[PD] Pd cuer

[Simon Wise]

Pagano, Patrick wrote:
> I am trying to make it as simple as possible for "Board Ops" these are people who might not be savvy with pd and need stuff to be as simple as a "GO" button, spacebar or click

For use by someone familiar with operating a lighting or sound desk then a midi 
controller (I use a BFC2000, but there are lots of other ways to go) controlling 
a main patch, which has a simple visual feedback layout and keeps all the guts 
in sub-patches is a nice way to go. A few years ago I set up a 3 camera - 2 
output vision mixer with a bunch of visual effects for a show, we set it up in 5 
venues and the video guy, who knew almost nothing of pd at the time (but a lot 
about analogue video) set it up and operated it easily, without any outside help.

I've also given operators a simple keyboard number pad, then set up the patch to 
run cues with the same logic as most modern lighting desks use - key sequences 
like 2 digits followed by a + to GO are very familiar to any theatre operator.

Then you can get a bit fancy and use some other controller, I've used Spaceballs 
and tablets a few times.

Finally if touring a show anything visual that is run using DMX from the 
lighting desk will be happily operated by the lighting operator, while if you 
add another interface suddenly you find in many venues you need an extra person 
to do those cues, so it can be worth it to buy (or make) a USB interface that 
takes the lighting protocol - DMX - and control your patch using a few lighting 
channels as part of the lighting plot.

Simon