# First-time Ion user



## Liblights (Oct 22, 2013)

I have worked for the NBC TV station in Dallas/Ft. Worth for 34 years and became lighting director in 1988. I went straight from a patch panel with a very crude lighting controller with faders, to a PC Horizon system. Now, KXAS and Telemundo have a brand new facility and I am learning to use the Ion lighting console, one in each studio. I am very excited and look forward to spending a lot of time with you great folks. Lighting people are the BEST!


----------



## DaveySimps (Oct 22, 2013)

Welcome to CB! It is always interesting to find a fellow Horizon user. I still use it and love it. The ION is a fantastic board. You will enjoy it.

~Dave


----------



## Liblights (Oct 22, 2013)

DaveySimps said:


> Welcome to CB! It is always interesting to find a fellow Horizon user. I still use it and love it. The ION is a fantastic board. You will enjoy it.
> 
> ~Dave


Thanks for making me feel welcome Davey. KXAS didn't have a back-up for the Horizon for years and when we finally made the move we had to switch to the Marquee. We have a pocket studio in the new facility and I moved the Marquee system over here. The old Horizon and its PC will eventually make the move to our small marketing production studio, so I'm still in the family! Cheers!


----------



## SteveB (Oct 22, 2013)

Liblights said:


> Thanks for making me feel welcome Davey. KXAS didn't have a back-up for the Horizon for years and when we finally made the move we had to switch to the Marquee. We have a pocket studio in the new facility and I moved the Marquee system over here. The old Horizon and its PC will eventually make the move to our small marketing production studio, so I'm still in the family! Cheers!



LiB welcome to CB

As a fellow Ion user here's some resources for you:

ETC has a series of on-line video's which are very demo's on assorted levels of programming: Some are the standard demonstration video's, so are what they call "Tea Break Tutorials"..

http://www.etcconnect.com/support.tutorials.aspx

I found it useful to watch this stuff at home while I had the Off-Line Editor program running on 2 monitors, thus I could pause the video, try it out, then continue. 

There are quite a few Ion and Eos family users here on CB so don't hesitate to ask what you might think is a very basic question. Everything asked gets answered and all that posting gets useful for others down the road asking similar questions.

As well, the ETC Users Forum is useful as some of the tech support folks reply and if your question is not time crucial is a good place to ask away.

http://www.etcconnect.com/Community/forums/default.aspx

Then there's the FaceBook Eos Programmers page. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/etceosprogrammers/


----------



## Liblights (Oct 22, 2013)

Thanks Steve. I've been watching the tutorials and will check out the other info. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get my new MacBook Air to program a blank X-Keys keypad so I can use the two the practice with the Ion software (on my MacBook) without running the risk of hurting the shows the design team programmed....long story, but lots of fun to be had! Thanks again!


----------



## SteveB (Oct 23, 2013)

Liblights said:


> Thanks Steve. I've been watching the tutorials and will check out the other info. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get my new MacBook Air to program a blank X-Keys keypad so I can use the two the practice with the Ion software (on my MacBook) without running the risk of hurting the shows the design team programmed....long story, but lots of fun to be had! Thanks again!



LibLights, here's some comments from the FB page where a user was trying to program X-Keys on a Mac:

"I've bought mine from Amazon. You have to program them on a PC or run a Parallel on your Mac. The software is Macroworks. You have to make sure the XKeys are in hardware mode. Then when you plug them into the console, make sure scroll lock is off on the keyboard"

https://www.facebook.com/groups/etceosprogrammers/

There were other pertinent posts as well that might help. Setting up and programming X-Keys on a Mac is a bit more problematic then on a PC it seems.

I had only a few easily resolved issues ((On a Windows machine) pertaining to the fact that PI Engineering had somewhat changed their terminology and function after ETC had posted the X-Keys setup guide. 

I only just on this FB post saw the comment about leaving Scroll Lock off on the console. 

SB


----------



## Liblights (Oct 23, 2013)

My problem right now is that the Eos.Ion file is not appearing where it should be. I get so close, except for that simple fact. I'm going to call Pi Engineering tech support later today.
Thank you all!


----------



## Liblights (Oct 23, 2013)

Oh, and I had a moment of clarity in the night and realized I needed to program via a Windows machine. Again, right now my only problem is the Eos.Ion file doesn't appear where it's supposed to.


----------



## lwinters630 (Oct 23, 2013)

ETC Is holding a basic and advanced training for the ION in the Chicago are on November 1 and 2, 2013 Here

Also Happy (almost) Birthday to Liblights. Mine is the 12, Cheers.


----------



## Liblights (Oct 25, 2013)

lwinters630 said:


> ETC Is holding a basic and advanced training for the ION in the Chicago are on November 1 and 2, 2013 Here
> 
> Also Happy (almost) Birthday to Liblights. Mine is the 12, Cheers.



I wish I could attend the workshop! We launch our new TV stations that weekend!


----------



## Liblights (Oct 25, 2013)

Liblights said:


> I wish I could attend the workshop! We launch our new TV stations that weekend!


And Happy (almost ) birthday to you!


----------

