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[Thomas Dameron]

Has anyone else tried to purchase a Q-lab controller from Widgeteering Studios recently?  I placed an order in early October with a late October projected delivery date.  I've tried to contact them for an update through their site with no replies.  I would still like to get the damn controller, but at this point I think I just need to contest the charge with my credit card if they won't get back to me. 

Anyone else have experience with them? 

thomas d.

[Justice C. Bigler]

Can't help with the availability. But the guy running video playback through QLab for the Home Alone symphony show we just did last weekend had one of those. Seemed like a really nice unit. And a worthy replacement to the Ducks Echo Sound controller that Andy Lang use to sell.

[Thomas Dameron]

Can't help with the availability. But the guy running video playback through QLab for the Home Alone symphony show we just did last weekend had one of those. Seemed like a really nice unit. And a worthy replacement to the Ducks Echo Sound controller that Andy Lang use to sell.

I know, right?!  So those old Duck Echo boxes aren't being made anymore? 

I've been getting by with an X-Keys remote, but I have to track along manually on my backup machine.  I was getting my redundant backup rolling correctly.

thomas d.

[Justice C. Bigler]

I know, right?!  So those old Duck Echo boxes aren't being made anymore? 

As far as I know he stopped building new ones when he started working for Figure 53 some years back. But then I haven't heard about any new availability after he left F53 a couple years ago.

[Mac Kerr]

As far as I know he stopped building new ones when he started working for Figure 53 some years back. But then I haven't heard about any new availability after he left F53 a couple years ago.

If you're searching for him these days he's back to being Andy Leviss. I doubt he sees the Duck's Echo page much since it still calls him Andy Lang. He's back to touring theater shows and doesn't have time to build much.

Mac

[Aram Piligian]

You can do some clever stuff with the X-Keys to get it to fake some redundancy...

(note, it's not *true* redundancy, as it still relies on the first computer to fire off the second computer. BUT, I figure that if the first computer fails, my backup will at least still be in position to fire the correct cue.)

Here's the gist of what we did:

-Create a second cue list just called 'xkeys backup' or something like that.
-This cue list contains four OSC cues, with high numbers (999, etc) assigned to them-- Go, Panic, PlayheadUp and PlayheadDown. 
-These cues target the IP of the backup machine
-In Controllermate for Xkeys, I map Go, Panic, Up and Down to their usual mappings, but then also include a script command to tell QLab to play the go/panic/up/down for the backup machine. 
-Usually I just disarm the backup cue list until I'm ready for show, since during rehearsals you're usually jumping around and such.

Other stuff I've learned while doing this--

-If you just connect the two computers directly with cat5 and set static IP addresses, it's super reliable, and more importantly, there is almost zero latency between the two.  It's not going to be sample perfect, but pretty damn close. 

-You can include a Finder command at the top of each xkeys key stack to 'open' QLab--which, once QLab is open, brings it into focus.  This means that even if you click out of QLab, when you hit Go it'll first bring it into focus and then punch spacebar.  Saved my butt a couple times. 

I know, right?!  So those old Duck Echo boxes aren't being made anymore? 

I've been getting by with an X-Keys remote, but I have to track along manually on my backup machine.  I was getting my redundant backup rolling correctly.

thomas d.

[Magnus Högkvist]

Has anyone else tried to purchase a Q-lab controller from Widgeteering Studios recently?  I placed an order in early October with a late October projected delivery date.  I've tried to contact them for an update through their site with no replies.  I would still like to get the damn controller, but at this point I think I just need to contest the charge with my credit card if they won't get back to me. 

Anyone else have experience with them? 

thomas d.

I would look at Stream deck with Companion instead. Cheaper and can do so much more.

[RaySoly]

Has anyone else tried to purchase a Q-lab controller from Widgeteering Studios recently?  I placed an order in early October with a late October projected delivery date.  I've tried to contact them for an update through their site with no replies.  I would still like to get the damn controller, but at this point I think I just need to contest the charge with my credit card if they won't get back to me. 

Anyone else have experience with them? 

thomas d.

We've gotten 3 units, it's a clever box and so far nothing else i see comes close....it provides true redundancy and it's plug and play, i.e.nothing to program if you use the Qlab specific version and, app does not need to be in focus! we use both the Qlab and the programmable midi version (triggering redundant Digital Performer or Reaper  Pro Tools or whatever...) .

Last I heard Chris (Monaghan) builds them himself and they're often back order for some months due to parts shortage or other reasons, a victim of his own success and, even after multiple complaints, customer service is still lacking....as other have said on the Qlab forums it will eventually turn up albeit several weeks/months late.....hang in there!


Best

Ray

[Mark Jastrzebski]

Has anyone else tried to purchase a Q-lab controller from Widgeteering Studios recently?  I placed an order in early October with a late October projected delivery date.  I've tried to contact them for an update through their site with no replies.  I would still like to get the damn controller, but at this point I think I just need to contest the charge with my credit card if they won't get back to me. 

Anyone else have experience with them? 

thomas d.

The same thing happened to me in early 2017. I ordered the controller in February and paid for priority shipping. When I didn't receive shipping confirmation I send an email with no response from them. Eventually they responded and the controller was shipped a month after I ordered it.

[Thomas Dameron]

Aram,

Thanks for the run through, much appreciated.  I am aware of this technique, but haven't implemented it. 

Quick update, after raising hell they got back to me and expect shipment later this week.  I'll follow up once it shows up.

thomas d.

You can do some clever stuff with the X-Keys to get it to fake some redundancy...

(note, it's not *true* redundancy, as it still relies on the first computer to fire off the second computer. BUT, I figure that if the first computer fails, my backup will at least still be in position to fire the correct cue.)

Here's the gist of what we did:

-Create a second cue list just called 'xkeys backup' or something like that.
-This cue list contains four OSC cues, with high numbers (999, etc) assigned to them-- Go, Panic, PlayheadUp and PlayheadDown. 
-These cues target the IP of the backup machine
-In Controllermate for Xkeys, I map Go, Panic, Up and Down to their usual mappings, but then also include a script command to tell QLab to play the go/panic/up/down for the backup machine. 
-Usually I just disarm the backup cue list until I'm ready for show, since during rehearsals you're usually jumping around and such.

Other stuff I've learned while doing this--

-If you just connect the two computers directly with cat5 and set static IP addresses, it's super reliable, and more importantly, there is almost zero latency between the two.  It's not going to be sample perfect, but pretty damn close. 

-You can include a Finder command at the top of each xkeys key stack to 'open' QLab--which, once QLab is open, brings it into focus.  This means that even if you click out of QLab, when you hit Go it'll first bring it into focus and then punch spacebar.  Saved my butt a couple times.

[ProSoundWeb Community]