Phoenix

[jfloots]

I recently purchased Phoenix and feel that I have been horribly misled by the chinese dealer. I suppose it boils down to me being over-eager to get the product and also a bit of a lack in the dealer's ability to communicate in proper english. Anyway, if you plan on purchasing Phoenix, LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE!!!

I paid $500 for the DAC and a USB dongle with which you can only run Phoenix Live. Now, basically all you can do with Phoenix live is to show single images at a time.

If you want to be able to play shows, then you need to purchase Phoenix Pro, which I have learned is an additional $1400...

You will also see on the Phoenix website that there is no clear indication on this differentiation in the products. I almost got the idea that they want to surprise you with this after your purchase.

So I have spent my entire budget, and now I sit with a picture viewer... Lovely!

I have tried Poppelscan and Spaghetti, but couldn't get them to work.

As for the Phoenix software itself, it is OK compared to other demo versions of software I have seen. Upon startup there is an annoying error message which you can just close (I have contacted them and they said I must download the new version which I did, but the error remains on both my laptop and my desktop PC). The application itself also crashed once while I was playing around with the images, so that is a bad thing if you want to do live performances. The dongle is also a bit of a thing that I don't like. It's such a small thing and if it gets lost then what? No way of backing it up. :-/

[allthatwhichis]

Return it, as soon as you can. I would never buy a European product from a Chinese dealer. That would be like me buying Pangolin from a Chinese dealer. Go directly to the source of the program, not a middleman dealer... unless you know them from a trusted source... like the forum. I am sure there is a respectable Phoenix dealer as a member here.

Again, return what you bought and spend that money with someone you can chat with and be sure it is what you want and need.

[jfloots]

Thanks for the advice, I suppose I will have to look at my options and see if a return will get me anywhere. What can I do with $500 minus return postage? Anything that can run and create laser shows sync'd to music? Only reason I bought from the chinese was because I bought my laser there too and their price was cheaper than buying directly from the source, believe it or not.

[norty303]

$550 would have got you Pangolin FB3 and LA Freak software package.

[dream beamz]

I have LDS Basic which retails for 350 euro ($517USD), I will sell it for $350 USD

[White-Light]

$550 would have got you Pangolin FB3 and LA Freak software package.

Seconding this option. In fact I think the QS version is out so I'd be getting Quickshow version of the FB3. Email Bill @ Panglin using their web site to find out about the versions. Quickshow is very close to Livepro in capabilities, so I doubt any competitor is even going to be close.

[drlava]

was this dealer perhaps LaserWorld
Yikes. The story from the 'real dealer' I expect would be much different.

[pelosh]

After I'll test the Phenix 3 in couple of week we should be selling it as well as other software. I believe it is good piece of stuff.
Anyway, you c an look on our website www.synchrovision.co.uk if any other softs would do for you.

[greenalien]

I've been playing with Phoenix Live for a few weeks now, and am very impressed with it - it certainly knocks spots off the live player in Mamba, which is much more basic. It is just what it says on the box - software geared towards live performance, aka 'jamming'. This has advantages - you can produce an improptu show without knowing beforehand what the music is going to be, so it's ideal for supporting DJs at a dance event. However, there is no show recorder, so if you want to arrange a show in advance to exactly fit a piece of music, you either have to fork out for Phoenix Pro, which is much more expensive, or look elsewhere.
It needs a fairly powerful PC to run it on - at least a dual core, 2GHz machine with 2GB ram. I'm currently running it under Windows 7, and it works fine, but I've also tried it on Vista and XP and both work OK. The software also includes demo versions of the two Phoenix Pro modules Showeditor and Showplayer, and these aren't so happy running under Windows 7.
Phoenix uses strange terminology, referring to what I would call 'a set of frames with applied effects' just as 'an effect'. I find this confusing, so I will use the terminology 'figure' which is less ambiguous.
When you load the software, it displays the current 'catalogue' - 8 pages of figures, with 40 figures to a page, shown as full colour thumbnails.
I particularly like the thumbnails, which animate when you move the cursor over them - this is crying out to be used with a touchscreen. There's a good array of slider controls that can be used to interactively modify various parameters of the currently displayed figure, and these modifications are remembered when you return to that figure. These sliders can also be controlled via Midi, although there are currently some parts of the implementation of that which are incomplete - I've been waiting a month for a response to an email to their software support regarding this, but other than a brief 'we'll look into it' I haven't heard anything more.
Figure movement can also be beat-synced, either to tap-tempo or to an MP3 file played via Winamp. It's possible to take this a stage further by using a mic input winamp plugin, that lets you sync to an external microphone.
There are 2 different editors supplied - a 3-D frame editor which lets you create individual frames, and a figure editor that lets you combine frames with effects. The software uses a multi-layered approach which lets you mask off parts of frames, allowing for 'move behind' type effects - very effective with text.
Although the demo version of Showplayer has the laser output disabled, it is possible to access the catalogue files from the supplied shows and add them to your library, so there are literally thousands of frames to play with; I understand that it's also possible to import ILDA frames but I haven't tried this yet.
It's worth shopping around for this software - I paid £300 plus postage, the deal included a 25-metre ILDA lead as well, and I think it's good value.
(jfloots - most laser software has a dongle for copy protection - a useful tip is to attach the lanyard to it that came with the software, it makes it harder to lose and you can safely take it with you if you need to leave the control area during a show!)

[jfloots]

I suppose Phoenix is not that bad, you just have to take some time to figure it all out, for eg. on the edit screen (where you can import the ilda files) everything works with drag and drop only, where I was typically looking for the Delete button to work, or a right click popup menu with Delete option - the only way, I figured after a long time, was to drag the item onto the little recycle bin. Everything needs to be dragged (even though it looks like buttons).

Will it only be possible to use Phoenix software on the DAC that came with it, or is it also possible to use other software, for eg. Mamba? Or does each software come with its own hardware unit?