which program to use

Hi guys,
What program do you use?
I'm planning on starting my first display next year.
Just wondering if the free sequence programs are as good as say LOR programming.

cheers

What sort of display do you want to put together. For me personally I run all pixels and Lighshowpro is the best in my opinion. Everyone has their own opinion. Best thing to do is download trials and have a play with them all, then buy LSP (in my opinion)

I have always used Light Show Pro, all the different programs have their bugs it really becomes a case of knowing the software you are using and the work arounds that you need to use

LOR - not bad, good to use, works well with their hardware. A bit pricy, harder to do really big displays

Vixen - Free, constantly evolving, good community support, but V3 is still very new (I still use V2.5 for testing hundreds or even thousands of channels during building and repairing gear)

LSP - Very Very powerful, and my personal choice for my display here. I simply could not do the display I do without LSP. It is expensive, and quirky to use, but is undergoing a complete rewrite of the sequencer this year to address the bugs.

I was brand new in 2013 and looked at a few of them, I use Xlights/Nutcracker for quick and dirty testing, or to see what I might want to do with something.


But in the end I bought LightShow Pro and love it. It can be a little quirky and it will tax your patience as you learn it, but the power is second to none of the consumer level sequencers, some are catching up, but that re=write will increase the lead again.


There is an active facebook group for Lightshow Pro, put in a request to join the group.

I use LOR.
I still find it the most user friendly of the sequencers but it is now left far behind when it comes to features. Depending on what you are wanting to do there are several free sequencer options. HLS, Vixen 3 and xlights all pretty much require you to watch tutorials on how to get things going. There was talk quite recently that there is going to be an xlights 4 which has all of the magic features that xlights/nutcracker have but will have a sequencing interface somewhat like Vixen 3. If that happens over the next few months then I think that will be the obvious choice. That said, if you are willing to buy 1 of the paid for sequencers then both LSP and LOR are expected to bring out rewritten sequencers this year (hopefully early and not in the last 1/4 of the year). If you're planning on any more than a few hundred channels I'd recommend looking at making the transition to a Pi running FPP early. It's the $35 playback computer that is removing playback issues from LOR, LSP and Vixen users who have large channel counts.

I use Vixen 3 and I am very happy.

as the guys say download all the free demos and find what one you like.

I use LSP and think it really is the best IMHO. then I run my show off a PI so I do not have to worry about a show computer any more

Hey Topgia, i am very new to this, well this was my first year doing computer controlled lighting, i ended up settling on Vixen 3 after trying a few of the others, i found it easy to just jump in and start moving, easy sequence setups, great display previews, pretty good effects designs that allow you to do a fair amount of programming, well pretty much anything you want it to do, and can do a large amount with it, but....
Yes there is a but, how big a show are we talking about? mine was only small so was fine but when i started playing around adding more channels because i have already started planning for next year, it started lagging and freezing, mostly when moving effects from channels or scrolling down through the list of channels, now this was when i started getting over 4000-5000 channels, with a better PC i may get more but to lazy to switch to my gaming rig,
So that brings me to the next software, i am trialing LightShow Pro at the moment, it is a lot harder to get your head around than Vixen 3 but i am sure with practice i will be fine, i am slowly picking it up and only looked at it 2 days, so i hope this helps a little, but i would say i agree with everyone else, download a few of the mentioned software and give it a test yourself.
Brad

Bpj like all sequencers when you change they are a lot harder to learn once you have your head around a certain sequencers. I personally use LSP but I too switched from LOR. Also my displays all RGB pixels

If you have questions Brad, fire away and come set yourself up on the facebook group too. The tutorials from Matt on ACL here are awesome and a good place to learn more and more..

Thank you guys. You have been most helpful. I have played with LOR.
I shall trail vixen and some others to.

I am thinking of using pixel LEDS as I know later on I will upgrade to them anyway.

my display wont be huge as the house front isnt big.

but basically, I plan on doing the outline of the house ( windows and garage outline)
Then maybe some mini trees and leaping arches

Don't go past xLights/Nutcracker.
Excellent for sequencing large amounts of pixels which can be incorporated into the other programs.
Great to connect lights and get lovely looking results that brightens the heart then move onto other programs.
I got LSP this year and will be using it next year for my displays. Good luck.

If you want to spend $15,000 a GrandMA VPU, is simply amazing.

Using LSP. Can be very frustrating when learning to use it but you soon learn to work around its quirks. Hopefully most of those will go in the rewrite. It's quite powerful software and having used it for the last two years I am looking forward to what the rewrite will bring for next year