I almost exclusively work with Stardust transmitters over the last two years. The Stardust is a great piece of gear and (relevant to what I’m talking about today) has a single linking key that serves all eight outputs of the unit. So when I first started playing with the Sidus Four and learned you could assign a linking key to each universe, I wasn’t really sure how that would work.
The answer (which I post here since I can’t even find the phrase “linking key” in the manual) is each of the four universes acts like a separate transmitter. In practice, that means you set a linking key for each and each antenna is output A, regardless of what universe it has, or which antenna it is.
Though I’d like the option to set one linking key for the transmitter and have outputs A-D available, I appreciate the flexibility of the linking-key-per-antenna approach. Sometimes I’d like to sub in a single transmitter to be a universe from the Main Unit Stardust for weird locations. If the project starts with the Sidus Four instead of the Stardust…you can plug in any transmitter to suit your needs.
I can see this being a great thing for driving work. Footprint is often tight on these days, and I’m lucky to get a chunk of the backseat or the trunk for my transmitter and a laptop. So being able to use one Sidus Four and assign linking keys and universes to the ports to make up any combo my gaffer may call for is pretty compelling.
Anyone have work flow examples of of multiple linking keys on one device to share? I’d love to see them in the comments.
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Mark LaPierre is a programmer in film and television based out of Albuquerque. He grew up in live entertainment and has been a designer/programmer for musicals, concert dance, live music, circus and corporate. Mark is a proud member of IATSE, an ETC Eos trainer and an enthusiastic trainer of many other platforms and subjects. If you enjoy his content, please consider commenting on his posts on the website to appease the Algorithm.