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Choosing the tool for a look

The problem

You know what you want to see: one bar at a time lighting up and running through the row, slowly, in deep blue. You don't know what to build. A chaser with eight cues? A dimmer effect? Eight cues with follow times? A group per bar and a macro? All of them can produce something close, and the manual explains each tool on its own page without saying which one fits.

The wrong choice usually works on the night you build it and hurts later:

  • a chaser of eight hand-made steps has to be rebuilt when the venue has six bars instead of eight
  • a look built from cue times in seconds won't follow a different tempo
  • a look stored as one cue with colour, dimmer and movement can't be changed one part at a time, because everything sits in one place
  • raw values in cues have to be found and fixed one by one when "blue" turns out to be too green

Practice

This page is working practice: a way to get from a look you can describe to the tools that build it. The tools themselves are documented in the manual; the decision rules are general programming practice.

The idea: describe the look as four answers

Before touching the console, describe the look in four short answers. Each answer points to a tool, and the look is usually a combination of two or three of them.

1. What changes over time?
Nothing: it's a state. Build it from presets, stored in a cue. One attribute swings between two values (dimmer up and down, pan left and right, red to blue): an effect. Several distinct states follow each other (this look, then that one, then a third): a chaser if it loops, a cue list if it plays once as a story.
2. How is it spread across the fixtures?
All the same: nothing to add. The same movement, a little later on each fixture: the effect's phase, spread along the order of the group. A pattern (odd/even, pairs, mirrored from the centre, repeated blocks): MAtricks on one ordered group. Different fixtures in each step, each with its own look: a chaser, because only steps can hold unrelated contents.
3. Which clock does it follow?
Your hand: a cue on Go, or a button. Fixed seconds: cue fade and delay times, Follow triggers. The music's tempo: a speed master that effects and chasers follow, with speed factors for "same beat, slower". A recorded timeline or external timecode: a timecode show.
4. How do you want to control it while it runs?
Not at all: it can sit inside a cue with everything else. Its amount (how bright, how big a movement): a fader. On and off: a button. Change it independently of the rest of the look: it needs its own executor, as a separate layer that only touches its own attributes.

The fourth question is the one most often skipped, and it decides the structure. Two things you want to change separately can't live in the same cue.

Answer Tool
a state presets, stored in a cue
one attribute between two values, looping effect
more than two distinct states, looping chaser
distinct states once, with timing cue list
offset in time across fixtures effect phase (or MAtricks on a fan)
a spatial pattern across fixtures MAtricks on one ordered group
follows the tempo speed master
adjustable amount fader executor
changes independently of the rest its own executor, one layer

The manual's own rule for the third and second rows is short: chasers "whenever you need a loop with more than two steps. If you only need two steps, then use an effect." The comparison tables on Effects and chasers and Timecode shows go into more detail for their own tools.

Worked examples

One bar at a time, running through the row

Changes: dimmer, on and off. Spread: the same on-off on every bar, each a little later. Clock: the tempo. Control: on/off, maybe a speed.

That's one dimmer effect on the group "Bars L→R", not a chaser. Use the form Pwm, whose width sets how much of the cycle is high: with eight bars, a width of 12.5% (one eighth) and the phase spread from 0° to 315° (45° apart) lights one bar at a time. Put it on a speed master and set the speed so that one cycle takes the length you want, a bar per beat or a bar per bar of music. Attack and decay soften the edges (the manual allows them for the forms Random, Pwm and Chaser).

On six bars in the next venue, the same effect still works: change the width to one sixth and re-spread the phase, or keep it and accept a little overlap. A chaser with eight steps would need new cues.

To verify in onPC: check 26

Beams swinging between two positions

Changes: pan/tilt between two states. Spread: all together, or mirrored. Clock: the tempo.

Two states, so an absolute effect whose low and high values are the position presets "Floor" and "Air". The beams travel between the presets and follow when you update either. For a mirrored movement, add MAtricks wings 2 to the selection; for half the beams going up while the others go down, spread the phase 0° / 180° with interleave 2.

Washes stepping through three colours and a dark step

Changes: colour and dimmer, in four distinct states (red, dark, blue, dark). Spread: all washes together. Clock: the tempo.

More than two distinct states, two attributes per step: a chaser with four cues on a speed master. Store each step through colour presets, not raw values, so the chaser follows when "Red" is tuned. A step fade of 0% snaps the steps; around 50% softens them. Whether the dark steps work also depends on the chaser's tracking setting (see Sequences on a busking page).

Beams circling slowly around one point, bigger at the end

Changes: pan/tilt, continuous. Clock: slow, the tempo or free. Control: the size, by hand.

Two tools: a position preset for the centre and a relative circle effect around it. Store the preset in a cue on one executor and the effect on another, as a selective effect assigned to an executor: the manual notes that the master of an effect executor sets the size of the effect, so the fader becomes "how big the circle is". Update the position preset in a new venue and the circle moves with it.

To verify in onPC: check 8

Odd bars blue, even bars a different blue

Changes: nothing. Spread: a pattern.

A state: select the bars group, use MAtricks interleave 2 and Next to select the odd bars, apply one colour preset, then the even ones and the other preset, and store. No extra groups "odd" and "even" needed (see MAtricks).

The room fading up from black once, over 8 seconds

Changes: once, not looping. Clock: seconds.

A cue with a fade time. An effect or chaser would loop; a cue plays once and stays.

Rules of thumb

  • States are presets. Whatever the tool, the values inside it should come from presets: cues, chaser steps and effect low/high values can all refer to them (see Presets).
  • Prefer the tool that scales with the rig. An effect on a group adapts to the number of fixtures; a chaser or a list of cues per fixture has to be rebuilt. MAtricks on one ordered group beats a pool full of odd/even groups.
  • Split what you want to control separately. One layer per executor, each touching only its own attributes (see What goes on an executor and Executors that only do one thing).
  • Anything that follows the music goes on a speed master, not into cue times in seconds.
  • When two tools fit, take the simpler one to change later. Usually that's the one with fewer stored objects.

Interpretation

The four questions are this page's framing. They overlap with the manual's two-steps rule and with the usual split into layers, but the manual doesn't describe looks this way.

When you need it, and when you don't

  • Every show: the first question (state, movement or steps) saves the most time, because it decides between presets, effects and chasers before you build anything.
  • Rigs with rows of identical fixtures: the second question matters most; effects with phase and MAtricks replace a lot of hand-made steps.
  • Live shows: the fourth question decides the executor layout. For busking, the layers are described in the rave pages, starting with Busking a rave: energy levels.
  • A fixed show played the same every time: questions 1 and 3 are often enough; most looks end up as cues in one list.

Sources

Mostly working practice. Manual facts used: