Quickshow: beginer opinion

[Revmutt]

I know that most people are pretty clear on how they feel about Pangolin's product but I would like to address two things.

Although laser technology is a new area for me and I am an utter dumb noob, I do have well over 30 years of professional experience in audio technology from both sides of the glass.

1. Customer support is so important to many users especially at the beginning. it's been a long time since I've been in that "feeling dumb" and afraid to ask phase with any kind of equipment. The various people with whom I exchanged e-mails with merely about testing out the demo were responsive and in no way discouraged my embarrassing questions.

2. The product it's self, as I have said is something people already have an opinion on. What I'd like to point out is that as a long time Mac user I wasn't about to spend money on a PC until I knew how I felt about using the software and then I would consider emulation vs new machine. I had been given a friend's old Wintel XP machine that was a bit under spec from the processor point of view, not only does the software run smoothly but it does so to the degree that I'm not rushing to upgrade or switch to emulation. It actually runs on what many windows users would view as an old piece of crap.

I know this was long winded but I hope that it helps someone else in my position.
Tommy

[norty303]

It actually runs on what many windows users would view as the finest Windows OS you can install on a machine.

Fixed that for ya....

[swamidog]

quickshow works fine with osx and emulation. i've run it with vmware and bootcamp.

I know that most people are pretty clear on how they feel about Pangolin's product but I would like to address two things.

Although laser technology is a new area for me and I am an utter dumb noob, I do have well over 30 years of professional experience in audio technology from both sides of the glass.

1. Customer support is so important to many users especially at the beginning. it's been a long time since I've been in that "feeling dumb" and afraid to ask phase with any kind of equipment. The various people with whom I exchanged e-mails with merely about testing out the demo were responsive and in no way discouraged my embarrassing questions.

2. The product it's self, as I have said is something people already have an opinion on. What I'd like to point out is that as a long time Mac user I wasn't about to spend money on a PC until I knew how I felt about using the software and then I would consider emulation vs new machine. I had been given a friend's old Wintel XP machine that was a bit under spec from the processor point of view, not only does the software run smoothly but it does so to the degree that I'm not rushing to upgrade or switch to emulation. It actually runs on what many windows users would view as an old piece of crap.

I know this was long winded but I hope that it helps someone else in my position.
Tommy

[Revmutt]

@norty303 thanks for that correction ... Actually I was more impressed with the fact that runs so smooth on a machine with a Core Solo 1.06ghz processor with 2 gigs of RAM.

@swamidog all my Macs are desktops and I definitely need a laptop.

[Galvonaut]

1. Customer support is so important to many users especially at the beginning. it's been a long time since I've been in that "feeling dumb" and afraid to ask phase with any kind of equipment. The various people with whom I exchanged e-mails with merely about testing out the demo were responsive and in no way discouraged my embarrassing questions.

2. The product it's self, as I have said is something people already have an opinion on. What I'd like to point out is that as a long time Mac user I wasn't about to spend money on a PC until I knew how I felt about using the software and then I would consider emulation vs new machine. I had been given a friend's old Wintel XP machine that was a bit under spec from the processor point of view, not only does the software run smoothly but it does so to the degree that I'm not rushing to upgrade or switch to emulation. It actually runs on what many windows users would view as an old piece of crap.

Customer service is pretty good with Pangolin, I've had a few problems though, mainly through misunderstandings and mistaken identities.

I was unable to get an explanation as to some software settings included in Quick show which I found very odd. Others too have been unable to get a response to the question regarding vector settings.

When a recent bug arrose in QS, Pangolins response was outstanding! I'm sure that their customer service far outstrips other laser show software manufacturers. This is a massive plus for Pangolin!

It is a shame that their software isn't native to Mac. I saw that Pangolin used a Mac with their products on a recent video from a trade show and got all excited. One day maybe

Quickshow is still doing me well for simple beam shows and abstracts. It is very simple to use but I've found it complex or impossible to recreate anything like the canned abstracts that it comes with.

I hope it does you wel revmutt. It was certainly a great introduction to laser shows for me

Keith

[White-Light]

Keith, QS isn't designed to be huge on the creative side as its entry level software.

It is very powerful on the display side for what it is though. Just look at iShow and other comparable entry level softwares. QS is designed to be semi-professional ie fairly powerful but with some restrictions. If it was fully open, there'd be less reason to go Beyond.

That said, you can achieve far more than is immediately obvious by working around the restrictions.

eg. You can't create Synthesised Images.

However, you can take an existing Synthesised Image, copy it into a spare workspace cell, then right click and choose Edit.

By doing this, you can delete the content within it to leave the SI wrapper, and then start to add your own content using the Create / Add menus within the SI wrapper, thus allowing you to add shapes, effects etc and create your own S. Images. Similarly, if there's an effect similar to one you like, rather than starting from scratch, choose that as your starting point then instead of deleting the content, modify it by deleting or altering the Effects.

Unless they've blocked this, you can do this with not only SI's but all other types as well that are restricted. It just requires the lateral thought to get around the restrictions.

All of my cue packs were created this way in QS.

All you need to remember is to copy the cue 1st, before you start editing, otherwise you stand to lose your original cue!

[norty303]

I was unable to get an explanation as to some software settings included in Quick show which I found very odd. Others too have been unable to get a response to the question regarding vector settings.

Didn't Bill ask you to post the question in the Pangolin forums so he could respond there, or am I mistaking that with another issue?

Did you ever do that BTW? I kept meaning to remember to go and read it.

[norty303]

By doing this, you can delete the content within it to leave the SI wrapper, and then start to add your own content using the Create / Add menus within the SI wrapper, thus allowing you to add shapes, effects etc and create your own S. Images. Similarly, if there's an effect similar to one you like, rather than starting from scratch, choose that as your starting point then instead of deleting the content, modify it by deleting or altering the Effects.

Unless they've blocked this, you can do this with not only SI's but all other types as well that are restricted. It just requires the lateral thought to get around the restrictions.

Everyone blame Al when they close down this loophole in a few releases, eh

[Revmutt]

No question that the software doesn't have everything, the lack of 3D has also been brought up but my post was to address reviewing as a complete novice in this field while having some experience in other medias so I do understand what I am looking at in terms of features and ease of use.

I have to say, although I've been pretty busy this week, the few hours I have spent with the software required no intervention once I overcame the aforementioned "date issue".

Tommy

I think if one is comfortable with multitrack audio or video editing a lot of this software is going to be very comfortable.

[Galvonaut]

Are you likely to play with cue creation Tommy? If so I'd like to see how you get along. I've had no success with about 3 hours of playing, solely with cue creation. Other than this, playing shows is super simple, as is setting up midi.

Keith