Lighting designer Robb Jibson toured a Vista L5, the latest addition to the Jands Vista range of consoles and control surfaces, with a Mac Mini based S3 as a system back up.
Robb has been a Vista user for over 18 months reporting that he was instantly blown away by the simplicity of the interface and the intricate timings that he could dial in.
"My favourite feature is probably the swing based FX," he added. "Not having to create multiple macro-based cue lists and the ease in which you can lock sync with the band and those FX. Close second would be the way the console deals with multipart fixtures and matrix FXs."
Robb further commented that he particularly likes how the software is designed and developed.
"It's not a hodgepodge of many programming styles, it stands on its own two feet. That said, it's really powerful and super flexible, but does not try to dabble with concepts from here or there, and the networking abilities on the Vista L5 are amazing.
"Vista finally allows me to refine my work flow. I can be in After Effects, Photoshop, Vectorworks and all the keyboard commands system wide that I'm used to works. I can command tab between my apps and keep things flowing. It's also a very musical software, being able to build FX and cues that relate to BPM and then divide and multiply, means that I can get dialed in quickly for any project I'm working on."
With Fall Out Boy, Robb is sometimes touring a system and sometimes not, fortunately the Vista L5 platform allows him to quickly and effortlessly swap, merge, expand and contract all the programming that is being built very easily.
"By using matrix FX and global based personalities, I can swap from our rig to spec one day and a hodgepodge of knock off equipment the next!" he said. "I've been told a few times by house staff and vendors that other shows have a hard time getting things going quickly or are waiting on fixture personalities to be built, whereas the Vista software has you up and going quickly! I live for the fixture editor we have, scared no more of the abyss of knock off fixtures in remote countries."
(Jim Evans)
