What to do when changing DMX start channel [fixed]

[dkumpula]

I have been a happy user of ShowXpress for 10 years or so and have seen my devices updated and expanded many times over the years. Unfortunately, with 900+ scenes, re-arranging my device DMX start addresses has required me to manually go through each step of each relevant scene and manually copy and paste the values to the new location.

I would like to make a major rearrangement for my device start addresses in order to group all moving heads together, all lasers together, etc. Before I embark on this VERY manually intensive effort, does anyone know a better way to do this?? Perhaps a utility that runs through each scene and updates the DMX codes for a device?? Any suggestions or best practices would be most appreciated.

[support]

ControlBoard > dmx and midi patch > dmx output
Available in version 6.26 beta (and more).

[tomrbland]

Hi David,

Thanks for the PM.

As far as I can work out patching is your best option, just as support said. If you want them to be next to each other in Editor then I think the only way is the long way. (but using groups they all appear next to each other anyway)

Does that do what you are after?

[dkumpula]

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions and reminder that Editor groups create "soft-sorting" of your channels.

I now believe I understand the patch dmx output function (a cool tool for changing venues), but I was only wanting to sort and condense my devices in the editor as I have nearly maxed out my first universe with the exception of a few unused channels and similar devices (e.g. moving heads) are scattered about across the 512 channels.

As I am already running out of available channels, I think I'll just take this as an opportunity to add a second universe and manually update the scenes to reflect the shift in the device universe/channels. Thankfully I have an extra Xpress 512 hardware device available to create the second universe.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

[kahilzinger]

Yes, I could probably go with a find/replace option within the scnenes themselves so that maybe DMX address 72 is now 96 could be automatically updated on all the light scnenes. I don't think it should be in the editor but probably a separate program with double warnings stating that if you do this, you will change all of your scenes. When addressing, you try to make room for expansion but it never always works out that way.