Lesson Description
Simple Control Components
5m 48s
Master some simple Control Components within Q-SYS: the Control Delay, Control Router, Blinking LED, LFO, and the Flip-Flop.
Video Transcript
Simple Control Components
5m 48s
0:08
Now that we understand the Control Tree, let’s start connecting controls in more interesting
0:12
ways by exploring the Control Components. We’re going to hop around these a bit out of order,
0:17
based on their complexity. For instance, some of these Control Components are very easy to
0:21
understand. Let’s look at five pretty standard components. If you want to jump straight to a
0:27
specific one, jump to its timecode as listed here.
0:31
The Control Delay works very similar to an Audio Delay, in that once it receives a signal,
0:36
it will wait a specified amount of time before allowing that signal to pass forward.
0:41
You can set the maximum Delay length here in the Properties, and then adjust the actual Delay
0:46
length dynamically within Q-SYS. If you Bypass the Delay, it lets the signal pass through without
0:52
any interruption. Unlike the Audio Delay, however, you can add multiple outputs to this component,
0:58
and customize the amount of delay for each of these. This might be useful for sequencing
1:03
amplifiers to turn on or off, for instance. With a single button press, every one of these delays
1:08
starts at the same time, letting you control when the signal is sent to each of the various outputs.
1:14
Another fairly self-explanatory component is the Control Router. Much like an Audio Router,
1:20
you can select from multiple possible inputs to be delivered to each output. You can customize
1:25
the number of inputs and outputs, as well as the selection style. Crosspoint Buttons are radio-style
1:31
buttons to select each input, whereas knobs give a single control that can scroll through each option,
1:37
and Combo Buttons give the user a drop-down menu.
1:41
The Selection Control style has no effect on the behavior of the router, but it does provide different
1:46
types of Controls that are available for your Control Pins. A simple example of a
1:50
Control Router might be to deliver multiple different editable text fields into the
1:55
Dial String of a Softphone, so that you could quickly toggle between
1:58
commonly-used telephone numbers.
2:01
The Blinking LED is … spoiler alert … a blinking LED. You can adjust the period,
2:07
which is the amount of time it takes for the LED to go through one on-and-off cycle,
2:12
as well as the Duty Cycle, which specifies what percentage of that period is spent
2:16
in an On state, which you could also randomize with the Random button.
2:21
If you Disable this component, the button stops blinking. So what is the point of this?
2:26
If you were just dying to get some flashy cabaret lights on your UCI to make it look like an old-school
2:31
Vegas marquee, then this is your component! Or, more importantly, you can use the
2:36
LED output control pin to send an alternating true/false signal elsewhere in your design.
2:42
You can find LEDs in many components in Q-SYS, but don’t be fooled into thinking
2:47
these are simple indicator lights. These aren’t pointless lights in an old sci-fi spaceship,
2:53
these LED’s actually DO something. When an LED is active it has a Value and Position of 1,
3:00
and a String of True, which you could use as a positive signal to activate anything else in your design.
3:06
The same is true for a Blinking LED, which you could use as a repeating on/off wave,
3:11
for anything in your design that requires a regularly alternating signal, such as sending
3:16
a keep-alive signal to third party connections, without using scripting.
3:21
In some ways, you could consider the Blinking LED to be a simplified version of the LFO component,
3:27
which stands for Low-Frequency Oscillator. The LFO outputs a variable wave as represented
3:33
by an output position knob. If you selected a square wave, that would effectively toggle the output
3:38
between 0 and 100 percent, just like the behavior of the Blinking LED. But if you chose
3:44
something else for the waveform such as a Sine wave, you’ll see the output rise and fall following
3:50
the path of a sine wave. You could cap this behavior with the minimum and maximum knobs to
3:55
constrict the oscillation within a customized range. There are a variety of waveforms
3:59
to select from, which should give you plenty of flexibility if you need a variable
4:03
repeating pattern for any reason.
4:06
The last component we’ll look at right now is the Flip-Flop. We’ve mentioned that
4:11
trigger buttons don’t have a Value, String, or Position, and don’t really play well with
4:15
toggle buttons. Well, the Flip-Flop is a tool you can use to take a momentary or trigger
4:19
impulse and turn it into a latching on/off state. Think of the Flip-Flop as a light switch,
4:26
and a trigger impulse is your finger. If your finger flicks on its own, there’s no record of it
4:31
doing anything. But if it flicked a light switch, then that light switch does have a state, which means
4:36
that it has a Value, String, and Position. Looking inside its control panel, consider the State
4:43
button to be the switch itself. While this is a toggle button, you generally won’t interact with
4:49
this button directly. The bottom two LEDs simply describe the state of the Flip-Flop –
4:54
the Out LED is on when the Flip-Flop’s state is true, and the Not Out LED is on when the
5:01
Flip-Flop’s state is false. The three buttons at the top are all Trigger buttons, which will affect
5:06
the Flip-Flop’s state. The “Set” trigger will always set the state to true, the “Reset” trigger
5:12
will always set the state to false, and the “Toggle” trigger will always toggle the Flip-Flop
5:18
from its current state to the opposite. I’m going to say that one more time, because this
5:22
button can be deceptive. I know it’s a button that says Toggle right next to it, but this is
5:27
NOT A TOGGLE BUTTON. It’s a trigger button, which performs the action of toggling the
5:34
Flip-Flop. Don’t let that trick you!
5:36
We have some simple exercises for you to complete in the Control Training Worksheet
5:39
on these simple Control Components, so go ahead and get your hands dirty,
5:43
and then come back for the next video.
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Simple Control Components
5m 48s