Help me decypher the software...

[chrisatpsu]

I'm starting to think about looking at the different software packages out there, and wondering what might be best for me...

ok, so if i was going to decide based off of what's available right now at this minute...

What would be best for me?

ok, with that in mind, i know...  "it depends"

background...
i have a few songs i want to use...  (of course)
I have about 6 expresses, but plan to use more (like 12)
I have smartstring hardware. active hubs, ssc's etc...  with a sampling of differnet things less than 1000 nodes, plan to try to add 1000, plus some flex strips...


am i fine just chugging away with vixen?  should i go with lsp?   something else i should consider.   
I'm not really looking for a "i use this and it works great"  but more of "it sounds like you might want to use this, b/c of..."

i know nothing about lsp, except of reviews of what people say, i've only used vixen, so, what should i look at?

elements in show...  arches (flex strips)  mega tree (smart strings), roof line, mini trees.  the basic stuff...    nothing coro yet.

[taybrynn]

I would take a serious look at LSP later this year just because of the greatly enhanced RGB support it offers.  It will not be the cheapest option, but I'm really not sure your going to be able to handle the high channel counts with anything else.  If you talking about 2000 nodes, thats 6000 RGB channels alone.  I think LSP was mainly suffering on the player side this year and I'm pretty confident that that will be improved in 2012.  I'd also like to see a configuration / profile option that brings it up to speed with LOR and Vixen and makes configuration changes from year to year easier to do.

[tbone321]

Since you have plenty of time to make that decision, I would take a serious look at the new Vixen that is out.  I plan on spending the next few months looking at it myself.  You can also download and play with $$$$ LSP $$$$ but you will probably have to play some games with it to get a good feel for it with its very limited trial period.  Like anything, it's really going to be a matter of personal opinion.

[chrisatpsu]

even with the 640 smart string nodes i have now ( i plan on pixel, or at least hybrid mode)  lsp would be the top tier for me, bc of the high channel count?

[chrisatpsu]

advanced is 8192, so i guess if i go over the 2700 nodes or so, to reach that would be my point...

are rgb, counted at 3 to the software?

[tbone321]

A channel is a channel so your nodes are 3 channels each.

[Steve Gase]

LSP.

With the channel count from 12 LEs I think you'd see benefit even if you didn't have RGB.

This year I added 4 more LOR controllers to my original 4.  with 128 channels doing lots of arches, trees, and other items using strings, I was able to take immediate benefit from the LSP transitions.  It really was easy to implement a Holdman-style wash of color across my display with the transitions. 

Having lots of channels and transitions makes it doable, and easy.  with 32 channels I wouldn't bother.  but  12x16 or 192 channels?  yes, that would be a good effect you'd get right away.  and throw rgb into it and they become part of each wash -- for no more effort.  the only effort is in placing all of your elements into the visualizer.

[chrisatpsu]

I'll have to take a look at that. Does lsp have any tools to see the music waveform in the sequencer, or any other tools with working with the music?

[Steve Gase]

LSP is full-featured.  It has waveform tools, and other visualization features.

Look at videos on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login site.

Also read through David Moore's posting which summarizes the tool -- with the links to videos he has created as well.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

[taybrynn]

LSP is extremely strong in terms of musical waveforms and audio syncing ... among other things.  The information it shows from the audio is way more than any other ( < $1000) software I have seen. 

The other thing is its visualizer is pretty strong and you can apply 'transitions' against your show and it programs the display items (channels) based on where your stuff lives spatially within the display ... thats real power.   

LSP also has built-in matrix and text capabilities that would be a very expensive add-on to do with LOR S3 via. superstar.

[tng5737]

I believe that LSP has a 50% sale price till 1/31/2012 which will save you a bunch!

[chrisatpsu]

i just saw that, that's why i want to look at it more now...  i see that vixen 3 if catching up, but i think that LSP would still be ahead with some of the other features it has right now out of the box.

is it hard to convert to xlight for scheduling?

[taybrynn]

Vixen is behind LOR.  And LOR is way behind LSP.

I mean, the advantages of those are cost (Vixen) and stability (LOR).

But LSP is technically far superior to both of the others, and you can export to
.LMS (LOR) format ... and then it works in xlights, but there are a few conversions you
have to do, but others have written scripts to make that step a little easier.

[chrisatpsu]

you guys are converting me to the "dark" side   lol

[tbone321]

I'm not so sure that Vixen is behind LOR at all with the new version.  From what I'm reading it actually looks ahead of it.  I will agree that currently is does not have the features that LSP has but I believe that's only a matter of time and time is the one thing that I do have right now.