that I have the proper cables to make my patch interact with the board.
The bad news: The moving lights do not show color, even though I can control their movement. Without moving lights, the overall effect of the performance becomes greatly altered.
Additionally, I also have a couple small content updates:
- Our new website (www.waterstreetofficial.com)has officially been launched! While we still have a couple minor revisions to make, the site is now functional and in much better shape than its three-year-old counterpart.
- We have new photos (taken by myself and another band member, and edited by me) that are featured on the website and our social media!
While most of the work in Traditions up until now has been focused on becoming familiar with the lighting board and writing scenes, I will return to Traditions later in the week and work with Dr. Nakra. We plan to test the entire signal flow from the instrument, to the Max patch, and into the lighting board. Once we have determined that the patch works with the physical lights, and I have reset the board, I can begin writing scenes and mapping out my entire performance through the lighting board.
