For the software to know what a fixture can do, it needs a description of it — a profile. Type the manufacturer or the model into the search and download it right from the app; the library holds thousands of fixtures from Robe, Martin, Chauvet and others. If you have a GDTF file from the manufacturer, you import it with a single click — channels, default values and gobo images are created for you.
Cheaper fixtures often have no ready-made profile. Their manual, however, always contains a DMX channel chart — and from it you build the profile in the editor in a few minutes: dimmer, colours, pan, tilt, gobo, zoom. Save it once and it's yours for good, for every future show.
It happens to everyone. One command swaps the type of every fixture for another — the addresses stay, and groups, palettes and saved scenes come along with them. You don't re-click your show. And if you regularly tour with different rigs, save them as fixture sets and switch between them with one click.
You name your groups the way you talk about the fixtures at rehearsal — Front wash, Heads, Blinders. Everything (scenes, effects, palettes) is set on the group, so when you add a fourth fixture to it next time, it starts playing along in all of them by itself. Nothing to remap.
One click takes the whole group, Ctrl+click adds or removes a single fixture. It also does every other fixture (odds and evens) or half a row — and when a fixture joins the group later, the split is recalculated on its own. A group can contain other groups too.
A colour you have mixed, the aim of your heads or a gobo setting can be saved as a palette and given a human name: Amber, Singer, Drums, Narrow beam. From then on you just click the names — no mixing values in the middle of a show.
This is the biggest time-saver of all: a saved scene remembers which palette a value came from. You arrive at a different venue, nudge the Singer position — and it changes in every scene that uses it. The whole show lines up without you opening a single scene.
The same show in two venues with the heads hung differently. Save a second rig preset, rebuild the positions in it — and switching between presets re-aims the whole show at once. Colours and scenes stay untouched.
An effect is movement or flashing that runs on its own — you don't have to click it step by step. You pick from ready-made templates: heads circle, draw a figure of eight or fan open; fixtures run along the row, flash to the beat or spark like glitter; colours sweep through a rainbow or alternate between the ones you picked. Movement is always relative to wherever the heads are pointing — re-aim them and the effect follows. The editor shows you a live preview before you send anything out.
Tap your finger to the beat and the effects line up with the music. You can tap from the app, from a connected controller or from the touch screen, and one tempo drives any number of effects at once. If you can't be bothered, the software takes the beat straight from the audio (microphone or line-in) and taps for you.
Speed, the size of the movement and the softness of the transitions can all go on a fader and be changed mid-song. And because there are three independent sets, one fader slows down just the heads while another slows just the flashing, without the two fighting each other.
When the scene looks the way it should, you save it with a single button — with every colour, every position and the effect that's running. A saved scene like that is called a cue. Put it on a fader and push the fader up to bring it in; the fader level is the intensity of the whole scene.
Stack your scenes into a sequence: the GO button steps through them one by one as the song goes. You don't have to set anything up in advance — record a second scene into a fader and the software asks by itself whether it should turn that into a sequence. A sequence can also run round and round on its own, like a chase.
When two faders drive the same fixture, the one that's pushed higher wins — nothing adds up into a blown-out mess. Colours and positions are taken from whatever you brought in last. You layer without thinking about it, and if you ever lose the plot, one button puts the desk back to rest.
For every scene you set how long the crossfade takes — and you can do it separately for colour, position, beam and intensity. The classic trick: the lights snap in within a second while the heads take a slow five seconds to travel. A scene can also wait and fire the next one itself.
You build your own surface of tiles for exactly what tonight needs: colours, positions, scenes, group intensities, tapping the tempo. Colour the tiles, name them and stretch them to any size. Whatever you switch on stays on until you switch it off — perfect when you're playing without a prepared show.
Switch the Live panel into preset mode: click together the next look — colours, scenes, what should play and what should go dark — and nothing changes on stage yet. When the moment comes, a single GO sends the whole prepared scene out, with a smooth crossfade of any length you choose. Just like a big desk with a preview.
One fader = the intensity of one group. When nothing is playing on it, the fader brings the group up by itself; when an effect is running on it, the fader acts as a ceiling — the effect keeps flashing, just dimmer. Exactly what you need when the singer is over-lit.
The blackout button kills everything instantly, and when you release it the scene returns exactly where it was. Another button shuts the whole show down and tidies the desk up — and the sequences you mark (hazer, work light) keep running. The desk can also be locked so nobody nudges it in transit.
The motorized faders move by themselves to follow the show, and the displays show you names and colours. You assign the buttons by pressing the control and picking a function. A professional feel for a fraction of the price of a desk.
Map the pads to scenes, sequences, blackout or tapping the tempo and give each one its own colour. In the dark on stage you'll reach for the right one every time.
Open the address the software shows you as a QR code on your phone and go stand where the light is supposed to land. Steer the head onto the spot and save it as a position, focus and zoom each head individually and store it straight into the patch — and you can also start or stop sequences and release the desk from the phone. No app, no pairing — the same network is all it takes. Optionally protected with a PIN.
Connect any MIDI controller and assign functions to it by pressing them. The software also takes commands from TouchOSC, QLab or Companion, so it fits into a bigger system.
You don't have to type times into a table. Turn recording on and play the show by hand — every GO, every fader move is written down with its time. Turn recording off, tidy up whatever needs it, and next time the show runs itself. Rows you leave without a time wait for your GO — handy where the band keeps its own tempo.
The software can follow timecode from the playback (LTC from a sound card and MTC from the computer running the track), including all the usual formats — 24, 25, 30 and 29.97 drop-frame. Every song has its own start time, so it works out what's playing from the incoming code and switches to the right playlist. An indicator in the settings tells you straight away whether the signal has arrived.
You never type playlist commands from memory — a suggester offers the scenes, sequences, palettes and groups of your show, filtered with one click. A row with a flag runs the moment the song is loaded and prepares colours or tempo before the first GO. And if a playlist points at a scene that doesn't exist yet, the software flags it and creates it with one click.
It supports Art-Net and sACN over an ordinary computer network, plus USB interfaces of the Enttec kind. The output runs independently of the screen, so the lights won't twitch even while you're clicking around the app. An indicator in the top bar tells you whether the output is running and whether your interface is visible on the network.
The software also sends data to a visualiser (Capture, Depence and the like) — you program the show in your living room and at the gig the very same thing goes out to the real fixtures. The visualiser can run in parallel with the live output.
It can also receive DMX from another console and merge it with its own output — useful as a backup, or when you sit in next to the house desk. When the other desk goes quiet, the merge drops away by itself.
You never have to think about saving — every change is saved as you go and a backup is created before each save (the last twenty are kept). If the file were ever damaged, the software picks up the last working one at startup by itself. Undo and redo go back dozens of steps — you choose how deep the history is.
The whole show lives in a single file. Copy it onto a second computer and you have a backup desk — fixture profiles included. Several shows side by side (another band, another club) are simply saved under their own names.
For open-air there's a high-contrast mode for bright sun, and in the dark you get larger type instead. You set the size of the whole interface to suit your display, so it's usable even on a small laptop. With two monitors you can open a second window with its own tab.
Czech and English; a missing language can be added with your own dictionary. New versions arrive continuously and update with a single click — your show data is never overwritten in the process.