How to do things.

The Patch & Profiles tab → pick a fixture type → type the start address → type how many → Add. Addresses are handed out back to back automatically. Any address overlaps get highlighted in the table right away.

An address is written as 55 (channel 55 in the first universe) or 2.55 (channel 55 in the second universe).

1. Download it online — Profiles → Search online, type the manufacturer or model. The library holds thousands of fixtures.

2. From the manufacturer's file — grab the GDTF from the maker's site or gdtf‑share.com and hit Import GDTF. Channels, default values and gobo images all build themselves.

3. Click it together by hand — often the fastest route with no-name fixtures, see the next item.

4. Take it from what you already have — if that type was ever in one of your shows, it is in the Light park, or you can take it straight over from that other show. See Reusing work from another show below.

Grab the fixture's manual and find the channel chart. In the Profiles tab hit New and add channels in the same order the fixture has them. Give each one a meaning: dimmer, red/green/blue, pan, tilt, shutter, gobo, zoom… Any channel you don't need, leave as "None" — it just holds the slot.

For pan/tilt add the fine channels too if the fixture has them — movement will be smooth. Set the default values: where the fixture should sit when nothing tells it otherwise.

The most common mistake: a forgotten closed shutter. If a fixture stays dark even at full dimmer, that default value is the first thing to check.

In Patch, tick Invert Pan or Invert Tilt on the fixture, depending on which axis is backwards. Typical for heads hung upside down. If a whole group is reversed, fix them all — then the positions in your palettes will line up.

Profiles → pick the original type → pick the target on the right → Replace. Addresses stay put, and groups, palettes and cues carry over by channel meaning. The Revert to original type button undoes it.

If you tour one show across different rigs, use Fixture sets instead — each set remembers its own types and addresses and you switch them in one click.

Select it, set the value and click PARK. From then on nothing in the show overrides it, not even blackout. The Parked tab lists them and unparks them.

File → Take over from another show (the same button sits in Patch & Profiles → Profiles). Pick the other show's file and tick what you want. The current show is not replaced, only added to.

The top of the window tells you what is in the file — show name, path, date and a one-line summary of its contents — so you can see at a glance whether you opened the right one. On the left you switch categories: profiles, fixtures, groups, palettes, cues, sequences, fader pages, Live pages and timecode playlists.

Dependencies come along by themselves. A cue is nothing without the groups it lights and the palettes it takes colours from; a group is nothing without its fixtures. Those get pulled in automatically and are marked “comes along”, so you see the full extent before you confirm.

Leave Link to same-named items on: a taken-over cue then reaches for the group or palette this show already has instead of duplicating your rig. Everything that is created gets fresh internal ids, cue and sequence numbers continue your own series, and clashing names get a “(2)” suffix — nothing of yours is overwritten. Ctrl+Z undoes the whole thing in one step.

In timecode playlists, commands calling a cue or a sequence are renumbered automatically. Commands calling a fader or EXEC slot by number (F5, P3, E12) cannot be — the number is a position on the bar, not a property of the control — so the app tells you how many there are to check.

The profile library belongs to the show. That is what makes a show self-contained, but it also means a new show starts with an empty library. The Light park fixes that: a store that lives outside your shows and survives both a new show and an app update. Open it from File → Light park or the 🏛 Park button in Patch & Profiles → Profiles.

It fills itself: every time you save a show, the types that show actually uses are stored. You can also add them by hand — either just the used ones or the whole library of the open show. Tick what you want and press ⬇ Load into show; you get a list of exactly what will be loaded before it happens. 🗑 Remove from park throws things out for good — automatic storing will not bring them back.

The important part: a show never depends on the park. Loading makes a standalone copy, not a link. Edit the type in your show without touching the park, or delete it from the park without harming any show.

The park is a single file with its own .tpark extension, sitting in a park folder next to your shows. The window shows the full path, size and date, and 📁 Open folder takes you there. 💾 Save to file makes a backup or a copy for another computer; 📂 Load from file brings it back — and shows you what is inside first.

Select the fixtures, then in Control hit + Group in the groups pane — the group is created with them straight away. With nothing selected you get an empty group and an editor to add members. To move fixtures into another group, select them and tap ➕ to group in the row below the groups. Build groups the way you think about the rig during a show — not the way it happens to be wired.

A group can contain other groups — say Moving heads = Spots + Washes. On an effect you then choose whether it runs across all the fixtures as one long line, or separately within each sub-group.

Select the whole group and click Even or Odd. For any other split use the − and + buttons to set how many parts the group divides into (the readout shows e.g. ÷3) and tap a part: 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 — up to eighths. What gets stored in the cue is "the second third of this group" — add a fixture to the group later and the split recalculates itself. One more click takes you back to the whole group.

Each part can carry its own colour and it all fits in one cue: tap 1/3 → colour, tap 3/3 → another colour. The programmer bubble tells you which part you are on, e.g. Spots (2/3).

Select the group of heads and turn on SOLO — only one is lit at a time. Step between them with the arrow keys and aim each one. Turn SOLO off and they all stay where you put them.

Select the fixtures, set the value, hit RECORD and click a palette tile (an empty "+ New" starts a new one). Name it the way you talk about it at rehearsal: Singer, Drums, Audience.

With RECORD armed the tiles hint at what will happen: a green dot = it already holds a value for this selection and will be overwritten, red = a new one gets stored.

Storing always works in the scope of the selected group, and it is a full swap: for that group the palette ends up holding exactly what is in the programmer. Anything not in the programmer disappears from the palette for that group — that is how you take a parameter back out: pull the palette in, drop the gobo, store. The flip side: touch a single parameter and store, and the group's other values are gone from that palette. To keep them, pull the whole palette into the programmer first and edit from there. Other groups in the same palette are left alone.

No. A cue remembers which palette the value came from. Re-aim the heads, hit RECORD and click that same palette — the value updates in every cue built from it. The status bar tells you how many cues it propagated to.

Typical scenario: you roll into a different room, refocus the singer and the drums, and the whole show fits.

Create a second rig preset — it starts as a copy of the current one. Rebuild the position palettes in it to match the new hang. Switching the preset changes the positions across the entire show at once; colours, cues and sequences stay untouched.

Create a new fixture set (a copy of the current one) and click the real types and addresses into Patch. Switch the set and the rig swaps over — groups, palettes and cues all stay, and values carry over by channel meaning.

Set the rig up and hit RECORD. Where it lands: if you have a fader selected, it gets added to that; if you're in Sequences with a sequence selected, it gets added to that; otherwise it just goes into the cue library.

Click the cue → it loads (you'll see you're working "from cue C001"). Change what you need, hit RECORD and pick Overwrite. Choosing New makes a copy and leaves the original alone.

Only changing a fade time or a toggle? No need to go through the programmer — times can be typed straight into the cue's row.

Fade = how long the crossfade runs; empty = a snap. C / P / B / I = separate times for colour, position, beam and intensity — the classic trick is intensity in 1 s while the heads take 5 s to travel. Wait = a pause before the cue even starts.

Hold + Follow = once it's finished it waits, then fires the next cue itself. That's how you build a little automatic sequence without timecode.

In a sequence, just drag the cue where it belongs — the sequence sets the order. In the library you can also give a cue a decimal number (1.5) so it lands between 1 and 2.

In the Sequences tab create a new one and either drag cues in from the library or record them straight into it. Change the order by dragging. Then park it on a fader: fader = intensity, GO = next cue.

You don't have to set anything up in advance — park a single cue on a fader, record a second one into it later, and the software asks whether it should turn that into a sequence.

Record the steps as cues, put them in one sequence and turn on Chase mode + speed in its settings. Push the fader up and the cues cycle round.

A simpler chase (running across the fixtures of one group) is quicker done with an effect, with no cues to record at all.

HTP (default) = the higher value wins, two faders don't add up. LTP = whatever came last wins. Colour, position and beam always behave as LTP.

Tick Ignore RELEASE — then when you hit "kill everything", this sequence keeps playing and its fader stays up. If it should stay lit even with the grand master pulled down, also tick Ignore master intensity.

On a sequence you click through the source: From cue (the stored value), FX speed 1–3 (live off the matching fader), a specific speedmaster (tapped tempo), or From fader. Size and fade are set the same way.

Three independent sets means you can park three speed controls on faders, each driving a different bunch of effects.

Click SELECT on the fader → the settings open full-window → pick the Type at the top (Off / Sequence / Cue / special function) → then pick the specific item below it. You can type into the picker and the list filters by number and name. The fader takes on the name and colour.

GO = next cue · ON/OFF = on and off · FLASH = lit only while you hold it · SOLO = dims everything else · STOP · TAP = tap the tempo.

In the sequence settings you click on what the fader should drive: the whole cue, intensity only, colour, position, beam, effect speed, effect size, fade, spread, or one specific channel. Several can be on at once.

Speedmaster 1–3 — the fader is the tempo, the button taps it. FX speed 1–3 — slows effects down and speeds them up (the number decides which effects listen). Global effect size — the size of every effect. Global fade 1–3 — how soft the effect crossfades are.

Group intensity — one fader = the intensity of one group; if the group isn't playing anything, it brings it up on its own, and with an effect running it acts as a ceiling. Release — kills everything except the sequences that have it disabled.

Faders come in pages. The bottom bar shows the current page's faders on every tab, so they're within reach even while you're patching. Fader width and hiding the bottom bar are set in Interface.

After a show loads, every fader with content sits at zero, so the show doesn't light up the moment you open it.

Select a group (for movement effects, aim it first at whatever it should circle around), click a ready-made preset — Circle, Figure of eight, Chase, Rainbow — and dial in speed and size. Then RECORD and the effect is part of the cue.

Movement effects are always relative to where the heads are pointing. Re-aim the heads and the effect travels with them.

Tempo — where the speed comes from (its own slider, an FX speed fader, or a speedmaster). Speed — the same percentage means the same actual movement speed across every movement effect. Size — the sweep on movement, or the number of simultaneously lit fixtures on a chase.

Spread — whether all fixtures do the same thing at once or it rolls across them. Direction, Applied to (whole group / odd and even / halves) and Fade (hard snapping ↔ smooth).

Switch the effect's Tempo to one of the speedmasters and tap its button in time (you can park it on a fader or a Live tile too). It can also do it by itself — beat detection listens to a mic or a line input and taps the tempo for you.

Park the FX speed function on a fader and set the speed source on the sequences it should control to FX speed. Pull the fader down and the effects slow; at the top they run flat out.

Select a group, click your colours in and add the Color Change effect. In Colour source you choose: Selected colours = stored in the effect, or Colours from Live = whatever you currently have on in the Live tab (so you can change them on the fly without touching the cue).

Cycling decides whether the colours travel across the fixtures, flash on all of them together, alternate odd and even, or jump around at random.

Dial the effect in and click Save as new — you get your own preset alongside the supplied ones. Update palette does the opposite: it overwrites the one the effect came from, and the change propagates into the cues that draw on it.

In the Live tab turn on edit, add a tile and pick what it does: fire a cue or a sequence, apply a palette to a group, be a group intensity, a grand master, tap the tempo, or do CLEAR / RELEASE. Set the behaviour (go / hold / toggle / flash), the size, the colour and the name.

A palette tile puts the colour straight on the output and holds it. Tap another colour on the same group and it swaps; tap again and it goes off. These are exactly the colours the Color Change effect picks up when its source is set to "Colours from Live".

Ctrl+L locks the controls (moving it, wiping the screen) — the show keeps playing. Hold the button to unlock.

BLACKOUT only kills the intensities — everything keeps running underneath and the stage comes back exactly where it was when you turn it off. For an instant blackout.

RELEASE actually shuts the sources down: it stops sequences, pulls faders down, clears the Live tiles and empties the programmer. For the end of a song, or when you've lost the plot. Sequences marked "Ignore RELEASE" keep playing — it won't kill your hazer.

Park the Group intensity function on a fader or a Live tile and pick the group. Pull it down and that group comes down, whatever happens to be driving it.

Check whether BLIND or BLACKOUT is lit, have a look at Parked (it holds values hard), and then hit CLEAR and RELEASE — that puts the console back to rest.

Set the scaling in Interface (80 % helps on a small screen) and hide the bottom fader bar if you need to. Outdoor mode switches to a high-contrast theme for daylight, Dark stage enlarges the type for reading in the dark. Got two monitors? Open a second window with its own tab.

Hit REC, start the clock and busk the show by hand the way you want it. Everything you do — GO, faders, touch — gets written down as timed rows. Turn REC off, tidy up the times, and next time the show runs itself.

Add a row, type a time — and you don't have to remember the command: type a cue, sequence or fader name into the search and click the result. A row with no time is manual: the clock waits there for your GO (perfect where the band keeps its own tempo).

A red exclamation mark means the command doesn't resolve — a typo, or a deleted target.

Switch to receiving LTC (from an audio input) or MTC (from MIDI) and pick the source. You can give each playlist the track's start time — the right one then switches in by itself off the incoming timecode.

Is its intensity up? RGB fixtures also need a colour set — the dimmer alone with no colour is darkness. Do the address and universe match the fixture's own display? Does the profile have a closed shutter in its default values? Failing all that, open the DMX monitor and see whether anything is going out on its address at all.

Look at the OUT indicator at the top (red = the output has dropped), check whether BLACKOUT or BLIND is flashing, and whether the grand master is pulled down.

Pull down the fader holding it — an effect only runs while its fader is up. Or use stop on the sequence tile.

Don't run DMX over Wi‑Fi, use a cable. And check that another console isn't sending to the same fixtures.