It’s all about organization. Last week, we talked about why I make all of the effects in my cues Selective – and it has a lot to do with updating.  This week, we go a step further and talk about why good organization plays a role in this.

Software Version used in video: 3.0.0.5

Let’s say you’re starting a show from scratch. When you open the Effects pool- it’s empty. Start by going into the Setup Window and clicking Import/Export and choose to Import Effects. If you click on the “Predefined” effects library and import it, the console will populate your pool with some ready made template effects to get you started. Since template effects can be applied to any fixture, you can audition them on any selection at any time.  When I find one that I like- or it’s close to what I want- I’ll copy that effect – apply my lights to the copied effect and then edit this copy.  I might be doing this to create a slightly modified template effect, or maybe I’m working on making a Selective effect to use in one of my songs. Either way- I’m a big fan of making copies and tweaking the copies. Don’t forget to label it!

I really recommend keeping your template effects separate from the rest of your effects.  You might end up with a really large collection of template effects that you want to use in all of your shows. Maybe you even want to go a step further and organize them by attribute type. Either way, I end up writing two views.  One view is my FX Starter.  This puts me right at the top with all of my template effects.  My next view scrolls me further down in the pool into where I store all of my Selective effects- the ones I’m storing into my cues.

Here, I like to organize my effects by song. In the first block, I just store an empty effect and label it the name of my song or page or however I’m grouping them.  The rest of that line contains all of the effects for that song, so I’ll bring that copied effect to this line. Taking the time to add just this little bit of organization makes updating later on so much easier.