Control

The Control page provides real-time control over any fixture’s static channels and gives you the ability to create ‘Snapshots’ of your fixture settings to be recalled during your show using FX Palettes. Use the lightbulb icon to solo the current fixture, to hone in on each fixture one by one.

Static channels (not controlled by MaestroDMX) provide you with a control slider allowing you to set the DMX channel value. For instance, see the ‘Virtual Shutter’ and ‘Dimmer’ channels in the image below.

Dynamic fixture channels that are controlled by MaestroDMX attributes such as Pan, Tilt, Red, Green, Blue, etc, do not initially provide a control slider however you can use ‘Extended Controls’ to override a dynamic channel with static value.

Centering and Limiting Moving Heads

The Control page provides an interface to dial in your moving head’s positions including the center point and range using ‘offset’ and ‘width’. As you change the offset you can see your fixture re-centering in real-time. Any channel values set here under the ‘Fixture Default’ Snapshot will remain for the duration of the stage. You can create custom Snapshots to specify any number of different moving head positions that can be recalled later on in your Show. For instance, if you want some of your moving head lights to point at a wedding cake at a specific moment.

Extended Controls

Use the ‘Extended Controls’ arrow on the far right-hand side to access the following:

• Override Channel Value: Allows you to manually set the DMX value for any dynamic channel

• Smoothing(s): In seconds, this is the level of smoothing that is applied to this channel when controlled by MaestroDMX. Smoothing can be useful if you want to slow down your movers for example

• Output Range: Limit the range of output for this DMX channel. This can be useful if you only want MaestroDMX to control a portion of this channel space

Snapshots

MaestroDMX gives you the ability to record ‘Snapshots’ of your fixture settings that can be recalled during your show using FX Palettes. FX Palettes is a very powerful feature that allows you to trigger any Snapshots that you have created based on events in the music or when a Show cue is triggered. So to reiterate, Snapshots are manual presets of your stage fixtures.

By default your Stage has a ‘Fixture Default’ Snapshot. To create a Snapshot click on the 3-dot menu to the right of the ‘Snapshot’ drop-down. In this menu, you can also Edit, Duplicate, and Delete your Snapshot.

Once you have created a Snapshot, an ‘eye’ icon will appear to the right of the Snapshot drop-down. Toggle this icon to preview any Control changes you make to fixtures for the currently selected Snapshot.

IMPORTANT: A reminder that you must click the ‘eye’ icon at the top right of the Control page in order to see the current Snapshot on the stage.

Now you can go ahead and make changes to the selected fixture. Channels that are overridden from the Fixture Default have special properties, they will:

• Turn blue in the UI. 

• Provide a ‘Revert’ icon that looks like a circular arrow in the top right corner of the channel

• Give you the option to ‘Link Other Fixture Channels’ of the same type

At the top of the Control page you will also have the ability to view only overridden channels of the selected fixture.

Link Other Fixture Channels

Creating a Snapshot gives you the ability to link together channels of the same type across similar fixtures on the Stage. For example, if you want to set the Pan Offset for all of your movers of the same model. This saves you from having to individually set each channel. Click the selection box for any channels that you want to link. 

Currently (v1.4) it is not possible to Link channels together for the ‘Fixture Default’ Snapshot.