What are the Pros and Cons of Tracks?

[RiscIt]

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I'm sorry people are so intent to tell me how I feel about things.

I'm sorry that no matter what I say to the contrary, people continue to make assumptions and draw their own conclusions about my what I think and continue to make some AWFULLY large assumptions about how I feel about others who do things differently than I do.

I'm sorry that so many words seem to be have been put in my mouth. Quite simply, I've never said that any one was wrong to do things differently than I do. I've never even suggested it. I find my own methods "better", which is a relative quantification for my own personal work habits. For me to have that opinion does not require that I think someone else's opinion, of what works for them, is any lesser in value. I really can't comprehend why someone would jump to that conclusion.

I'm sorry I can't articulate my thoughts more clearly so that those who are portraying me as some elitist prick who thinks he knows everything and wants to tell everyone how they *need* to work can understand that is absolutely not what *any* of my posts actually say.

I'm sorry this thread is in the shitter.

Most importantly, I'm sorry that the official support forum of Light-O-Rama has proven to be such an insanely poor experience for me. I will restrict my support requests to the phone and direct email to the company. This forum is not an environment I feel comfortable participating in. I expected crap like that in a lot of places... But not in the official support forum for a business.

It seems that there is nothing I can say that doesn't come under direct personal attack to extents *FAR* beyond what a simple online conversation should ever entail.

Good luck to you all. May God bless you.

[garyfunk]

Holy crap. Indignant and condescending in the same post.

[Robin]

POST YOUR FREAKING VIDEO.

UNTIL THEN JUST SHUT UP!

[jcheslin]

I REALLY didn't mean to start this ! After reading many other theads on Tracks I still felt the need to get more input --- I totally understand both approaches --- tracks as groupings for lights ---- or as groupings for instrument timings. Both certainly have a use --- but for someone who has not mastered the Beat Wizard --- and didn't like the Tapper Wizard --- I just defaulted to .10 timings ---- and yes, there is a line of cars every night, so maybe its ok. I was hoping for an easy way to convert from no tracks to a bunch of tracks moving forward, but I still don't like the time-consuming cut-and-paste of the old to new sequence --- after creating my new channel order and tracks grouped by similar lights, I was really hoping to Export and Import the new .lcs file ---- but that certainly doesn't produce the results I want.

I sincerely appreciate this forum --- and all of your input --- it is better than teaching yourself everything.

Here is one song from my 2008 show --- 160 channels --23,000 LED lights ... watch it in HQ mode tho --- its much clearer ... all done with .10 timing ...

Oops maybe this is one sequence I bought from LOR .... I will have others to post some day .... [sorry for the error --- but its mostly .10 timings]

[Robin]

It is not your fault. This guy has done this two other times. Let me give you an example. Go to Marty Slack's website and look at his videos. Every one is done with .10 and he moves the timing marks when he needs to. If that is the "old" way sign me up.

Until this guy puts his video or a sequence up for all to see I just consider him a fraud. Simple as that. Oh and your stuff looks good.

[George Simmons]

jcheslin wrote:

I REALLY didn't mean to start this...

You didn't - it's been going on since Riscit initially started trying to impress newbies after he first joined the forum a couple months ago. In his own mind, I'm sure he thinks he's an okay guy who just happens to know more than anyone else, but he comes across as an arrogant buffoon, and he doesn't seem to get it - but then, his kind never does. I don't know about you, but I kind of enjoy seeing people rip him a new a$$hole. Maybe he'll get the message and keep his mouth shut unless someone specifically asks him something. If he was around this time last year when I was asking all MY questions, I probably would have been so confused by his sermons that I'd have just walked away from it all.

As a recent newbie myself, I also urge you to work with tracks until you get them figured out. Whether you use them for grouping, timing or a combination of both I believe you'll very quickly find that they save you a lot of time and a lot of scrolling. As someone already said, time is the one thing no one here ever seems to have enough of and anything you can do to save some is golden.

And don't worry about the Riscits of the world. Just keep asking questions until you get an answer that makes sense. One thing I've learned is that no matter how simple or stupid you think the question is, there's always someone here who will take the time to answer in a non-condescending manner. Good luck!

PS - nice job with the lights

[jcheslin]

Dale and all ....

OK -- I am trying tracks --- created 19 of them by light groupings --- but, what I noticed is that only my 'master' track has the channels 'turned on' ... none of the other tracks show the selections. And, when I turn on channels in other tracks, they don't show up anywhere else .... yuck, this defeats the purpose. What did I do wrong here to create the tracks? And all of you know what a pain it is to create 19 tracks and then have to select each of the channels you want ...... only to have it not work ..... Jim

[Dennis Cherry]

jcheslin wrote:

Dale and all ....

OK -- I am trying tracks --- created 19 of them by light groupings --- but, what I noticed is that only my 'master' track has the channels 'turned on' ... none of the other tracks show the selections. And, when I turn on channels in other tracks, they don't show up anywhere else .... yuck, this defeats the purpose. What did I do wrong here to create the tracks? And all of you know what a pain it is to create 19 tracks and then have to select each of the channels you want ...... only to have it not work ..... Jim

This is a common mistake the first time you use tracks.

What you need to do is go to the main track and RIGHT click on the channel you want to copy

DO NOT USE THE EDIT>COPY Command here.

When you right click on the channel you will get a pull down menu and select "Copy to another Track" second from the bottom. Another menu will appear to the right then select:

1. If you want to put this channel in a new track then select "Copy Channel to a new Track" At this point a dialog box will appear and you will get to choose the Track Name and also if you want to insert fixed timing marks or select the beat wizard for the new track or do nothing.

2. If you want to copy a channel to an existing track or to a Track in step 1 then select "Copy to Track Number" A pull down menu will appear and from that you select the track you want to add a copy of the channel selected.

This is only only way to copy channels so what when you put events in either the channel in the Main track or the channel copy, the events show up on both. Understand if you have a different timing in the new Track, when you see the events in the main track they may not align with the timing marks in the Main Track. That is fine. The events still work as sequenced.

Now if you copy a Channel that has your events already, it will copy them to the new track also but not the timing.

Make a mistake and copied the channel to the wrong Track just use the UNDO function and the copied track goes away.

I hope this helps you in understanding how to setup Tracks.

Take a existing Sequence and save it to a new name, now play with this file until you get comfortable making tracks and moving channels.

[jcheslin]

You know what I did ..... I created all of the new tracks with exactly the number of channels I wanted in them .... then I IMPORTED the LCC file which has the correct track layout I want ..... now, nothing works ..... I think LOR needs to improve this process .... I have 21 sequences I want convert, but this is very time consuming ....

[Dennis Cherry]

jcheslin wrote:

You know what I did ..... I created all of the new tracks with exactly the number of channels I wanted in them .... then I IMPORTED the LCC file which has the correct track layout I want ..... now, nothing works ..... I think LOR needs to improve this process .... I have 21 sequences I want convert, but this is very time consuming ....

Can you give a little more step by step detail please?

[jcheslin]

Well, I am converting last year's 160 channel sequences to a 256 channel sequence. I have never used tracks before but the discussions make it sound like a good idea to try even tho I am only going to use .10 second intervals in every track. I created a new 256 channel sequence with the mp3 song file.

Next, I create each new track --- but when it asks how many channels are in the track, I entered exactly the number that I want to end up with.

Then, since I had exported my final 19 track layout to an .lcc file --- I just chose to import this .lcc file into the new sequence --- with 19 tracks and the number of channels I wanted in each.

What I did not specifically do was to copy one-by-one into the new tracks, each channel I want --- all I did was create 'blank' channels --- but if track 2 had 8 channels, I created it with 8 channels.

The hope was that by importing the new .lcc file it would 'copy' the channels in correctly. While the new sequence does have the correct channel names in every track --- so visually everything looks just like I want --- only in the Master Track does my "programming" appear --- none of the other tracks show anything. And, if I "program" in one of the new tracks, nothing shows up in the Master Track. Its as if they are not connected.

It seems as tho you really do have to copy every single channel to every track for every new sequence ---- OMG what a chore ---- it makes me not want to convert my 21 files from last year .... I hope LOR can improve this process .... [or, maybe its me].

[Dennis Cherry]

jcheslin wrote:

Well, I am converting last year's 160 channel sequences to a 256 channel sequence. I have never used tracks before but the discussions make it sound like a good idea to try even tho I am only going to use .10 second intervals in every track. I created a new 256 channel sequence with the mp3 song file.

Next, I create each new track --- but when it asks how many channels are in the track, I entered exactly the number that I want to end up with.

Then, since I had exported my final 19 track layout to an .lcc file --- I just chose to import this .lcc file into the new sequence --- with 19 tracks and the number of channels I wanted in each.

What I did not specifically do was to copy one-by-one into the new tracks, each channel I want --- all I did was create 'blank' channels --- but if track 2 had 8 channels, I created it with 8 channels.

The hope was that by importing the new .lcc file it would 'copy' the channels in correctly. While the new sequence does have the correct channel names in every track --- so visually everything looks just like I want --- only in the Master Track does my "programming" appear --- none of the other tracks show anything. And, if I "program" in one of the new tracks, nothing shows up in the Master Track. Its as if they are not connected.

It seems as tho you really do have to copy every single channel to every track for every new sequence ---- OMG what a chore ---- it makes me not want to convert my 21 files from last year .... I hope LOR can improve this process .... [or, maybe its me].

Yes, you found the key.

If you create new channels in tracks or in the main track, they are just that, a new channel, no timing, events. or controller/channels assignments.

You have to do the copy of the channels as I posted, then "export channel confiuration" (lcc file)USE A NEW FILENAME. It would be nice to have a multiple copy of channels, maybe next update.

Just adding new tracks/channels are just blank channels.

Once you get the new LCC file then it is easy to "import channel configuration" into the other sequences. just take your time and it will work. I did 15 songs last year this way.

[jcheslin]

Jeff -- Thanks for the tip ---- this works, but does take some patience ... is there an 'easy' way to get the timings into those tracks once you import them? Any chance there is a copy timings option .... [its not like I want everything, right?]

[Steven]

Jeff Millard wrote:

Second, exporting channel info will not copy the timings in any track but the primary one.

Are you sure? I haven't seen export/import channel configuration copy any timings at all.

[Dennis Cherry]

I sure looks like the Tracks option needs a video tutorial made to help out others.

Who is up to it?