For a very long time, lighting controllers have had faders as a key component of the front panel. This is because faders are a very useful tool to manually adjust the level of something. Automated lighting consoles required additional control-ability than conventional desks, and now there are many different things that your faders can do. From controlling intensity to adjusting rate, and even allowing programming, the faders on the front of your console are extremely powerful. Let’s look at some of the more common uses of faders.
Intensity
The most familiar use of faders is to adjust the intensity of stored information. Usually, by default, your desk will allow the fader of an assigned playback to act as a manual adjustment of the total programmed output. This means that, if you have programmed your fixtures to be at 60 percent and the fader is placed at 100 percent, the output will be at the programmed level. Any setting of the fader below 100 percent will result in a relative decreased output from the programmed intensity. So if the fader is at 50 percent, then the output of your fixtures (programmed for 60 percent) would be 30 percent.
Most people understand the relationship of intensity and faders, so I won’t dwell on this for too long. I should mention, however, that there are some special cases that you need to be aware of. The first is the ability to set a fader to “Highest Takes Precedence,” or HTP. When this setting is applied, it simply means that when the fader has control of an intensity value, another playback cannot tell it to go lower than the fader’s level. This is extremely useful for important areas such as podiums, work lights or specials. When the fader is up, you can rest assured that another cue will not turn off these lights.
Make It GO
Of course, automated lighting consoles control much more than just intensity, and there are many times when you want the playback to activate other parameters when the fader is moved. Think of a basic LED PAR, where you want to fade it up to full intensity in a nice amber color. With only intensity control as you drive the fader, there is no telling what color you will get (it depends on tracking). However, if the playback data in the fader includes the amber color setting, then you want this to be applied when the fader is moved off of zero. By default, this does not occur, because the fader only affects intensity.
Luckily, most consoles offer a function called “+GO off zero” or something similar. It does exactly as it sounds. As you move the fader from zero to above zero, it will provide a GO command to the playback that will activate the other parameters stored within — in this example, the amber color.
You will need to consider the timing of these other parameters as well. With the LED PAR example, you can set the color change to a time of zero so that as you raise the fader it will instantly turn amber. You probably will never see the change as you slowly raise the fader level from zero to 100 percent. When you return the fader to zero you may wish to release the playback so that the data triggered is no longer active. Most consoles also allow you to set the fader to “+Release at zero” or something similar. By combining these two commands (+Go and +Release), you have now made a very powerful fader that can recall any look on stage by simply raising the value above zero. I find this useful for solos or specials within a show. When you bring up the fader, you can have four fixtures come on in white and move to the desired location. When you return the fader to zero, they will return to what they were last doing before you brought up the fader.
Speed and Size Control
One of the great developments of fader use on automated lighting consoles is the ability to use the faders to adjust playback settings instead of fixture parameters. When a playback is built with effects or is a chase, you can often assign the associated fader to adjust the speed of the chase or effect. This is an extremely powerful tool that lets you dynamically adjust changing looks at any time. I like to build a ballyhoo look and assign the correlated fader to a rate control. This way I can use the same movement slowly for a ballad, or fast for a big rocking chorus.
Additional adjustments available from some desks include the ability to adjust the size of an effect using the fader or an adjacent fader. With this fine-tuning, you can easily ensure that your ballyhoo is operating within the confines that you desire. For instance, with a small size, it may only cover the stage, but with a large size, it may envelope the entire venue.
Motorized Faders
Many consoles utilize motorized faders to allow the desk to instantly recall fader values. This is extremely handy when you are changing pages/banks so that the faders can reset to the desired starting value of that page. Also, if you are on a specific page and move to another, the faders can automatically reset to the new values of the current page. Without motorized faders, you would have to look at the screen to determine the current value that the desk is outputting which may be different than the physical fader position.
Another nice function that is enhanced with motorized faders is the ability to expand the levels within groups onto your faders. This feature has different names, but essentially what it does is map each fixture (or channel) within a group to a unique fader on your desk. You can then adjust each fixture’s intensity as desired and store this information as needed. Without motorized faders, this would be very difficult to achieve. Some consoles also do the same for each specific group used to build a cue (as opposed to the levels within the group). These “Group Masters” provide a method to instantly determine and adjust the levels of groups versus reading a spreadsheet.
Programming Parameters
A few lighting consoles even allow you to directly assign parameters to faders so that you can adjust color mixing, iris, or other features with the faders in addition to the parameters you control with your encoders. This is a nice way to expand the programming capabilities of your desk. Just note that sometimes the resolution of the faders may not be the same as an encoder.
Furthermore, you can often assign a fader to behave as a crossfader. In that case, when traveling, the fader will crossfade values from one data set to another. This is very useful to allow crossfading of colors or to follow performers from one place on stage to another.
Submasters
Let’s talk for a moment about submasters. These are very common in the conventional desk world and have made their way into the automated lighting world as well. However, the traditional use of submasters (pre-stored looks that are used as building blocks for cues) is not as commonly used within automated lighting programming. There are many more tools and resources available for quick cue creation, thus tying up playbacks as traditional submasters is usually not desirable. That said, some programming and playback with submasters can be useful; we will discuss this in a future article. There is also much more to explore in terms of snapshots, inhibitive subs, subtractive submasters and more.
Raise Those Faders
Automated lighting consoles provide many unique and powerful functions for programming and playback. I have only begun to touch on the capabilities and, as always, you should refer to your console’s user manual to learn the specifics. Just understanding the possibilities can certainly enhance your capabilities on your next production. Whether you desk has eight or 80 faders, you will find a multitude of different uses for them.
