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Thread: I offically hate mamba

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    Sheepsville, Wales, UK
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    Default I offically hate mamba

    I just wanna throw something right now I need to let off steam as for the second night in sucession Mamba has trashed a load of my work!
    I am anal about saving as in the past its been so unpredicatable that it you gotta get your head tested if you dont save regularly. But on friday I was working on a show (show A) and I saved it before replacing scenes spread across four tracks - just to see if it was any good and decided not. I reloaded the saved show to get an entirely empty show bar the scenes that I had cut.
    Now I thought maybe i did something dumb and I tried to emulate this problem but couldnt so decided to do something else. Last thing I did before shutting down was play another show (show B) I had finished earlier in the week - it played great.
    I have just loaded that same show and one of the framelists (frames B) now bears no resemblance to the one I had on Friday. AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH
    F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K
    The strange thing is the framest that I was using for show A has now also turned into the same frames B framelist - they are clones of each other . This is despite them having differnt names and being saved in different folders.
    Am I going mad?
    Fortunately I have a copy of frames B , though a couple of revisons old, on another pc that I can use but its still work I dont wanna do again and Im not confident it wont happen again.
    I think I will go and sit in a corner and cry.

    Rob

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Herts, UK
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by stanwax View Post
    I just wanna throw something right now
    Frustrating

    You know what to do Rob, begins with a "P" and ends in "lin".
    A little bit werrrr, a little bit weyyyyyy, a little bit arrrrgggghhh

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Native Floridian
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    Default

    Frustrating

    You know what to do Rob, begins with a "P" and ends in "lin".
    I'll second that recommendation! Ok, so I wont say the P word, but it really is the way to go. Its a rock solid platform. It has never crashed on me while using showtime or designer. Though I did have it hang when I was doing a web update the other day, but that may have been the network that caused that problem. Plus, the support for the product has always been outstanding.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
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    Flying over a town near you
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    Default

    Ever tried Laser Design Studio pro??? Never a minute of trouble. No lost files,frames lost,or corrupted, user friendly with many demo shows syc'd to music...and can be changed as for the frames of another showor time length of another mp3 file. Cheaper than the big P....but I am putting $ for more dacs , scanners and lasers....no need for more software....can operate 8 dacs at one time. If I switched now I would backstep a couple of months reprogramming my brain for the big P. I would consider a trade in for an upgrade sometime though I have not test drove the software as of yet.
    You are the only one that can make your dreams come true....and the only one that can stop them...A.M. Dietrich

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Norway, Fauske
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    Default

    Well...programming the big P is really easy! So easy that my grandma can use it. I had the LDS software and I was a bit confused when making shows. It is hard to make shows in LDS, that is my opinion.
    When I got big P. I couldnt belive how easy it was to make shows. WHY didnt I get the big P. at the first place. I have spared myself for alot of frustrations. I dont know how many time the PC has allmost been trowed out the window. As DZurcher said, the big P. is a rock solid platform.
    Even the computer hangs, the Big P. continues to play the shows.

    Pangolin FB3 QS/LivePro/SMS2Laser
    Riya MultiBus
    Pangolin LD2000 Pro

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Central Florida
    Posts
    7,067

    Talking

    You want frustration... try the little p... popelscan... It is worth every penny.
    Love, peace, and grease,

    allthat... aka: aaron@pangolin

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
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    194

    Default

    I'd 2nd that! I thought Mamba Black might be better and it wasn't. I got a Cheap copy of LDS and never looked back. Yeah it's a bit harder to make a show in LDS. It can be a bit confusing. But I got around it. One day I might spring for that Big Mr P.

    Also Mamba has a "create backups" almost working feature. I've had to use it a few times.

    Good Luck!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
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    Default

    Oh! One more tip with Mamba. If your on a laptop Shut off your Wifi. For some reason if the Wifi card looks for other connections it'll hang Mamba for a second.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    Sheepsville, Wales, UK
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    Default the clear light of day

    Ok so now its 48 hours since I threw my rattle out the pram and its time to think about what went on. I really want to understand what happened primarily to see if I foobed.
    One of my original statements is incorrect. I said the 2 framelists had become the same - this is not true. They are very similar but one has more frames than the other.
    If you are unfamiliar with mamba there is an 'output to file function' that converts a scene or scenes with effects colours et al into a single stream of rendered frames. This is quite useful if you want a complex scene(s) to be repeated. Consequently I have been using this alot, and when I was trying to find why show A was erased I was using this feature to try and simulate the fault. I think my 2 framelists were filled with this output, despite all instances of this test being output to a file called test.ild - a move I considered sensible at the time. So it is feasible that I pointed the output to the wrong place and I would accept that I could do this once. But not twice. I may have moments of madness but I really dont think Im that dizzy. Im pretty certain (or at least there is a good chance) that the 2 framelists that were replaced were open when I was doing the test - but I played show B in full before I shut down so if the file had been modded I would have noticed.
    Still baffled.
    Show B is back to its former glory but I just dont want to go near the first show - though it could have been worse as this show is intended to be an ongoing project - an epic set to 45 mins of music. Glad I was only up to minute 2!!!
    Anyway. Yes I know the way to go would be the big P and I no doubt will go that way at some point. Right now I want to have the oportunity to use the software I own to do shows that will hopefully earn me some money so pango hobby is out. And the full hit - even basic is not within my budget ...Yet.

    Bottom line. Yes I have had lots of teeth gnashing and head banging with Mamba but I honestly think it does represent extremely good value for money and the fact that Medilas recognise that its far from perfect and are working very hard to improve this means I will stick with it for now. I do like so much of its features and I think the UI is intuitive and well planned though not perfect - my mamba wishlist includes some UI tweaks .

    Rob

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Charleston, SC
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    2,147,489,446

    Cool

    Rob;

    Don't be so hard on yourself. Mamba has it's quirks, but it's still really nice software, and of the 4 packages I've worked with (Alphalite, Full-Auto, Mamba Black, Pangolin), I found Mamba to be the most intuitive.

    Although I've had a QM-32 pro board for a couple months now, I'm still learning the Pangolin interface. While I know that Pangolin has more features and will be more stable in the long run, I find myself wishing that the interface was more like Mamba Black.

    Say what you want about Mamba, but I think the interface is one of the easiest to learn. I created my first show segment (about 45 seconds worth) after tinkering with the software for less than 2 hours. This was before I had ever read a manual or a help file! Then I put together my first full-length show (about 3.5 min long) in about 6 hours. OK - it wasn't anything that would win me an award or anything, but it was more than I'd been able to accomplish with any other software to date...

    Contrast that with Pangolin, which is just now starting to make sense to me after roughly 15 hours of hard work sitting at the computer trying to learn how to use it. After the first few hours ended in frustration I took a break and downloaded the tutorial videos from the website and watched them. Then I spent a good bit of time reading through the help files that come with Showtime. Finally, I sat down and started over with the help file window open all the time. I experimented, and experimented, and experimented some more. It's getting there now, but I'm still a newbie. I've had problems saving files, problems selecting effects, and problems getting the effects to do what I want them to do. (Note that this isn't because of any flaw in the software; it's just that I don't yet fully understand how to do the things I want to do!)

    I have yet to complete a single show with Pangolin, though I have managed to put together a few short scenes that lasted 15-20 seconds. (I'm hoping to get some time next week to actually put together my first Pangolin show....)

    Now that I'm getting the hang of Pangolin's interface, I have to admit that it's *really* pretty powerfull software. There's no doubt that there are things you can do in Pangolin that would be nearly impossible with Mamba. As an example, there's a show that comes with the Pangolin package that consists of a small group of frames that have two or three colored dots in each frame. But the actual show is incredibly detailed, with beams and fans swooping and looping all over the place. Everything is accomplished with effects and transformations. The show is absolutely breathtaking! EDIT: This is the "F_F_Over" (Far From Over) show... If you've got Pangolin, load this show up and you'll see what I mean!

    But when you look at the timeline, you see that it is *full* of effects layered upon more effects. (If I can ever manage to trace through that whole show and figure out how everything is done, I'll be happy that I've conquered the interface!) I don't know if you could even layer that many effects in Mamba Black...

    Anyway, just remember that there is a steep learning curve that comes with all that power. So don't feel too bad that you're using Mamba Black; it's not bad software, and it's probably allowed you to get started a lot quicker than Showtime would have.

    Adam
    Last edited by buffo; 05-20-2007 at 08:23.

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