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Testimonials of CDS advanced technology bv We collected some sayings of customers and printed them below. If you want to express your opinion about us or our products, don't hesitate to post it. |
Carey Weathers, USA wrote: All at CDS Technology, I’ve been meaning to write to you over the last several years about my experience with your products (LCX and LCEdit), so now I’m finally getting around to it. In short, it has been one of the best set of products I have ever used, and the more I learn about it, the more amazed I am. Also, I want to especially congratulate you on your service and interaction with the users. I don’t think I’ve seen a company more committed to helping it’s users or more responsive to it’s users requests. I have several topics I would like to discuss but for now I’ll stick with my general experience. You are welcome to share it with any whom are interested. Quickly about myself, I am an engineer and work primarily on software and hardware development/design/integration. I have no formal theatre or lighting training. I have had many years of experience in worship sound. In fact, prior to four years ago, all I had ever done was run eight lights on a simple DMX controller. Basically, manual dimming. As I became more involved in the technical aspects of my church’s nativity performance I quickly became involved in lighting. I have learned some from others who know the theatre from the aspect of stage construction/design and running light desks. But not anyone doing lighting design. So, I am mostly self taught with some help in learning the artistic aspects from those I’ve worked with. (Note, I’m still learning in all areas.) About four years ago, my church (Arborlawn United Methodist Church (AUMC) in Fort Worth, Texas, USA) was granted some money to purchase light and sound equipment for our outdoor live nativity performance. It was a good sum but not huge. This money allowed us to purchase some much needed speakers and amps for sound, but more importantly about 30 conventional light fixtures, stands, etc. (In previous years we had rented 8-10 fixtures, and a couple of follow spots.) The problem I had was that there was not enough money for a sophisticated light controller and an inexpensive controller was not going to be easy to use with all-volunteers and that many lights. Then I had the thought that maybe we could utilize a computer control system and started doing some searches. When I found your product I was amazed at its capabilities and low price. For a fraction of the cost of a conventional desk, I could purchase your LCX and a Mac iBook. And I would have a control system that could go well beyond what a conventional desk could do. The first year, we setup the LCX cues to run the show per the script. We quickly learned that volunteers and non-professional actors don’t follow a script very well. We spent a large part of that year’s performance overriding the controls manually. However, the LCX performed flawlessly. I was instantly amazed at the abilities of the LCX and LCEdit to run a large number of lights. And the ability to see what was going on, grab and change things quickly, etc. helped tremendously. It didn’t take long for me to appreciate your products, both hardware and software. And it didn’t take long to learn the product’s basic operation. However, I knew that I was just scratching the surface of this product’s capabilities. The next year, I spent some time learning layers and breaking up the script into performance areas. Then, I assigned an engine/layer to each performance area. I also created groups to help in the selecting of lights for when I would need to override things. The basic layout was to have a high level layer that could be utilized to manually override any channel value, followed by a layer to run control cues and then layers for each performance area. On the bottom, I put a layer with default values, just in case. In addition, I built an eight button switch box to connect to the LCX’s inputs and assigned, through my cue lists, these buttons to different performance areas. Basically, these buttons would step the associated performance area to the next light cue for that layer. This worked well. We were able to run the show with very few overrides and we could control each area of the performance individually with the buttons, and occasional backwards step/go command. That year, instead of just having lights, we were able to make the lights do what we wanted in sync with the (out of sync) performers. The third year with the LCX, was even better. We were able to work with the artistic side and develop real lighting design/plans. As far as the LCX, I further enhanced our setup. I continued to use the layer approach developed in the previous year with cues specified for each engine/layer that only operated the lights in that engine/layer. Instead of utilizing the eight buttons, because I really wanted 10-12 buttons, I decided to try out the Applescript interface capabilities. This is just awesome. Utilizing Applescript Studio, I can create as many buttons on the computer screen as I want and each can do pretty much anything that I want. In addition, I can change them (add, reassign, etc.) in just minutes. My basic philosophy was to create buttons for flexibility. So I tried to think how I could do that. I have several usage areas on the button window: First, an engine control area. This area has buttons to start an engine at a specific default control list, buttons to run cue lists for specific light levels (off, low, medium, high) and engine step (forward and backward) buttons. Next was a scene control area. This area has buttons to run a cue in the control engine/layer that commands each of the other engines/layers to run a cue list for the scene. For example, “PreShow” – sets all lights to the state needed when the audience is arriving. Or, “Announcement” – sets the lights for when the welcome statement is made by the pastor. Lastly, are several areas with specific lighting conditions in the performance areas. For example, one button in the main stage area – “Angle Dance” – would set the lights in the main area to the levels needed for the dance the angles perform as they fly around the shepherds, but not disturb other settings. All of these gave us great flexibility to respond to unexpected events and choices to make the lighting much more artistic. Things went so well, we have now adapted this setup to run our new contemporary service and we are using all of our lights in there as well. This environment is even more unpredictable as you never know who is going to talk and where they will be. And, it gives us the ability to focus and color all around the room. This system has proven to be extremely easy for volunteers, who know nothing about lighting, theatre, etc., to use. Especially given that labeled buttons on-screen make it very intuitive. Future plans are to continue the development of our lighting setup/design and make it more flexible and easier to use. In addition, we are in the process of building two new sanctuaries. I hope to utilize the LCX as a lighting controller for these new sanctuaries with wall buttons connected to the inputs of the LCX to provide simple manual control for non-worship and small event situations, and LCEdit/Applescript as the means to control lighting during our weekly services. Also, our band leader is interested in utilizing MIDI to coordinate music and lighting in our contemporary service. I already have a second LCX with which to perform my experiments and development. The possibilities seem endless. And once again, I congratulate you on an awesome set of products. Keep up the great work. Carey Weathers AUMC Technology Committee Chairman |
Roberto Raskovsky, UK wrote: Hi.
Brian Smith, USA wrote: Since that time the LCX has run flawlessly and is a pleasure to use. The hardware is great. The software is continously updated and is clean and efficient. The little touches added to the updates remind me of why I use Macs. The corresponding columns in the Cuelist Editor are highlighted when a fixture(s) is selected on the stage in v3.2. Wow! That's a great feature that I didn't even know I needed. Our LanBox runs our lighting 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. It handles our regular services as well as our special programs. This is one of the best designed, engineered, and manufactured products I've ever used. We're in the process of building a new and much larger church and the lighting, or course, will be controlled by two or three LanBox LCXs.
So how well did the Lanbox work in a musical theatre environment? Absolutely brilliant! I had at least half a dozen local lighting designers come up to after the performances and ask what I was using to control my Vari*Lites and Macs. They were totally amazed when I showed them the Lanbox. Read the full story of a theatre application with the LanBox-LC
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| Scott Bagley, USA: Quote for the day: "This is just a quantum improvement, just a quantum improvment." From Chuck Bronson, co-Artistic Director of the University of Louisville Dance Academy following our first que-to-que with the iMac running the lighting and sound (using the LanBox).
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Jeff Tidwell, Digital Theatre, Las Vegas, Nevada USA: Just wanted to let you in on a new experiment we are trying here in Las Vegas. A friend of mine just moved to a new high school where she is teaching theatre. She needed some help upgrading and repairing some equipment. Just for fun, I took my LanBox with me and we plugged it into her system. Needless to say, it worked great and we had a lot of fun with it (even though she doesn't currently own any intelligent fixtures and we were just playing with standard DMX channels)! I purchased an iPrint Ethernet adapter that I have been using with the LanBox to put it on an ethernet network. Anyway, we are going to try hooking it up to an Airport Base Station and I am going to try connecting and programming lights WIRELESS from the house of the theatre. Thought you might want to know..I'll drop you a line after we try it to tell you how it came out...this might be a great solution to suggest to future customers! Hope everything is going well for you! Once again, thanks for such a wonderful product and all the ongoing support!
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