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Colour concepts for busking

The problem

Colour is the decision you make most often during a set, usually several times per track. The console offers unlimited freedom: every fixture, any colour, from colour pickers, swatch books and presets. Under pressure, in the dark, that freedom is a problem:

  • picking colours fixture type by fixture type is too slow for a drop
  • every decision is a chance to end up with an ugly or muddy mix
  • the show looks different every night, even when you liked last week's version

So programmers decide in advance how fine-grained their colour control will be. There are several common approaches, and most real shows combine two or three.

Practice

This page is about working practice. The grandMA2 manual documents the tools (presets, colour picker, sequences, effects) but not colour concepts. The parts on how it works in grandMA2 use documented features.

Approach 1: free picking

Select fixtures, open the colour picker (HSB, swatch book) and choose live.

  • Good for: programming sessions, finding new colours, one-off moments.
  • Weak for: busking at speed. It's many touches per change, hard to repeat, and not linked to anything you can update later.

Approach 2: a palette grid

A pool of global colour presets, the same colour in the same slot, tuned per fixture type so they match (see Colour). You tap a group, then a colour.

  • Good for: fine control. Any colour on any fixture group, and every cue links to the presets, so retuning a colour fixes it everywhere.
  • Weak for: big changes. Re-colouring the whole rig is group, colour, group, colour, group, colour …, and the combinations are made up on the spot.

Approach 3: colour looks (themes)

A small number of complete colour combinations for the whole rig, each switched with one button: Ice (washes deep blue, bars cyan, beams white), Fire (red/amber/orange), Acid (green/UV/white), Sunset, Mono white …

This is the medium-grained middle: fewer decisions than a palette grid, but the combinations are designed in advance and look good every time.

  • Good for: busking. One tap changes the mood of the whole rig, and you only choose between a dozen tested looks.
  • Weak for: unusual moments. Keep a palette grid as a backup for overrides.

How it works in grandMA2: each look is a one-cue sequence on a button executor, made from the global colour presets, so tuning a preset later fixes every look that uses it. A sequence doesn't need a selection to play, unlike a preset. A colour-only playback filter keeps the look away from dimmer and position, and with LTP priority and Off On Overwritten the last-pressed look wins and the previous one turns itself off (see What goes on an executor). The cue's fade sets how the look arrives, the executor's rate changes it live, and more cues in one look sequence give variations of the same palette. The steps: Build colour looks for busking.

Look one-cue sequence, colour only Washes role: base LED bars role: base Beams role: accent Ice Toggle → Deep blue → Cyan → White Fire Toggle → Red → Amber → Orange Acid Toggle → Green → UV → White Night Toggle → Deep blue → UV → Red link to a global colour preset, tuned per fixture type one preset in two looks: update “Deep blue” once, Ice and Night both change
Colour looks as a grid: each look is a one-cue sequence whose cells link to global colour presets, one column per fixture group and its role.

Approach 4: base and accent roles

A refinement of approach 3. Give each fixture type a role: washes and bars carry the base colour, beams and spots the accent, and the hits (the same fixtures at full) are white. A look is then defined by two colours, base and accent, for example "blue base, white accent" or "red base, amber accent".

This keeps the rig readable (one dominant colour plus contrast) and makes it easy to invent looks on the fly: pick a base look and an accent look separately, as two colour layers on different executors, each filtered to its fixture groups.

Approach 5: colour in motion

For build-ups and long tracks, colour can move instead of switching:

  • Colour effects between two presets (low = Blue, high = Cyan), with phase spread across a group or MAtricks wings for symmetric waves (see Effects and chasers).
  • Colour chases whose steps are looks, on a shared speed master.
  • Odd/even splits via MAtricks: two colours on alternating fixtures from one group.

Effects that use presets as low/high values follow when the presets are updated, the same as everything else built on presets.

Combining them

Practice

A common combination for electronic music busking:

  • Colour looks (approach 3) on one row of buttons, for the main flow.
  • Base / accent (approach 4) as a second option when you want variety.
  • One or two colour effects (approach 5) for build-ups.
  • The palette grid (approach 2) on screen, for overrides and for building the looks in the first place.
  • White and UV as their own hit buttons, outside the colour system.

All of it sits on the same set of global presets, so a colour that looks wrong in a new venue is one preset update away.

Practice

Colour in a dark room. Because the colour executors are colour-only, a colour look never lights anything; it only decides what a fixture shows when the intensity layer brings it up. That keeps the room dark by default (see Busking a rave): the look paints the whole rig, the intensity layer picks the two or three elements that are visible. Deep, saturated colours (deep blue, red, a single colour across everything) read well as shapes in haze; white and pastel washes flatten a dark room quickly, so keep white for accents and hits. Balance the brightness of the colour presets, too: otherwise switching from deep blue to yellow is a jump in intensity the intensity layer never asked for (see Colours aren't equally bright).

When it matters, and when not

  • Single fixture type, simple show: a palette grid is enough.
  • Mixed rig, busked to music: colour looks are the biggest speed-up you can build. Spend the programming time there.
  • A programmed set (a live act's fixed set, an intro routine): colours are part of each cue; looks matter less, presets still do.

Sources

Mostly working practice. Manual facts used: