You shouldn’t have to pay to download the PDF from Scribd as far as I know. It just hosts the PDF and looking at the stats plenty of people have downloaded it, you just need to be logged in (which you can do with your FB login) as far as I understand.

cheers nick

Sounds ideal. If you are using your own scrollers, address them up to something at the far end the DMX universe, 450+ to reduce your chances of having to readdress them at each venue (most places start with their kit at DMX 001, natch) If you are using a two or more DMX universe output device or node, you can put your own kit onto one universe and free up others for the house kit. If you only dealing with dimmers, then you can have your show and just repatch the dimmers at each venue and perhaps tweak.

If you label up the patch well and get access to either patch list at the gig (or write down the numbers) in a few minutes you can adjust the DMX/Universe numbering of each fixture – if you always have blinders, they’ll still be on the BLINDERS playback because the desk (like others) records fixture numbers in memories and groups, so changing the patch leave the programming intact.

If you have having to use moving heads in each venue then I would set a default number of fixtures, washes, spots etc like 10 of each or something depending on the size of venues. Pick fixtures that you use on your first gig to program with, then investigate using the Fixture Morph facility to try and save you some time when you get to the next venue that has different heads. It might work well, depending on the fixtures in question. Program using all 10, even if you don’t always have them at every gig, and if you go into a venue with more than 10 spots, look at using Fixture Clone to extend to the additional kit without much more programming.

Hope that’s given you a few ideas.

This tutorial was outstanding! I am new into the software side of things as I am just lighting local bands here in the States for now. This tutorial has just opened the flood gates on how to navigate magicq, and made what seemed, at first opening of the software, daunting, look very easy and user friendly. I am wanting to connect the simple rig of scrollers I have to already existing house systems at various venues and take control of the combination without having to have one hand on the house board, and one on mine. As well as be able to pre-program shows for the different venues beforehand. For now, this appears to be the way to go. Thoughts?

A million THANK YOUS to you for taking the time to post these tutorials!!! You da man!!!

I think MagicQ did take a lot of it’s early “cues” in terms of hardware and software from the Hog (the hardware side is obvious and I understand comes from a shared family tree in design personnel).

When I first saw the prototype, I described it as being “all of the best bits of the Hog II and an Avolites with a load of added “extras”. These were things like colour pickers, Lee and Rosco colours, good spreadsheet style manipulation, fixture clone, morph + more including multiple ways to use playbacks etc.

Now all these things are expected from a grown up controller but at the time I’d never seen it all in one desk that I found incredibly easy to use. Since then: media and pixel mapping integration, timeline, executors and a ton of other things have been added – again, all things that seem natural for moving light controllers of today.

While I know that the MagicQ did draw heavily from the experience of it’s LD creators, I feel that they brought a few new things to the table that we see on other desks – we just assume that a “bigger” manufacturer got their first.

I’d love to take a look at a timeline of feature development across the industry. Thanks for your comment.

My question is: Is it just me, or is magicQ very similar to some of the older Hog software? Is there any relation, or is it just a matter of that they’re both the same sort of high tech intelligent lighting software?