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Most annoying thing to program?


DisneyMatt10

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Hey everyone,

As (most of us) are working on our display for this coming years shows, I was wondering. . . What is the most annoying thing you have had to program for one of your shows? Thought this could be a fun topic to share some of your frustrations, and learning experiences!

I am currently programming a "Singing Christmas Tree" for one of my songs, and to get all of the lip movements down right is absolutely annoying. 

(I apologize if this has already been discussed I did a search and found nothing.)

 

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As a newbie, I find remembering where I am at in the sequencer the most annoying!   Can't tell ya how many times I have clicked back into a block to where I want to start the music and accidently turn something on / off because I forgot to hit the select tool,

 

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1 hour ago, bdwillie said:

As a newbie, I find remembering where I am at in the sequencer the most annoying!   Can't tell ya how many times I have clicked back into a block to where I want to start the music and accidently turn something on / off because I forgot to hit the select tool,

 

In my first year that used to drive me crazy too.  Best remedy is to force yourself to learn the keyboard commands.  You really only need to learn a few: on, off, fade up/down, twinkle, shimmer, toggle and maybe custom..  Those will account for probably 95% or more of all your sequencing needs.  Believe me - it takes less time than you think to learn those and it saves you an incredible amount of time and frustration.  And keep in mind that you can use the keyboard preferences option to map those functions to any key you want.

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9 hours ago, George Simmons said:

In my first year that used to drive me crazy too.  Best remedy is to force yourself to learn the keyboard commands.  You really only need to learn a few: on, off, fade up/down, twinkle, shimmer, toggle and maybe custom..  Those will account for probably 95% or more of all your sequencing needs.  Believe me - it takes less time than you think to learn those and it saves you an incredible amount of time and frustration.  And keep in mind that you can use the keyboard preferences option to map those functions to any key you want.

Will check that out when I get home from work!  Thanks!!

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14 hours ago, DisneyMatt10 said:

Hey everyone,

As (most of us) are working on our display for this coming years shows, I was wondering. . . What is the most annoying thing you have had to program for one of your shows? Thought this could be a fun topic to share some of your frustrations, and learning experiences!

I am currently programming a "Singing Christmas Tree" for one of my songs, and to get all of the lip movements down right is absolutely annoying. 

(I apologize if this has already been discussed I did a search and found nothing.)

 

Are you actually sequencing them in the SE?

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10 hours ago, EmmienLightFan said:

Are you actually sequencing them in the SE?

Yes. . . Yes I am. I don't know of any other way to do it.

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I find the mouth movements and guitar strumming the most tedious things to sequence, and I only have two mouth positions. Open and closed.  I wouldn't want to go to the multiple mouth positions since everyone "gets it" anyway with just two.

I always sequence these first just to get them out of the way.

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3 hours ago, Vince4xmas said:

Try sequencing a RUSH song. Painful.

Worth it in the end though.

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No singing faces with mouth movements, but I do try and emulate large wire frame skulls and smaller plastic frame decor and an assortment of blow molds and Funkin style styrofoam Jack O' Lanterns to appear to be singing the songs by varying fades and light intensities, so that's the biggest pain to do for me, but the end result usually works out extremely well.  Just takes a lot of time to get the light intensities, fades and words to flow as smoothly as possible so it looks good.   Do the same for Christmas Blowmolds and some wall character decorations I use.

So since these are the most annoying, they are usually worked on first, sometimes last, just depends on the complexity of the song I'm working on whether I decide to do this first or last.\, or a combination thereof.

 

 

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15 hours ago, Vince4xmas said:

Try sequencing a RUSH song. Painful.

2112?

Most annoying thing to program?  

     The Wife.

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RUSH was Great to program. What annoyed me was trying to program some of the old time favorites, Bing Crosby's Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Dean Martian's Silver Bells. I ended up taking them out since I didn't like the programing that I did.

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Anything by The Trans Siberian Orchestra

I have heard it so much everywhere I am starting to not use it at all because it is getting so boring to hear the same music in almost everyone's shows and is so over rated..

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23 minutes ago, Old Sarge said:

Anything by The Trans Siberian Orchestra

I have heard it so much everywhere I am starting to not use it at all because it is getting so boring to hear the same music in almost everyone's shows and is so over rated..

Funny you should say that.  I'm in the process of dusting off my old Wizards sequence this week.  I haven't used it since 2012, but I made the mistake of asking Sharon to give me an opinion on a new WIW sequence I wrote to sell in my sequence store.  That led to a discussion that I was, from the beginning, doomed to lose because it's one of her favorite display songs.  (Not that she'd ever use the number of pixels she bought me for 2016 as leverage or anything ...)

 

BTW - "Over rated" is not a phrase you'd use if you'd ever seen TSO live in concert.

 

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