ChamSys MagicQ User Manual

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MagicQ User Manual i

MagicQ User Manual

MagicQ User Manual ii

REVISION HISTORY

NUMBER DATE DESCRIPTION NAME

v1.6.7.1 24/07/2015 ChamSys

MagicQ User Manual iii

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 MagicQ software and consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 MagicQ Pro Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.3 MagicQ Compact Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.4 MagicQ Wings for use with PC/Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.5 Plugging Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.6 DMX Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.7 Powering Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.8 Powering Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.9 Resetting the Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1.10 Power Supply Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.11 Care of your MagicQ console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.12 Safety Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Installing MagicQ Software & Drivers 7

2.1 MagicQ software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.2 MagicDMX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.3 MagicQ Wings & Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.4 MagicQ on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.5 MagicQ on Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.5.1 Turning off App Nap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.5.2 Making the MagicQ folder writeable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.6 MagicQ on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3 Using MagicQ on PCs and Macs 17

3.1 Simple Generic Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2 Technician Test Fixture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.3 Demo Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.4 Touch View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.5 Playback mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.6 MagicQ PC / Mac Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

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4 MagicQ Concepts 22

4.1 Show Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.2 Output channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.2.1 HTP / LTP channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.3 Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.4 Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.5 Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.6 Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.7 FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.8 Window Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.9 Shift Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.10 The Programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.11 Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

5 MagicQ Layout 26

5.1 Physical layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

5.1.1 Touch Screen, Encoders & Soft Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

5.1.2 Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

5.1.3 Head Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5.1.4 Editor Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

5.1.5 Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.2 Keyboard, Keypad, Select & Conﬁrm Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.3 Common Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.3.1 Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

5.3.2 Setting the value of items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

5.3.3 Naming items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

5.3.4 Moving items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

5.3.5 Copying items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

5.3.6 Removing items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

5.3.7 Recording items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

5.4 Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

5.4.1 Actions on Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

6 Quick Start 33

6.1 Starting up MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

6.2 Calibrating the Touch Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

6.3 Starting a New Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

6.4 Enabling Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

6.4.1 Using Direct DMX Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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6.4.2 Using Outputs via network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

6.5 Connecting a MagicQ Playback Wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

6.5.1 Setting Playback Wing IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

6.6 Connecting External Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

6.6.1 Pro 2010 and Pro 2014 Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

6.6.2 Pro Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

6.7 Patching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

6.7.1 Naming and Numbering Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

6.8 Controlling Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

6.8.1 Selecting Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

6.8.2 Selecting heads from the Group/Heads Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6.8.3 Recording a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6.9 Naming a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6.10 Recalling a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6.11 Setting Levels for Dimmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

6.12 Locating Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

6.13 Modifying Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

6.14 Recording a Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

6.15 Adding in FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

6.16 Recording a Cue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

6.17 Recording a Cue Stack (Chase or Theatre Stack) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

6.18 Selecting and recording complete window layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

6.19 Saving the Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

6.20 Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

7 Patching 48

7.1 Patching on MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

7.2 Getting started with patching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

7.3 Patching a Head or Dimmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

7.4 Head Names and Head Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

7.4.1 Head Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

7.4.2 Head Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

7.4.3 Renumbering Head Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7.4.4 Patching to speciﬁc Head numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7.5 Gel name and number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7.6 Generating auto groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7.7 Multi Element Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7.8 Inverting and Swapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

7.9 Pan and Tilt Offsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

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7.10 Applying Offsets using Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

7.11 Minimum and Maximum levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

7.11.1 Limits and Offset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

7.12 Dimmer curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

7.13 Testing channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

7.14 Changing the DMX address of heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

7.15 Patching a Head to multiple DMX addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

7.16 Unpatching a Head from a DMX address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

7.17 Patching scrollers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

7.18 Editing Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

7.19 Cloning (Adding extra heads / dimmers to a programmed show) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7.19.1 Copy Head Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7.19.2 Patch Channel Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7.20 Morphing Heads (Changing Head type) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7.20.1 Morphing Multi Part Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

7.20.2 Morphing Heads with virtual dimmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

7.20.3 Morphing between CMY and colour wheel Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

7.21 Importing Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

7.22 Exporting Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

7.23 VL5 type channels (split personalities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

7.24 Merging with DMX input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

7.25 Customising Locate, Default, Highlight and Lowlight values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

7.26 Theatre Patch syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

7.27 Virtual Dimmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

7.27.1 Quickly adding Virtual Dimmers to patched heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

7.27.2 Heads always with virtual dimmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

7.28 Patch Head Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

8 Setting Intensity levels 62

8.1 Using the on screen faders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

8.2 Using the encoders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

8.3 Using the keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

8.3.1 Setting fade times from the keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

8.4 Multi Element Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

8.5 Setting intensity levels for DMX channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

8.6 Using Selected Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

8.7 Using gel colours in the Intensity Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

8.7.1 Programming of Dimmers using gel colours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

8.8 Setting levels whilst running a show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

8.9 Viewing Intensities in the Outputs Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

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9 Controlling Attributes 66

9.1 Selecting Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

9.2 Using Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

9.2.1 Recording a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

9.2.2 Naming a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

9.3 Selecting Heads using the keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

9.3.1 Selecting Heads on the keypad using @@ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

9.3.2 Selecting heads on the keypad without @@ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

9.3.3 Remove Dimmer (Rem Dim) Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

9.4 Selecting heads using the rig plan view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

9.5 Head Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

9.6 Locating Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

9.7 Modifying Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

9.8 Using a mouse or track-ball to control pan and tilt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

9.9 Flip / Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

9.10 Setting attribute values using the keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

9.11 Selecting individual Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

9.11.1 Single Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

9.11.2 Pair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

9.11.3 Odd/Even . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

9.11.4 Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

9.11.5 All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

9.11.6 Sub selecting Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

9.11.7 Sub selecting heads using speciﬁc palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

9.11.8 Changing Overall Selection order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

9.11.9 Sub selection of heads from Groups / Overall Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

9.12 Highlight Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

9.13 Lowlight function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

9.14 Reselecting heads using Palettes and Intensities (Active Palette and Intensity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

9.15 Fan Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

9.16 And Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

10 Palettes 76

10.1 Using Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

10.2 Recording Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

10.2.1 Recording individual attributes into a Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

10.2.2 Recording only the selected heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

10.3 Intensity Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

10.4 Naming Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

MagicQ User Manual viii

10.5 Updating Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

10.6 Copying and moving Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

10.7 Removing attributes from Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

10.8 Linked Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

10.9 Viewing / Editing Palette contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

10.10Using Palettes with times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

10.10.1 Using FAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

10.11Making Palettes into Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

10.12Selecting Palettes from the keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

10.13Merging of Palettes from another show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

10.14Modifying Palettes in the personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

10.15Grabbing Palettes from DMX input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

10.16Expanding Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

11 FX Engine 83

11.1 Adding in FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

11.1.1 FX Speed & Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

11.1.2 FX base values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

11.1.3 FX add modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

11.1.4 FX Spread (offsets over heads) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

11.1.5 FX Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

11.1.6 FX Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

11.1.7 FX Direction & Inversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

11.1.8 Width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

11.1.9 FX fade times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

11.1.10 FX delay times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

11.1.11 Initial spreads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

11.1.12 FX on CMY and RGB ﬁxtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

11.1.13 Flicker FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

11.1.14 Multiple FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

11.1.15 Joining / Splitting multiple FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

11.1.16 Modifying FX for selected Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

11.1.17 Changing FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

11.1.18 FX Reordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

11.1.19 Blocking FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

11.1.20 One Shot FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

11.2 Generating user FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

11.3 Editing user FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

11.4 Palette FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

11.5 FX colour ﬂicks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

11.6 FX using base colour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

11.7 FX Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

11.8 Importing and Exporting the FX Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

MagicQ User Manual ix

12 Programmer 95

12.1 What is in the programmer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

12.2 Clearing the programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

12.3 Activation by Channel or by Head? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

12.4 Recording a Cue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

12.4.1 Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

12.4.2 Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

12.4.3 FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

12.5 Split Cue Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

12.5.1 View Simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

12.5.1.1 Fade Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

12.5.2 View Advanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

12.6 Recording to a speciﬁc Cue Id . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

12.7 Snapshot Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

12.8 Record Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

12.8.1 Record Short cuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

12.8.2 Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

12.8.3 Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

12.9 Active . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

12.10Removing channels from the Programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

12.10.1 Removing channels using the REMOVE button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

12.10.2 Removing channels using the Programmer Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

12.11Making channels hard values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

12.12Copy between heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

12.13Blind programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

12.14Parking (freezing) channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

13 Outputs Windows 104

13.1 Heads View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

13.2 Intensity View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

13.3 DMX Channels View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

13.4 Movement View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

13.5 Plan View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

13.5.1 Creating rig plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

13.5.2 Selection of heads in Outputs Plan View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

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14 Editing Cues 109

14.1 Including Cues into the Programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

14.1.1 Including Cues at a speciﬁed level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

14.1.2 Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

14.2 Editing using Include and Update method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

14.3 Record Merge (Updating a Cue with the contents of the programmer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

14.4 Making changes to multiple Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

14.4.1 Changes to multiple Cues using keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

14.4.2 Changes to multiple Cues using Cue Stack window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

14.5 Editing using Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

14.6 Direct Modiﬁcation of Intensities in Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

14.7 Copy heads in Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

15 Cue Stacks 112

15.1 Cue Stack Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

15.2 Chase Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

15.3 Cue Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

15.3.1 Cue Timing Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

15.3.2 The Halt ﬁeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

15.3.3 Cue Delay and Fade times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

15.4 Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

15.4.1 Tracking on MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

15.4.2 Viewing Cue Data and Tracking Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

15.4.3 Copying Cues in tracking mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

15.4.4 Blocking / Unblocking Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

15.5 Cue Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

15.6 Mark Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

15.7 The Cue Store and Cue Stack Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

15.8 Assigning Cues and Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

15.9 Copying and Moving Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

15.10Linked Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

15.11Removing Cues and Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

15.12Cue Stack Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

15.13Audio Sound FX Cues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

15.14Cue Stack Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

15.15Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

15.16Selective copying of Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

15.17Creating a new Cue Stack for different heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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16 Playback 122

16.1 Playback Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

16.2 Activating and Releasing Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

16.3 Fader control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

16.4 Playback Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

16.4.1 Grand Master & Sub Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

16.4.2 Dead Black Out (DBO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

16.4.3 Add / Swap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

16.4.4 Page Select . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

16.4.5 Current Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

16.4.6 Playbacks across multiple Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

16.4.7 Manual Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

16.4.8 Goto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

16.4.9 Manual Split Crossfade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

16.4.10 Rate Sub Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

16.4.11 Tap to time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

16.4.12 Global Tap to Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

16.5 Playbacks Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

16.5.1 Testing playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

16.5.2 Naming playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

16.5.3 Copying and moving playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

16.5.4 Removing playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

16.5.5 Playback Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

16.6 Wing Playbacks Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

16.7 Default Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

16.8 Synchronising Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

16.9 Set lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

17 Cue Stack Options 130

17.1 Faders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

17.1.1 Fader activates stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

17.1.2 Fader releases stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

17.1.3 Fader controls HTP chans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

17.1.4 Fader controls LTP (IPCB) chans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17.1.5 Fader controls Absolute chans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17.1.6 Fader controls FX size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17.1.7 Fader controls FX speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17.1.8 Fader controls manual crossfades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17.2 Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

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17.2.1 Flash activates stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

17.2.2 Flash releases stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

17.2.3 Flash always swaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

17.2.4 Flash acts as Go/Pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

17.2.5 Flash acts as Flash + Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

17.2.6 Flash toggles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

17.2.7 Flash acts like fader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

17.2.8 Go jumps out of loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.2.9 Go exits loop after end . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.2.10 Go stop/starts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.2.11 Pause swaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.2.12 Pause releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.3 Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.3.1 Cue Stack is an Intensity Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

17.3.2 Cue Stack is a Size Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

17.3.3 Cue Stack is a Speed Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

17.3.4 Group ID (0 is not used) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

17.3.5 Cue stack is a Prog Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

17.3.6 Intensity Master to 200% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

17.4 Activate/Release . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.1 Halt at last step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.2 Release after last step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.3 Release resets to ﬁrst step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.4 Release steps 1 step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.5 Release time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.6 Activate on page change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.7 Release on page change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.4.8 HTP always active (Use HTP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

17.5 Advanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

17.5.1 All chans controlled LTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

17.5.2 Block FX from other playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

17.5.3 Masters affect level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

17.5.4 Playback priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

17.5.5 Move when dark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

17.5.6 Recalculate state on jumps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

17.5.7 Stomp other playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

17.5.8 Sync next Playback to this one . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

17.5.9 External timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

17.5.10 Send playback state to other consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

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17.6 Chase Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

17.6.1 Skip ﬁrst times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

17.6.2 Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.6.3 Xfade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.6.4 Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.6.5 Repeat type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.6.6 Number of repeats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.6.7 Running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.7 Chase Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.7.1 HTP in fade, HTP out fade, Position fade, Colour fade, Beam fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

17.8 Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

17.8.1 Audio bumps Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

17.8.2 Audio sets BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

17.8.3 Audio jumps to Cue Step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

17.8.4 Audio channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

17.8.5 Audio level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.8.6 Audio parameter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.8.7 Audio parameter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.8.8 Rate Divisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.9 Step (View Defaults only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.9.1 Step controlled as a chase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.9.2 Step follows last . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

17.9.3 Step halts before executing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.9.4 Zero old HTP (from previous steps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.9.5 Zero old FX (from previous steps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.9.6 Release old chans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.10Step Times (View Defaults only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.10.1 HTP in fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.11HTP out fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.11.1 Position fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

17.11.2 Colour fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.11.3 Beam fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.11.4 HTP in delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.11.5 HTP out delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.11.6 Position delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.11.7 Colour delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.11.8 Beam delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.12FX (View Defaults Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.12.1 Default in fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

17.12.2 Default out fade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

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18 Advanced Playback / Cue Stack Options 143

18.1 Interaction of HTP and LTP channels between Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

18.2 HTP handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

18.3 HTP always active (Use HTP) option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

18.4 LTP handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

18.5 Interaction of FX between Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

18.6 Playback Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

18.7 Playbacks ignore masters levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

18.8 Playback Stomping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

18.9 Group Masters (Inhibit Masters) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

18.9.1 Intensity Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

18.9.1.1 Group based Intensity Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

18.9.1.2 Channel based Intensity Masters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

18.9.2 FX Size and FX Speed Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

18.10Advanced activate and release options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

19 Live Programming (Busking) 147

19.1 Adding individual channels using preset faders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

19.2 Over-ride / take-over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

19.3 Viewing Cues and Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

19.4 Modifying chase speed / contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

19.5 Modifying FX parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

19.6 Stop / Starting Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

19.7 Jumping to a Cue in a Cue Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

19.8 Over-riding using the programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

19.9 Adding in new FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

19.10Applying palettes with time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

19.11Releasing / Clearing with time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

19.12Busking Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

19.13Programmer Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

20 Execute Window 151

20.1 Design View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

20.2 Full Screen View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

20.3 Password Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

20.4 Automated Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

20.5 Faders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

20.6 Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

20.7 Button appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

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20.8 Speed Encoders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

20.9 Attribute Encoders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

20.10Preload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

20.11Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

20.12Special Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

20.12.1 Changing Execute Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

20.12.2 Automating Setup options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

20.13Execute Window on ioS/Android remote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

21 Automation 156

21.1 MagicQ Automation Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

21.1.1 Autom Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

21.1.2 Autom Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

21.1.3 MIDI events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

21.1.4 Serial Port events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

21.2 Scheduled Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

21.2.1 Dates and days of the week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

21.2.2 Sunrise + Sunset (astronomical) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

21.3 Automated Start of Playbacks / Executes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

21.4 Keyboard macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

21.4.1 Quick Macro Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

21.4.2 Keyboard Macro Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

21.4.3 Recording Playback faders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

21.4.4 In built Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

21.4.5 Scheduled events in Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

22 LED & Pixel Mapping 161

22.1 Patching LED on MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

22.2 Using the Grid view in the Outputs Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

22.3 Inserting heads into the grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

22.4 Pixel Mapper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

22.4.1 Using Bitmaps, Movies, Text and FX on Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

22.4.2 Media Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

22.4.3 Inbuilt Bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

22.4.4 User Picture Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

22.4.5 Gobo / Colour Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

22.4.6 Movie support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

22.4.7 Live feed support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

22.4.7.1 MagicCap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

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22.4.7.2 MagicQ Media Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

22.4.8 Using text strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

22.4.9 Text display modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

22.4.10 Manipulating bitmaps and text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

22.4.11 Pixel Map FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

22.4.12 Pixel Map Audio FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

22.4.13 Mixing between Pixel Mapping layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

22.4.14 Colour Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

22.4.15 Apply Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

22.5 3D Pixel Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

22.5.1 Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

22.5.2 Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

22.5.2.1 Slide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

22.5.2.2 Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

22.5.2.3 Col Offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

22.5.2.4 Heightmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

22.5.3 Full Up and Fill Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

22.5.3.1 Particle bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

22.6 Multi Element Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

22.7 Making Grids of Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

22.7.1 Auto Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

22.8 Programming LED using standard FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

22.8.1 Using groups auto generated from the grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

22.9 Making groups out of LED pixels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

22.10Making new LED personalities on MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

23 Controlling Media Servers 188

23.1 Patching Media Servers on MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

23.2 Connecting via network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

23.2.1 Setting up control of the Media Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

23.3 Conﬁguring MagicQ to retrive thumbnails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

23.3.1 MagicHD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

23.3.2 Arkaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

23.3.3 Catalyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

23.3.4 Coolux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

23.3.5 Hippotizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

23.3.6 Maxedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

23.3.7 Mbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

23.3.8 Other Media Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

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23.4 Thumbnail view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

23.5 Live Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

23.6 Media Window View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

23.7 Using MagicQ and Media Server software on the same PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

23.7.1 Using MagicHD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

23.7.2 Using the loopback IP address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

23.8 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

23.8.1 CITP (MSEX) live feeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

24 Head Editor 195

24.1 How Heads are stored in MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

24.2 Loading new heads into MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

24.3 Modifying existing heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

24.4 Removing old heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

24.5 General View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

24.5.1 Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

24.5.2 DMX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

24.5.3 Params . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

24.5.4 Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

24.5.5 Multi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

24.5.6 Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

24.6 Channels View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

24.7 Ranges View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

24.7.1 Importing Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

24.7.2 Capturing Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

24.7.3 Attribute Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

24.8 Palettes View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

24.8.1 Importing Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

24.8.2 Capturing Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

24.8.3 Attribute Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

24.9 Macros View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

24.10User Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

24.11Heads with multiple elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

24.11.1 Patching Heads with Duplicated attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

25 Curve Editor 206

25.1 Creating a curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

25.2 Editing a curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

25.3 Setting a dimmer curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

MagicQ User Manual xviii

26 FX Editor 208

26.1 View General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

26.2 View Chans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

26.3 Palette FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

27 Network Manager (SnakeSys) 210

27.1 Normal (non ChamNet mode) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

27.2 ChamNet Mode (MQ Net) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

27.3 Upgrading SnakeSys ﬁrmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

27.4 Older ChamSys 4 Port Ethernet interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

27.5 Output Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

28 Networking of MagicQ systems 213

28.1 Network addresses and host names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

28.1.1 Setting IP addresses on a PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

28.2 Checking IP addresses - Ping Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

28.3 Checking consoles on the network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

28.4 Grabbing shows from other consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

28.5 Zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

28.6 Setting up Network Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

28.6.1 Manual Takeover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

28.6.2 Auto Takeover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

28.6.3 Inhibit Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

28.7 Multi Console Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

28.7.1 Checking Slave synchronisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

28.8 Selective Channel Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

28.8.1 Selecting which console controls which channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

28.9 Inter Console Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

29 Manual conﬁguration of Multi Console operation 222

29.1 Manual conﬁguratuion of Hot take-over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

29.1.1 Hot Takeover Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

29.1.2 Hot take-over type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

29.1.3 Swapping control between multiple consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

29.2 Manual conﬁguration of Playback synchronisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

29.2.1 Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

29.2.2 Conﬁguring which consoles Playback sync to which consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

29.3 Manual conﬁguration of Show Data Synchronisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

29.4 Manual conﬁguration of Selective Channel Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

29.5 Automatic backing up of shows from other consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

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30 Remote control of MagicQ 228

30.1 Remote mode (PC/Mac) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

30.2 Remote control from MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

30.3 iOS / Android Remote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

30.3.1 Setting up an access point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

30.3.2 MagicQ Pro 2010 / Pro 2014 Console with USB to Wireless interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

30.3.2.1 Making a connection to MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

30.3.2.2 Modifying palettes with the remote app . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

30.3.2.3 Using the Execute Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

30.3.2.4 Idiot user mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

30.4 Remote control via web server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

30.4.1 Custom Web Server pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

30.5 Remote control using Magic Wand simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

31 ChamSys Remote Protocol Commands 237

31.1 Remote Playback Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

31.1.1 Remote programming commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

31.1.2 Attribute numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

32 Controlling MagicQ using TCP/IP 240

32.1 ChamSys Remote Ethernet Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

32.2 Writing to the network port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

32.3 Reading from the network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

32.4 Sample code fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

33 Controlling MagicQ using serial port 245

33.1 Enabling the serial port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

33.2 Writing to the serial port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

33.3 Reading from the serial port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

34 Audio 247

34.1 Audio Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

34.1.1 Audio input ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

34.1.2 Audio options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

34.1.3 Global audio settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

34.1.4 Cue Stack audio options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

34.1.5 Pixel Mapper and Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

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35 MIDI 249

35.1 MIDI Notes Receive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

35.1.1 MIDI Autom events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

35.1.2 MIDI mapping ﬁle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

35.1.3 Advanced MIDI mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

35.1.4 Default miditable.txt ﬁle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

35.2 MIDI Notes Transmit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

35.3 MIDI problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

35.4 MIDI Show Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

35.4.1 MIDI Show Control Command Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

35.5 MagicQ MIDI/Timecode ﬁrmware versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

36 Timecode Support 254

36.1 Timecode Decode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

36.2 Enabling / Disabling Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

36.3 Using External Timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

36.4 Timecode Simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

36.5 Learn Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

36.6 Timecode Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

36.7 Timecode Re-transmit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

37 Remote Input port 258

37.1 Connection (MagicQ Consoles, MagicQ PC Wing Compact and MagicQ MaxiWing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

37.2 Connection (Original PC Wing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

37.3 Enabling the remote input in MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

38 Scene Setter 261

38.1 Powering the Scene Setter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

38.2 Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

38.3 Using the Scene Setter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

38.4 Changing the IP Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

38.5 Setting up the Serial Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

39 MagicQ Visualiser 264

39.1 MagicVis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

39.1.1 Using the Separate MagicVis Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

39.1.2 Using MagicVis with other consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

39.1.3 Using the Visualiser in MagicQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

39.2 Using MagicVis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

39.2.1 Patching Fixtures in the Visualiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

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39.2.2 View Vis View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

39.2.3 Positioning the Heads in the Visualisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

39.2.4 Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

39.2.5 Attaching Heads to Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

39.2.6 Modifying Beam Angle and Fixture Shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

39.2.7 Visualising Media Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

39.2.8 Moving Trusses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

39.2.9 Coloured objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

39.2.10 DMX Controlled Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

39.2.11 Removing Visualiser Heads and Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

39.2.12 Changing the Size of the Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

39.2.13 Paperwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

39.2.14 Converting an Existing MagicQ Show File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

39.2.15 Converting a MagicQ Grid Into a Visualisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

39.2.16 Visualiser Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

39.2.17 Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

40 Blind Visualisation 274

40.1 Split Visualisation in MagicVis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

41 Using MagicQ with other Visualisers 275

41.1 Connecting to a Visauliser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

41.2 Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

41.2.1 Receiving Patch Data from Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

41.3 WYSIWYG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

41.3.1 Enabling MagicQ to output WYSIWYG data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

41.3.2 Running WYSIWYG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

41.3.3 Auto Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

41.3.4 Auto Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

41.3.5 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

41.4 ESP Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

42 Settings 279

42.1 Programming Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

42.2 Playback Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

42.3 Output Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

42.3.1 Conﬁguring Output Universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

42.3.2 Using Art-Net II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

42.3.3 SnakeSys T2/B4/R4/R8/ChamSys Ethernet Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

42.3.4 MagicQ Consoles Direct Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

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42.3.5 MagicQ Mini/PC/Maxi wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

42.3.6 MagicQ Dual DMX Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

42.3.7 MagicDMX Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

42.3.8 Testing Output Universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

42.3.9 Copying Output Universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

42.3.10 Hot take-over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

42.4 Wing Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

42.4.1 Connecting a Mini Wing, PC Wing or Maxi Wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

42.4.2 Connecting Playback Wings and Extra Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

42.4.3 Connecting an Execute Wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

42.4.4 Using a MQ60/MQ70 as a network wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

42.4.5 Connecting MagicQ consoles together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

42.4.6 Using an external DMX console for extra playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

42.5 Monitor Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

42.5.1 Pro 2010 and Pro 2014 Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

42.5.2 Pro (pre Pro 2010) Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

42.5.3 Compact (MQ60/MQ70) Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

42.5.4 Monitor settings on MagicQ PC / Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

42.5.5 Moving Windows to the External Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

42.5.6 Additional Cue Stack, Output and Programmer Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

42.5.7 Additional external screens (MultiWindows) on consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

42.6 Touch Screen Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

42.6.1 Serial protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

42.6.2 USB protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

42.6.3 Conﬁguring an external Touch Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

42.7 Mode & Security Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

42.7.1 Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

42.7.2 Time Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

42.7.3 Latitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

42.7.4 Longitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

42.7.5 Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.6 Modiﬁcations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.7 Test Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.8 Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.9 Visualiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.10 Auto Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.11 Keep a backup archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.12 Show ﬁle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

42.7.13 Show ﬁle format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

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42.8 Programming Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

42.8.1 Activate Chans / Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

42.8.2 Programmer Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

42.8.3 Unused Chans return to defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

42.8.4 Programmer overrides HTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

42.8.5 Programmer overrides FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

42.8.6 Highlight mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.8.7 Fan Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.8.8 Select Multiple Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.8.9 Recording to Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.8.10 Record merge overrides times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.8.11 Update Clears Programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.9 Keypad / Encoder Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.9.1 Auto enter on keypad intensity set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

42.9.2 Select heads on keypad intensity set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

42.9.3 Select Heads and Palettes from keypad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

42.9.4 Select heads on include . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

42.9.5 Keypad always selects heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

42.9.6 Keypad Syntax (Theatre Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

42.9.7 Encoder Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

42.9.8 Swap pan and tilt encoders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

42.9.9 Swap Encoder direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

42.9.10 Swap Palette and Cursor Page Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

42.9.11 MagicQ keyboard mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

42.9.12 Map Keys to THRU, @, FULL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

42.9.13 Enable Mouse to control pan/tilt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

42.10Windows Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

42.10.1 Colour Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

42.10.2 Big Text Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.3 Icon Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.4 Speed Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.5 Attribute Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.6 Column Hiding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.7 Auto Row Ordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.8 Conﬁrmation requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.9 Scroll bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.10Layout buttons always active . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.11Start mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

42.10.12Always show Record Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

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42.10.13Force Window on External Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.10.14Plan Intensity type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.10.15Message Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.11Cue Storage Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.11.1 Delete Cues when delete Cue Stacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.11.2 Delete Cue Stacks on remove Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.11.3 Use ﬁrst free Cues, Stacks, Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

42.11.4 Copy mode (linked/unlinked) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.11.5 Derive settings from previous Cue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.11.6 Hide Cue Store Ids (Qids) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.11.7 Expand palettes to same head type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.11.8 Heads moved aside are unpatched . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.12Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.12.1 Grand Master function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

42.12.2 Sub Master function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

42.12.3 Crossfade Master function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

42.13Crossfade button function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

42.13.1 Split Crossfade on PB9/PB10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

42.13.2 Crossfade controls Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.3 Stomp Playbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.4 Intensity (HTP) FX can subtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.5 Go reasserts channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.6 Fader off zero reasserts channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.7 Next Page changes to next used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.8 Current Playback follows last touched . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.9 Playbacks S + GO = PAUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

42.13.10Tap to Time buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

42.13.11Activate playbacks on start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

42.13.12Run in Execute Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

42.14Network Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

42.14.1 IP Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

42.14.2 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.3 Send to applications on this PC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.4 Ethernet remote protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.5 Playback Sync Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.6 Web Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.7 Web Server Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.8 Gateway address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

42.14.9 Control net IP address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

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42.14.10Control net subnet mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.11Wireless Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.12Wireless IP address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.13Wireless subnet mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.14Wireless channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.15Wireless SSID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.16Wireless encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

42.14.17Wireless key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15Port Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.1 MagicQ Wings and Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.2 MagicDMX mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.3 Serial COM port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.4 Serial baud rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.5 Serial parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.6 Serial data bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.7 Serial stop bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

42.15.8 Serial remote protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

42.15.9 Serial touch monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

42.15.10Remote trigger type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

42.15.11Remote trigger action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

42.15.12Audio input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.15.13Audio Min / Max Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.15.14Parallel Port Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.15.15Monitor Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.16MIDI / Timecode Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.16.1 Timecode frame type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.16.2 Timecode continue frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.16.3 Timecode jump detect frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

42.16.4 Timecode decode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.16.5 Timecode generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.16.6 MIDI In Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.16.7 MIDI In Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.16.8 MIDI Out Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.16.9 Midi Out Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.16.10MIDI Show Control Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.17Multiple Console Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.17.1 Enable remote access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

42.17.2 Enable remote control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.3 Net Session Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

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42.17.4 Net Session ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.5 Hot Takeover Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.6 Hot Takeover Detect Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.7 Hot Takeover Fade Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.8 Hot Takeover Fade Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.9 Playback Sync Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.10Playback Sync IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

42.17.11Playback Sync Slave Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.17.12Show data Sync Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.17.13Show data Sync IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18Hardware Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.1 Level above 0 to activate LTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.2 Hysteresis on fader / encoder moves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.3 Encoder Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.4 Touch Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.5 Encoders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.6 Faulty Faders Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

42.18.7 Power Fail Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

42.18.8 Screen Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

42.18.9 Reduced rate output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

42.18.10Movie Buffer frames (0=use default) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

42.18.11Debug Mode (Must be 0) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.18.12Standard Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.18.13Extended Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.19General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.19.1 Splash screen image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.20Individual Playback Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.21Calibrating the touch screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.22Displays brightness and contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

42.23Console lamp brightness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

42.24Button LED brightness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

42.25Controlling console lamp from the programmed show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

42.26Locking the console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

42.27Button test mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

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43 System Management 318

43.1 Starting Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

43.2 Shutting Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

43.3 Saving Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

43.3.1 Show ﬁle name auto increment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

43.4 Backing up to an external system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

43.5 Loading Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

43.6 Erasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

43.6.1 Icon Snapshots / Extras ﬁle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

43.7 Import and Export of Show Data and Show Merging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

43.7.1 Exporting Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

43.7.2 Merging / Importing Shows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

43.7.3 Merging different versions of the same show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

43.7.4 USITT ASCII ﬁle import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

43.8 Saving and Loading Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

43.9 File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

43.10Transferring ﬁles over network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

43.11Status Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

43.12Backup Archives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

43.13Using shows on different MagicQ products and show versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

43.13.1 Loading a show onto a smaller console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

43.13.2 Conﬁguring number of Universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

43.14MagicQ Proﬁles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

44 Software Upgrade 325

44.1 Changing MagicQ Console Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

44.1.1 Pro series (MQ100, MQ200, MQ300, MQ200 Execute, MQ300 Execute) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

44.2 Upgrading Console Kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

44.2.1 Kernel Install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

44.3 Kernel Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

44.3.1 Recovering "No more processes left in this runlevel" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

44.4 Disc Repair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

44.4.1 Console Command Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

44.5 Resetting a MagicQ console to factory defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

44.6 Upgrading MQ40/60/70 ﬁrmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

44.7 Upgrading Pro 2014 DMX card ﬁrmware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

45 Handy Hints 332

46 MagicQ Short Cuts 333

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47 Troubleshooting 339

47.1 No outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

47.2 MagicQ not responding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

47.3 MagicQ responding slowly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

47.4 Strange key presses, unexpected window changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

47.5 MagicQ console not booting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

47.6 MagicQ console blank screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

47.7 MagicQ console white screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

47.8 MagicQ console distorted screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

47.9 MagicQ console internal touch screen not working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

47.10Fader, Encoder or Button not working correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

48 Button Functions 342

49 Licensing 351

50 Glossary 352

MagicQ User Manual xxix

This manual is designed for operators of the MagicQ to help them quickly and effectively learn how to use the system. It has been written by lighting designers for lighting designers. The reader is assumed to have a basic familiarity with the concepts of lights and lighting control systems.

The manual starts with an introduction to the MagicQ lighting console its features, functions and concepts. It then moves into detailed descriptions of patching, programming and playback.

Readers who are tight for time and just want to ﬁnd out how to quickly program a working show should read the Quick Start guide.

ChamSys Ltd

The features and functions of the MagicQ software and consoles and the ideas contained therein are the property of ChamSys Ltd. The console is intended for the control of lighting systems. No warranties are expressed or implied regarding the use of the MagicQ software of lighting consoles. No liabilities are accepted for the accuracy of the information contained within this manual.

MagicQ software and MagicQ lighting console products are supplied, designed and manufactured by ChamSys Ltd.

Products containing ChamSys Ltd software and ﬁrmware embody proprietary information and are licensed not sold and may not be duplicated in any way.

ChamSys Ltd does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, suitability or completeness of any information or products and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from use of such information or products.

ChamSys Ltd does not accept responsibility for the consequences of misuse or abuse of its equipment. The equipment is designed to meet all current regulation requirements in the UK for electrical products.

None of the equipment or software supplied by ChamSys Ltd may be used in any life-critical or potentially life-endangering situations or in situations where personal injury may result.

ChamSys Ltd reserves the right to make any changes and/or improvements or to discontinue any and all of their product’s or service’s without prior notice, and advises customers to obtain the latest version of relevant information to verify, before placing orders, that information being relied on is current and complete. All products are sold subject to the terms and conditions of sale supplied at the time of order acknowledgement, including those pertaining to warranty, patent infringement, and limitation of liability. Some of the available functions of products may be altered over the life of the product.

The ChamSys Ltd range of products meet EU directives where applicable, for example the EMC and LVD directives, as laid down by the European Community and ChamSys Ltd has a policy of regularly testing samples to ensure that production units continue to meet these speciﬁcations.

ChamSys Ltd will not accept goods back for repair if the serial number sticker is removed or defaced so that it is illegible. This also applies to warranty repairs. See terms and conditions of sale for full details.

All other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the prior written permission of ChamSys Ltd.

www.chamsys.co.uk

MagicQ User Manual 1 / 355

Chapter 1

Introduction

MagicQ supports an extensive array of features to enable lighting designers to quickly and easily realise their innovative and imaginative designs.

• Sixty four full 512 channel universes (32768 channels)

• Up to 202 playbacks

• DMX512, Art-Net I, II and III, Pathport, ACN and many 3rdparty DMX dongles

• Extensive personality library

• In-built personality editor

• In-built Pixel Mapping

• Advanced Media Server control

• Colour mixing library including Lee and Rosco colours

• Flexible control of both heads and generic lighting

• Cloning and Morphing of heads

• Thousands of cues and cue stacks

• Naming of all items

• Virtually unlimited internal show storage & show merging

• FX generator with extensive FX library

• Immediate control of any chase / FX parameter

• Fully featured and enabled PC/Mac version

• Comprehensive multi console networking

• Remote control via consoles, tablets, and phone applications

• Export and import of patch data to spreadsheets / databases

• DMX input, over-riding, merging and testing option

MagicQ has been designed to be as ﬂexible as possible so that it can be used equally well for pre-programmed shows / tours or for busking festivals. All parameters can be changed during run at the touch of a button.

Ease of use and speed of programming have been at the forefront of the design process ensuring patching and programing a show in the minimum amount of time without complex button sequences and multi level menus.

The ﬁrst few chapters of this guide describe an overview of MagicQ including scenes, chases, fx and playbacks. If you wish to go straight into programming a show then turn to the Quick Start section.

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1.1 MagicQ software and consoles

MagicQ software runs on PCs, Macs and MagicQ consoles and has the same features and user interface on all systems.

MagicQ software enables shows to be pre-programmed on a PC (Windows, Mac or Linux) enabling Lighting Designers to design and program their shows in advance. Shows can be transferred between PC, Mac and MagicQ consoles using USB memory sticks, or via direct network connection.

MagicQ PC / Mac supports the same functionality and user interface as the physical consoles making it easy to move between the two products. MagicQ PC / Mac can also be used to run complete shows, either as a back-up to the main console or as console in its own right.

MagicQ consoles are available in several different models all using the powerful MagicQ software on a Linux operating system giving a reliable operating environment for programming and playback of shows. A show can be programmed on one model and then played back on a different model.

MagicQ supports 202 playbacks in total – which can be be accessed through physical playbacks or through the touch screen. The different models in the MagicQ console series have different numbers of physical playbacks and buttons, enabling the size of console to be matched to the show.

Connecting MagicQ usb Wings to MagicQ PC / Mac gives the playback and programming control of the MagicQ consoles (faders, encoders and buttons) but with a small low cost lightweight solution.

DMX512 serial outputs are available from MagicQ software on PC/Mac using the MagicDMX interface, directly from all MagicQ consoles and from the Mini Wing, PC Wing and Maxi Wing.

MagicQ supports Art-Net I, Art-Net II, Art-Net III, Pathport and ACN streaming DMX network outputs from PC, Mac or MagicQ consoles. MagicQ consoles have multiple network ports for connecting to Art-Net, Pathport and ACN installations.

1.2 MagicQ Pro Series

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MagicQ Pro series is built on the MagicQ MQ100 console and the MagicQ Playback Wing and MagicQ Execute Wing. The MagicQ MQ200 is a MQ100 with a Playback Wing physically connected whilst the MQ300 has two Playback Wings connected. The MQ200 Execute and MQ300 Execute have a Playback Wing replaced with an Execute Wing.

The MagicQ Playback Wing provides 24 additional fader playbacks split into two banks of 12.

The MagicQ Execute Wing provides 48 additional playbacks - one bank of 12 fader playbacks and three banks of 12 button playbacks.

The MagicQ MQ100 Pro-E is an entry level version of the MQ100 Pro console with reduced universes and connectivity.

The picture below shows the connections on a MQ100 Pro 2010 console. The MQ200 Pro 2010 and MQ300 Pro 2010 have the same connectors with the addition of extra console lamp sockets.

Pro 2014 consoles are the same except that they have a MIDI/SMPTE interface ﬁtted in one of the expansion modules.

MagicQ MQ100 Pro-E (originally Expert) consoles have a similar rear panel but with only one network port and two (non locking) USB ports. MQ100 Pro-E consoles do not have VGA ports for additional monitors.

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1.3 MagicQ Compact Series

MagicQ Compact series comprises the MagicQ MQ40, MagicQ MQ60 and MagicQ MQ70 consoles together with the MagicQ Extra Wing for more faders and buttons.

1.4 MagicQ Wings for use with PC/Mac

The MagicQ Mini Wing, MagicQ PC Wing and MagicQ Maxi Wing connect directly to a PC or Mac. The PC or Mac runs the MagicQ software and processes the Cues whilst the wing acts as a physical surface with faders, buttons and encoders and outputs DMX.

1.5 Plugging Up

All MagicQ consoles and SnakeSys interfaces have auto ranging power supplies and can accept 110V to 240V AC on the blue powercon socket.

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• Connect the power lead to the power socket labelled LINE INPUT.

• Put the console lamp(s) into the console lamp socket(s)

• Connect the keyboard to the socket on the back panel marked KEYBOARD

MagicQ Pro 2010, Pro 2014 and Compact consoles support USB keyboards and mice. It is not necessary to connect the mouse. The mouse is only required if the touch screen becomes damaged.

1.6 DMX Connections

The MagicQ Pro, Pro 2010 and Pro 2014 series of consoles have 4 direct DMX outputs on the rear of the panel so you can connect your DMX cables direct to the console.

Alternatively you can connect to an Ethernet network using the Art-Net, Pathport or ACN Streaming DMX protocols and use external Ethernet to DMX converters to output the DMX.

The network ports on the Pro 2010, Pro 2014 and Compact series all have auto MDI/MDIX detection so a normal or inverted network cable can be used to connect to other network devices. Most modern laptops and computers also have auto MDI/MDIX detection.

ChamSys offer a range of Ethernet to DMX convertors including the SnakeSys T2, B4, R4 and R8 Ethernet to DMX interfaces. These can be used to convert any of the 64 Art-Net or ACN Streaming DMX universes to be output on DMX512 serial. For systems requiring all 64 universes on DMX512, multiple interfaces may be used connected via network switches.

1.7 Powering Up

To power up the console press the power switch on the rear panel. The blue LEDs on the ten S buttons will light up in turn. After a few seconds the screen will come to life and you will see the operating system quickly performing self tests. Once the self tests are completed the MagicQ application is started.

1.8 Powering Down

To power down the console it is necessary to quit the MagicQ application. The console operating system then performs an automatic shutdown and turns itself off when complete. To quit the MagicQ application, press the SETUP button and then the QUIT soft button. When asked for conﬁrmation, press the YES.

Note that just removing the power cord to the console will not have the desired effect since the internal UPS continues to provide power.

If for some reason you are unable to power off the console then you may need to reset it as below.

1.9 Resetting the Console

Under rare circumstance it may be necessary to reset the console.

To reset the console, press SETUP to go to the Setup Window and press SHIFT and QUIT. This performs an immediate soft reset of the console - the MagicQ application will be running the show again within about 2-3 seconds.

If for some reason the console does not respond to button presses then try pressing CTRL BREAK on the external keyboard (hold CTRL whilst pressing BREAK).

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If this has no effect then a hard reset may be required. Hard resets should be avoided as they bypass the operating system shutdown procedures and may cause problems with the ﬁle system. To perform a hard reset, press and hold the reset button on the back panel for 5 seconds.

To force the console to power off completely, press and hold the reset button on the back panel until it powers off (approximately 10 seconds.)

1.10 Power Supply Protection

MagicQ MQ60, MQ70, MQ100, MQ200 and MQ300 have an internal battery designed to protect the system against short term power losses on troublesome power supplies. The internal battery is not designed to support the running of the console for long periods of time. If the power is lost then the console will prompt the user to ﬁx the problem or to shut down the console. The battery when fully charged will support the console for between 5 and 15 minutes.

If your version of the console does not have an internal battery then we recommend the use of a UPS (Un-interruptible Power Supply).

1.11 Care of your MagicQ console

• To keep your MagicQ console in best condition please observe the following recommendations:

• Keep liquids away from the MagicQ. Drinks split over your console may cause irreparable damage.

• Keep the console out of direct sunlight – place the console in the shade.

• Do not use the console outside its operating temperature range.

• Handle the console with care when moving or transporting it. The console contains components that may be damaged by shock. Always use a padded ﬂight case or padded bag wherever possible.

• Do not use solvents or cleansers to clean the console. Do not rub ﬁrmly on the metal or plastic surfaces – this may cause the paint or lettering to be removed. Gently use a damp cloth to clean the panels.

1.12 Safety Information

• Do not open the front, rear or lower panels of the console unless you have electrical expertise. The console contains components with voltages that may shock.

• Do not use the console if the power cables are damaged in any way.

• Repairs should only be undertaken by authorised service representatives.

• If liquids are spilt over the console then remove power immediately, and seek advice from your authorised service representative.

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Chapter 2

Installing MagicQ Software & Drivers

2.1 MagicQ software

MagicQ software runs on PCs and Macs and can be downloaded free from the ChamSys web site www.chamsys.co.uk/download.

2.2 MagicDMX

MagicDMX devices do NOT need any additional drivers – they use HID drivers within the operating system. Simply plug in the device and start MagicQ.

To conﬁrm that the MagicDMX is operating correctly go to Setup, View System, View status, Interfaces. The MagicDMX Status should say "Connected" and "DMX out".

MagicDMX is enabled as DMX output by default. It can be disable/enabled from Setup, View Setings, Ports, MagicDMX.

When ﬁrst plugged in the MagicDMX alternates green and orange LEDs every second. When MagicQ is started and connects to the device then the green LED is on permanently and the orange ﬂashes faster as it receives data from MagicQ.

2.3 MagicQ Wings & Interfaces

MagicQ Wings and MagicQ DMX interfaces (Dual DMX, Audio, MIDI/SMPTE) use a USB chipset made by FTDI which requires the installation of the correct drivers.

After the drivers have been installed then MagicQ can be started and the Wing/Interface should be detected. Ensure the setting “Setup, View Settings, Ports, MagicQ Wings & Interfaces” is set to “Yes (auto DMX)”

Note that the drivers for MagicQ Wings and MagicQ DMX interfaces ARE NOT applicable to MagicDMX Basic or MagicDMX Full. Do not attempt to install drivers for MagicDMX.

2.4 MagicQ on Windows

On Windows the FTDI drivers for MagicQ Wings and MagicQ Interfaces must be installed manually as Windows is not able to detect the products correctly. The MagicQ installation includes the drivers in the folder

C:\ProgramFiles\ChamSys Ltd\Magicq\MagicQ Wing Drivers. On 64 bit systems MagicQ is installed in Program Files (x86) instead of Program Files.

Disconnect all MagicQ Wings and Interfaces except the one you are trying to install the driver for.

MagicQ User Manual 8 / 355

Open Device Manager. This is found in different places depending on the version of Windows, but it can normally be accessed by opening Control Panel and then selecting System and Device Manager.

Device Manager lists all the devices on your system. The MagicQ device is normally listed at the bottom under Universal Serial Bus Controllers but it may be under any other section. It may be listed as a ChamSys or MagicQ device or just as a FTDI device. If you can not ﬁnd it then try disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable to the device - the listing should update and indicate to you which device is being plugged/unplugged.

MagicQ User Manual 9 / 355

MagicQ User Manual 10 / 355

When you have identiﬁed the device then right click and press Update Driver.

Select "Browse My Computer for Driver Software (Locate and Install Driver Software Manually)". Do not let Windows search for a driver.

Select the option "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer".

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Select "Have Disk". If you cannot ﬁnd "Have Disk" then click on items in the list until you get it.

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For PC Wing Compacts the drivers are in c:\Program Files\ChamSys Ltd\Magicq\MagicQ Wing Drivers\PC Wing Compact\CDM

2.08.24 WHQL Certiﬁed\ftdibus.inf

PC Wing Compacts require MagicQ software version 1.5.8.0 or above.

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For all other products the drivers are in c:\Program Files\ChamSys Ltd\Magicq\MagicQ Wing Drivers\FTDI\chamsys.inf

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2.5 MagicQ on Mac

MagicQ on Mac includes all the required drivers and no action should be required to install them. MagicQ Wings and Interfaces must be powered up and connected to the Mac before MagicQ is started.

KNOWN ISSUE: With OSX10.10 Apple FTDI drivers are not compatible with MagicQ Wings and Hardware. MagicQ Version

1.6.7.1 onwards now includes a utility to disable the Apple FTDI Driver and use the correct drivers. To Disable the Apple FTDI

drivers, run MagicQ and select the option to disable the Apple FTDI driver from the Tools menu at the top of the window. MagicQ will ask for your system password and then conﬁrm the driver is disabled, so the correct drivers can then be used. Quit MagicQ and restart for the wing to be detected.

This operation only needs to be carried out after a clean install or OSX update.

On OSX 10.9 Mavericks you may need to move the mouse pointer whilst MagicQ is starting to avoid a problem in OSX whereby the mouse/keyboard become unresponsive.

Due to Apple compatibility issues, MagicQ version 1.5.9.9 or higher is required when running on OSX 10.9 Mavericks.

We recommend you disable Computer sleep and turn off App Nap to avoid MagicQ being shutdown inadvertently.

2.5.1 Turning off App Nap

• Quit MagicQ

• From the OSX Finder, navigate to the /Applications/MagicQ folder

• Select MagicQ.app, then go to the “File” menu and select “Get Info” (or select the app and hit Command+i)

• Check the box for “Prevent App Nap”, found under the General section of Get Info

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2.5.2 Making the MagicQ folder writeable

If you get the message "Cannot write ﬁle" when trying to save a show ﬁle, or your settings changes are not saved then check that the MagicQ folder and all its subfolders have both read and write permission.

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2.6 MagicQ on Linux

We recommend that only users familiar with Linux based operating systems try to use MagicQ under Linux. We cannot provide generic support on how to set your system up, but there are many forums and communities online which will be able to.

To install MagicQ on Linux based systems, we recommend a Debian based operating system, either Debian Wheezy, or Ubuntu

14.04 LTS.

To use MagicQ Wings and MagicQ Interfaces Linux requires the ftdi_sio kernel driver which is included as part of most standard kernel installations.

There are two ways to install MagicQ, either through an apt repository, where you can get automatic updates, or by manually downloading the installer.

To install using the repository to your system, run the following command to add our public key to your apt keystore

wget http://repo.magicq.co.uk/magicq.co.uk.gpg -qO -| sudo apt-key add -

Then add the following line to the bottom of your /etc/apt/sources.list ﬁle:

deb http://repo.magicq.co.uk/magicq/magicq main

Update your package list in apt by running apt-get update, then you can install MagicQ by running apt-get install magicq. If you wish to follow our beta release channel, then use apt-get install magicq-beta instead.

To run MagicQ, simply goto your launcher menu, and select "MagicQ". Currently MagicQ will need root permissions to run to be able to access any USB interfaces.

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Chapter 3

Using MagicQ on PCs and Macs

The MagicQ software for PCs and Macs has exactly the same features as the MagicQ console software with support for 64 Universes. All 64 Universes are enabled and can be used. A wide range of 3rdparty USB interfaces are supported on Universe 1.

When MagicQ PC or Mac is installed for the ﬁrst time, it will show a window with choices of demo shows.

This window can be hidden on subsequent starts by pressing the "Hide Options Next Time" button. It can be reactivated by setting the Setup, View Settings, Windows, Start Mode option to "Choose Demo show".

3.1 Simple Generic Console

Choosing Simple Generic Console opens MagicQ in Simple View and loads a Simple 48 Channel Generic Console show ﬁle.

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In this mode the console simply operates as a 48 channel traditional theatre console with 48 dimmers patched on Universe 1 at channels 1 through 48.

If a MagicQ Wing, MagicQ Dual DMX Interface or MagicDMX interface is connected to MagicQ then the 48 channels will be automatically output on the 1stoutput.

There are 10 Playback Faders labelled PB1 to PB10. Depending on your screen resolution you may have a S, > and || button for each fader. Pressing in the box labelled PB1 to PB10 is the same as pressing the appropriate S button.

To record a Cue set the faders as required. Then press REC and press the S button of the Playback fader you wish to record it to.

Press CLEAR to clear the Programmer and retrun the faders to their defaults.

To record a chase, record multiple Cues to a Playback fader simply record more than one cue to a Playback fader.

To remove the Cues from a fader press REM and press the S button of the Playback fader you wish to remove Cues from.

To name a fader press SET and press the S button of the Playback fader you wish to name. You will be shown a text entry box. Type the name followed by RETURN.

Multiple pages of faders are supported through the Next Page / Previous Page buttons.

It is possible to interchange between the Normal and Simple views of the console by pressing the Norm and Simple buttons in the top right corner of the Application.

3.2 Technician Test Fixture

The Techincian Test Fixture mode enables technicians to test a moving light or other ﬁxture in a very simple way. Simply press the TEST SHOW soft button and select a ﬁxture and a mode.

A new show will be created using that ﬁxture patched at DMX address 1 on the ﬁrst Universe. The 48 faders show up to 48 channels of the ﬁxture. Each fader is named with the attribute name and the values are set to their default values.

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The picture below shows a Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 1200 in Standard mode.

The Playback faders are automatically set up with some useful functions including Macros for Lamp On, Reset and Lamp Off, Locate and Movement, Colour, Gobo and Strobe tests.

If a MagicQ Wing, MagicQ Twin DMX Interface or MagicDMX interface is connected to MagicQ then the ﬁxture will be controlled on the 1stoutput.

The preset faders can be used to change the values of individual attributes. Use SHIFT and the faders to make a ﬁne adjustment.

3.3 Demo Shows

The start up Window gives also gives a choice of a standard Lighting demo show or a PixelMapping demo show.

Additional demo shows for other ﬁxture types, media servers and visualisers can be found by going to Setup, View Settings, Load Show and selecting the demo show folder.

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3.4 Touch View

The Touch View is designed for use with touch screens with buttons that are sized bigger so that it is easier to select functions. Select Touch View by pressing Touch or Touch2 in the top right corner of the Application.

3.5 Playback mode

MagicQ PC supports a Playback Mode which enables MagicQ to be run in a pure “Playback” mode. This mode is selected by clicking on the new Playback mode Icon on the desktop or in the Programs, ChamSys MagicQ PC menu.

Playback mode is only supported when connected to a MagicQ Wing or MagicQ USB interface. The MagicQ interface must be connected and powered on before MagicQ is started in Playback mode. Note Playback mode is not supported with MagicDMX or 3rd Party interfaces.

In Playback mode MagicQ it is not possible to record or make changes to the show data. MagicQ will not save the show ﬁles / status ﬁles. Changes (e.g. change of chase speed) will be lost when the application is stopped and restarted.

Playback Mode shows a much reduced set of buttons on the screen – only buttons required for show playback are shown.

In Playback Mode only pages of playbacks that have been programmed are shown – pressing NEXT PAGE will automatically change to the next programmed page and will cycle around all programmed pages.

3.6 MagicQ PC / Mac Restrictions

When MagicQ PC (Windows, Linux or Mac) is not connected to a MagicQ USB interface or MagicQ USB Wing then a small number of remote and automation features are restricted and “Demo Mode” is shown in the titlebar. This does not affect show programming or playback. Note, MagicDMX interfaces do not lift this restriction.

The restricted features that require a MagicQ USB interface or MagicQ Wing to be connected are:

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• Execute Window full screen

• Scheduled Events

• iPhone / iPad / Android Remote

• Remote Control Protocol (serial, or network)

• Web Server editing (viewing is supported)

• Autostarting Playbacks

• Playback Synchronisation

• Multi Programming

• Triggering of playbacks using DMX input

• Mouse control of pan/tilt (only supported when connected to a MagicQ Wing with encoders)

• Audio control and playback synchronisation with Winamp

Note that the MagicDMX interface does not lift these restrictions, as this is a low cost interface intended for learning how to program the system.

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Chapter 4

MagicQ Concepts

A system diagram of the console is shown in the diagram below

• 64 universes except MQ40 (4), MQ60 (12), MQ70 (12), and MQ100 Expert (12). Older consoles such as MQ Pro support 18 and MQ Pro 2010 supports 32.

4.1 Show Storage

MagicQ stores show data in a single show ﬁle stored on the hard drive of the MagicQ console, PC or Mac. The show ﬁle contains all the show settings, patch, palettes, cues and cue stack data. It also stores copies of all the personalities that are used within the show.

A MagicQ show can be transferred between MagicQ consoles and MagicQ PC or Mac systems simply by copying the show ﬁle. MagicQ show ﬁles are compatible across all MagicQ products. MagicQ maintains forward and backward compatibility for show ﬁles - enabling users to load shows created on any version of MagicQ software into any other version fo MagicQ software.

Favourite shows, personalities, palettes and FX patterns can be imported into new shows to simplify and speed up show programming.

Show ﬁles can be copied using USB memory sticks or the network can be used to access the ﬁle system of MagicQ consoles.

When the user saves the show using the SAVE SHOW menu item or soft button MagicQ stores the show ﬁle with a .shw ﬁle extension. At all other times MagicQ automatically backs up the show data whenever changes are made to a (.sbk) ﬁle.

4.2 Output channels

MagicQ supports up to 64 DMX512 universes output over Ethernet. This allows up to 32,768 channels of lighting to be controlled. Ethernet to DMX Interfaces are used to convert from Ethernet to serial DMX512 as required.

Lighting consoles are often limited in the number of DMX channels or the number of intelligent heads they can control independently. MagicQ allows control of all DMX channels individually, whilst utilising grouping and programming functions to enable control of multiple heads or dimmers together.

MagicQ provides a library of over 10,000 personalities – data for each of the different types of intelligent head available. This data determines how the different attributes of an intelligent head are controlled by the console.

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ChamSys adds new personalities for ﬁxtures as the information for new ﬁxtures becomes available. If a personality is not available then it can be requested from ChamSys. Users also have the ability to create the persoanlity themselves in the inbuilt Head Editor.

4.2.1 HTP / LTP channels

The console supports two types of channels, highest takes precedence (HTP) and latest takes precedence (LTP). Generally HTP channels are used for channels controlling dimmers and for the dimmer channel of intelligent heads. LTP channels are used for the attributes of intelligent heads such as pan, tilt, colour, gobo etc.. .

For HTP channels the value that is output is the highest value of that channel on all of the active playbacks and the programmer. The console can be conﬁgured so that if a HTP channel is in the programmer it always overrides any active playbacks.

For LTP channels the value output is the value from the last active playback unless that channel is active in the programmer in which case the value output is the value stored in the programmer.

The last active playback is the last playback to be raised above zero, which is still above zero. Playbacks that are bumped in using ADD or SWAP buttons automatically become the last active playback until the button is released.

The type of channel used by the console is determined by the personality used to patch the dimmer or intelligent head.

Playbacks can be set so that all channels controlled by the Playback act in a LTP way, thus allowing Intensity channels to be overridden by a single Playback.

4.3 Cues

The console stores lighting states as Cues – each Cue stores

• Level information

• Timing information

• FX information

The Cue stores level information for each of the channels recorded into it. If the channel level was set using a Palette, then a reference to the Palette is also stored so that the Cue can keep track of changes to the Palette.

The Cue stores timing information for the channels that have been recorded into it. Two types of timing information are stored:

General Times:

Stored for each type of attribute (Int In, Int Out, Position, Colour, Beam)

Individual Times:

Stored on an individual channel basis

The Cue stores FX information for each of the FX that has been recorded into the Cue. The FX information includes the type of FX, the heads that the FX is applied to, and the FX parameters for each head.

Each Cue has a number (e.g. Q1) and an optional name.

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4.4 Cue Stacks

Cue Stacks are used to manage sequences of Cues. Cue Stacks keep track of the order of the Cues and the options for how they are played back. A Cue Stack may have only one Cue associated with it or may have a whole list of Cues.

The Cue Stack stores a Cue Id and a textual ﬁeld for each Cue so that the different steps in the stack can be labelled. The Cue Id and textual ﬁeld are shown on the playback display when the stack is played back which enables operators to keep track of the current position in the show.

Cue Stacks can be conﬁgured to run as a chase rather than as a simple list of Cues. The difference is that as a chase each the timing of cue is determined by the chase speed and chase contrast rather than by the individual delay and fade times for each cue.

Each Cue Stack has a number (e.g. CS1) and an optional name.

4.5 Playbacks

The console enables playing of recorded show data through Playbacks. Playbacks are associated with physical faders and buttons – each Playback can have one cue stack assigned to it.

The console supports 202 Playback; 10 main Playbacks situated below the touch screen and up to 8 extension wings each with 24 Playbacks.

On models where less than 8 wings are ﬁtted, the not ﬁtted playbacks can be utilised through the touch screen and associated buttons.

4.6 Pages

The console supports multiple pages of Playbacks enabling Playback faders to have different functions depending on the current page. Typically one page is used for each song in a show.

The current page is selected through the NEXT PAGE and PREV PAGE buttons on the main playback section or by selecting a page in the Page Window.

The 24 Playbacks on each wing are divided up into two rows of 12 Playbacks. Each of the rows has separate NEXT PAGE and PREV PAGE buttons. This enables the Page used by these Playbacks to be set differently to the main Playbacks.

This provides signiﬁcant ﬂexibility to how shows are played back – for example one section of a wing can be used to control par lamps whilst another could be used to control intelligent heads. Changing the Page of the par lamps would not change the Page of the heads.

4.7 FX

The console contains a powerful engine for creating special effects (FX). FX can be applied to a group of heads at the touch of a button; there is no need to program lots of different Cues to create the effect. Special effects can be easily modiﬁed live, enabling, for example, the speed and size of the FX to be modiﬁed to match the mood of the show.

The console supports an extensive library of standard FX such as circles, squares, pan and tilt saws, lifts, zig zags, etc. In addition the console supports FX on colour, beam and intensity attributes. The console supports programming and storing of new custom FX, which can then be re-used in shows as required. The FX engine enables complete shows to be programmed within a matter of minutes.

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4.8 Window Layouts

The console provides a means of storing the positions and sizes of Windows as a Window layout to enable easy recall of useful Windows. This allows, for example, a Window conﬁguration consisting of the Group, Position, Colour and Beam Windows to be stored and recalled at a button press.

The system supports several standard views, including several oriented towards programming and several oriented towards playback.

Window layouts are recalled by pressing CTRL and selecting one of the top soft buttons.

The three spare buttons in the Windows section default to Layout 1 (Palettes), Layout 2 and Layout 3.

4.9 Shift Functions

The MagicQ lighting console uses SHIFT and CTRL buttons to enable access to advanced features. There is a SHIFT button and a CTRL button adjacent to the top corners of the touch screen in addition to the keys on the keyboard.

The SHIFT button is used with the cursor keys to enable selection of multiple items in Windows.

The ALT button is used on the Compact series (MQ40/60/70) to access alternative functions such as Page Up, Page Down and the window sizing options.

4.10 The Programmer

All recording of show data is carried out using the Programmer. The Programmer takes priority over all playbacks, and channels. It can also be used during live running to override the outputs – for example, for changing the colour or gobo of intelligent heads.

The Programmer can be considered to be a table of channel level and active ﬂags for each of the channels patched onto the console. Initially (and after the Programmer has been cleared) all the channel levels are set to zero and all the channels are ﬂagged as inactive. When a channel is changed to be non zero the channel level for that entry in the table is set to the new level and the channel is ﬂagged as active.

The console outputs any channels that are marked as active in the Programmer at highest priority – i.e. they over-ride all other playbacks.

To clear the Programmer press CLEAR. All channels will be deactivated and all HTP channels will be set to zero. It is possible to force all LTP channels to zero by using CTRL CLEAR.

The programmer can be set into a Blind mode using the BLIND button so that the contents of the programmer do not affect the output of the console. This allows programming adjustments to be made during a live show and special effects to be “busked” in.

4.11 Help

The Help Window enables the operating manual to be viewed on-line. Press the HELP button at any time to open the Help Window. To close the window, press the CLOSE button.

Use the scroll encoder, the cursor keys, and the hyperlinks to navigate through the manual. You can go directly to a particular section using the top soft buttons, e.g. CONTENTS or QUICK START.

You can search through the manual by typing some text and pressing SEARCH. To search for the same words again, press SEARCH AGAIN.

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Chapter 5

MagicQ Layout

5.1 Physical layout

All MagicQ consoles are very similar - they differ mainly in the number of playback faders. The programming interface is consistent across the entire range of consoles. MagicQ software on PC and Mac mimics the layout of the physical buttons on the MagicQ Consoles - a choice of different Panels is available from the Panel Menu. The Full Panel mode mimics Pro and Compact whilst the Stadium Panem mode mimics the MQ1000. It is possible to change between different panel views at any time - it does not affect the programmed show - it just determines what buttons, faders and encoders are available for programming and playback.

5.1.1 Touch Screen, Encoders & Soft Buttons

There are 24 buttons and 8 rotary encoders placed around the touch screen.

The buttons are referred to as soft buttons since their function changes according to the active window on the touch screen. The current function of a soft button is displayed on the touch screen adjacent to the button. To select the function you can either press the screen or the soft button itself.

The function of the rotary encoders also changes according to the active window with the current function being displayed adjacent to the encoder.

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At the top left and top right of the touch screen there are SHIFT and CTRL buttons. Pressing theses buttons selects alternate functions for the soft buttons and encoders.

5.1.2 Windows

The area in the centre of the screen is the windows section in which the various control windows are displayed. There are two main types of windows – boxes style windows which have large boxes such as the Group Window and spreadsheet style editing windows such as the Patch Window.

A window is displayed by pressing the appropriate window button. On MagicQ PC/Mac the window can be selected from the Window Menu from the toolbar. Changing window does not affect programming or playback.

Multiple windows can be displayed at one time by sizing and positioning the windows appropriately using the SIZE button. On MagicQ PC/Mac the size and position can be selected from the View Menu from the toolbar.

In addition a complete conﬁguration of windows – i.e. a complete layout can be selected using the Layout buttons - to select the Palettes layout (Groups, Positions, Colours and Beams) press the Layout 1 button. Layouts 1 to 12 can also be selected using CTRL and the top soft buttons. Some MagicQ consoles have physical Layout 1, Layout 2 and Layout 3 buttons. On these consoles SHIFT + Layout 1 gets Layout 4, SHIFT + Layout 2 gets Layout 5 and SHIFT + Layout 3 gets Layout 6.

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When a window button is pressed, that window becomes the active window. The active window is on the top of the screen and is easily identiﬁed as the window with the highlighted title bar at the top. It is also the window with the cursor in it.

An item in a window can be selected either

1. By pressing the touch screen over the appropriate part of the window

2. By moving the cursor to the appropriate position and pressing the ENTER button.

3. By moving the mouse to the position and pressing the left mouse button.

The cursor can be moved around the active window using the cursor keys in the Editor area of the console or via the cursor keys on the keyboard. PG UP, PG DN, PG LEFT and PG RIGHT can be used to scroll the window in the appropriate direction. HOME and END can be used to get to the start and end of the window respectively.

Towards the bottom of the touch screen are two small windows, the Status Display and the Input Display. The Status Display shows the current date and time, the ADD / SWAP status of the console and other relevant status information.

The Input Display shows the data that has been currently entered through the keypad and the keyboard. Note that text is not entered into the main Windows until ENTER is pressed. This allows the user to choose whether the keyboard data is SET into ﬁelds in the windows or onto Playbacks.

After a command has been entered it also conﬁrms that the command has been accepted and shows any error messages when a command is not possible.

5.1.3 Head Control

The area around the two large rotary encoders is referred to as the head control area. It is used to alter the parameters of individual heads and apply effects such as fans over groups of heads.

The NEXT HEAD and PREV HEAD buttons are used to select an individual head to modify.

The other buttons control the selection mode; LOCATE, HIGHLIGHT, FAN, SINGLE, ODD/EVEN, and ALL.

5.1.4 Editor Buttons

The Editor buttons are used to modify program data. The 8 buttons on the right hand side are the action buttons which are used to modify show data. The action buttons are UNDO, REMOVE, MOVE, COPY, SET, INCLUDE, UPDATE, and RECORD.

The buttons on the left:

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BLIND and CLEAR affect the programmer

REL and SELECT affect playbacks

SHIFT selects alternate functions

←- undoes keyboard input and clears actions

5.1.5 Playback

The Playback area is situated directly below the touch screen and consists of 10 playbacks each with a fader and four buttons (FLASH, GO, STOP, SELECT). The area above each of the playbacks on the touch screen is used to provide information about the status of the playback.

The playback area also contains a Grand Master, a Sub Master, Page Select buttons and a Manual Playback for taking control of Cue Stacks.

The cross fade section contains a GO, STOP. FWD, BCK buttons, a cross fader and a master GO button. The cross fade section controls the current playback selected with the S button.

5.2 Keyboard, Keypad, Select & Conﬁrm Windows

MagicQ has a set of additional on-screen Windows that can be used to enter text, select items and conﬁrm actions. You can choose whether you use the physical keyboard/keypad to navigate around these items or whether you use the mouse/touch.

To open the Keyboard Window at any time press SET SET. To open the icon selector press SHIFT + SET.

Conﬁrm Windows are shown when you carry out important actions that may overwrite or delete show data. You can conﬁrm an action by pressing 1 on the keypad. To cancel the action press 0 on the keypad.

5.3 Common Actions

MagicQ utilises many common actions for carrying out programming functions. All the actions use similar button presses. Once you understand the action in one Window, you will understand how it is done in another Window.

We strongly recommend you make yourself familiar with these actions – they will save you valuable programming time.

5.3.1 Items

Actions in a Window can be carried out on individual items or on multiple items. For actions on a single item, use the cursor keys to move around the Window so that the cursor is over the required item.

For multiple items in a Window, move the cursor to the ﬁrst item. Then press and hold the SHIFT button whilst moving the cursor to the last item. All the items will be highlighted.

Alternatively hold the CTRL button and select multiple individual items.

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In spreadsheet style Windows (e.g. Patch) pressing the touch screen or left clicking on the item with the mouse moves the cursor to the item. You can highlight multiple Window items by pressing the touch screen and moving the touch across multiple items.

In boxes style Windows (e.g. Group), pressing the touch screen or left clicking performs the function associated with the item (e.g. recalls that Group). In these Windows use SHIFT or CTRL and the cursor keys to highlight multiple boxes.

5.3.2 Setting the value of items

To set the value of one or more items in a spreadsheet style window:

• Move the cursor over the item (s)

• Enter a value on the keypad and press ENTER.

• Type in the value on the keypad

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the item.

For items that have a simple value of yes or no if you do not enter a value on the keypad then the value will toggle. For items that have multiple values double click on the ﬁeld for a list of values. On the touch screen select the ﬁeld and then press anywhere in the Input Display (right side area underneath the main window) to bring up the list of values.

Items that are coloured darker are read only and therefore cannot be set.

5.3.3 Naming items

• Press the SET button

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the item to name.

• Enter the name on the external or on screen keyboards

When working in spreadsheets style windows with an external keyboard it is not necessary to press the SET button in the above sequence - you can edit the spreadsheet like any other, just by moving to the appropriate box and entering text on the keyboard.

To name multiple items highlight it is often easier to highlight the items before pressing SET. If you press SET immediately after highlighting multiple items then the console will assume that these are the items you wish to set.

You can also press SET instead of pressing ENTER in the above sequences.

5.3.4 Moving items

• Press the MOVE button.

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the source item.

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the destination item.

You can also press MOVE instead of pressing ENTER in the above sequences.

To move multiple items it is often easier to highlight the items before pressing MOVE. If you press MOVE immediately after highlighting multiple items then the console will assume that these are the source items and will only prompt for the destination. You can hold SHIFT or CTRL to highlight multiple items.

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5.3.5 Copying items

• Press the COPY button.

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the source item.

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the destination item.

You can also press COPY instead of pressing ENTER in the above sequence.

To copy multiple items highlight it is often easier to highlight the items before pressing COPY. If you press COPY immediately after highlighting multiple items then the console will assume that these are the source items and will only prompt for the destination. You can hold SHIFT or CTRL to highlight multiple items.

When copying Cues, Cue Stacks or Pages the console by default does not make individual copies of the Cues - the Cue Stacks link to the same Cues. To copy unlinked (i.e. to create new Cues) then press SHIFT and COPY in the above sequence and select Unlinked.

5.3.6 Removing items

• Press the REMOVE button.

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the item to remove.

To remove multiple items highlight it is often easier to highlight the items before pressing REMOVE. If you press REMOVE immediately after highlighting multiple items then the console will assume that you wish to remove the highlighted items.

You can also press REMOVE instead of pressing ENTER in the above sequence.

5.3.7 Recording items

In boxes style windows it is possible to record an item (e.g. in the Group Window, to record a group):

• Press the RECORD button.

• Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the item to record.

You can also press RECORD instead of pressing ENTER in the above sequence.

5.4 Icons

MagicQ supports icons for all programmed items. The size of the icons can be set in the Window Settings in the Setup Window.

Icons can be used on Groups, Colours, Beams, Positions, Cues, Cue Stacks and in the Execute Window.

To set an icon for a Window item (e.g. a Palette Entry) press SHIFT SET. Press the touch screen / click / ENTER over the item to set an icon for. This will open the Icon library. The Icon library is split into different types of Icons for colours, positions and different types of gobos.

Select the icon from the icon library.

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5.4.1 Actions on Playbacks

Actions on playbacks are similar to window items except that the S buttons are used instead of window items.

To select a Playback, press the S button for the appropriate Playback.

To record a Playback, press RECORD, then press the S button for the appropriate Playback.

To name a Playback press SET, then press the S button for the Playback. Enter the name using the on screen keyboard or the external keyboard.

To move a Playback, press MOVE, then press the S button for the source Playback and then press the S button for the destination Playback.

To copy a Playback, press COPY, then press the S button for the source Playback and then press the S button for the destination Playback.

To include the contents of a Playback into the Programmer, press INCLUDE, then press the S button for the destination Playback.

To remove a Playback, press REMOVE, then press the S button for the Playback. Press the S button again to conﬁrm the remove.

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Chapter 6

Quick Start

6.1 Starting up MagicQ

On MagicQ consoles hold the power button on the rear panel. On MagicQ PC and Mac click on the MagicQ application icon.

On start up you are presented with an option to load demo shows or to continue the last show. Selecting last show will load and run the last show used on the system. This option can be hidden for subsequent start ups.

The console remembers all windows that were open when the console was last used. To close all windows press SHIFT and CLOSE.

Press SETUP to open the Setup Window.

6.2 Calibrating the Touch Screen

On MagicQ consoles if the touch screen does not seem to be responding to your touch correctly then you may need to calibrate the touch screen.

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Press the SETUP button to open the Setup Window. Press the CAL TOUCH soft button. When asked for conﬁrmation press 1 on the keypad or press the CAL TOUCH soft button again.

Calibration works by ﬁnding the bottom left and top right corners of the screen. First press the bottom left of the touch screen and then the top right. You may wish to use a ﬁne but blunt object.

The shortcut CTRL + SET can be used to open the Calibrate window at any time.

6.3 Starting a New Show

To start a new show, go to the Setup Window and press the NEW SHOW soft button. This will clear the current show from memory – shows that have been previously saved to disc will not be affected. You will be asked to conﬁrm by selecting YES.

There is a choice of four modes.

• Normal - faders activate Cue Stacks. When recording, all data in the programmer is stored in recorded cues

• Theatre non-track - faders operate levels only. When recording, all data in the programmer is stored in recorded cues

• Theatre tracking - faders operate levels only. When recording only data in the programmer that has changed since the last record is stored in recorded cues

• Hog II warp – like Theatre Tracking but with some extra features to make the programming more familiar to Hog II users.

In Theatre modes, ﬁxtures return to their default values when not under control of a playback or the programmer. The keypad is set up to enable selection of Palettes using Palette numbers, and Cue Stack timing defaults to being stepped timing rather than chase timing.

The mode can be changed at any time by using the Programming Mode soft button in the Setup Window. In addition each individual option / default value can be customised by the user and saved as their personal settings ﬁle.

Starting a show clears all patching, all programming and all palettes. It does not clear console speciﬁc options such as the conﬁguration of the DMX outputs or the calibration of the touch screen.

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6.4 Enabling Outputs

To enable output of channel data select the DMX IO VIEW in the Setup Window. This windows enables modiﬁcation of the inputs and outputs for all the universes. MagicQ consoles support DMX directly from the console or via an external Ethernet to DMX convertor. On MagicQ PC or Mac you can output via USB to DMX interfaces (such as MagicDMX) or via DMX outputs from the Wings.

6.4.1 Using Direct DMX Outputs

All current MagicQ consoles have DMX output ports directly on the rear panel.

The four DMX outputs on the rear panel automatically output universes 1 to 4 unless they are conﬁgured otherwise. The DMX will be output regardless of the “Status” enabled or disabled in the Setup DMX I/O window. On Pro consoles there is a green LED on the rear panel that indicates when DMX is being output.

If you wish to choose alternative universes to be output to the four DMX outputs on the rear panel then you will need to conﬁgure the outputs manually. For each of the Universes you wish to output on the rear panel, select Out Type as “MagicQ Direct” and Port 1, Port 2, Port 3 and Port 4 and enable the universes.

The picture below shows the direct ports to output Universes 5 to 8.

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6.4.2 Using Outputs via network

MagicQ supports output via the network ports using Art-Net, Pathport or ACN Streaming DMX.

To output Art-Net on a Universe enable it and ensure that the output type is set to Art-Net. Choose which Art-Net Universe you wish to Output the MagicQ Universe on. MagicQ defaults to outputing MagicQ universe 1 on the ﬁrst Art-Net Universe (Art 0-0).

If you are using Ethernet to DMX512 conversion boxes then you will need to conﬁgure the boxes to respond to the correct Art-Net sub-net and Art-Net universe.

With ChamSys SnakeSys B4 or R4 you need to set up the two rotary switches to the correct values – the left one for Art-Net sub-net and the right one for Art-Net universe. The interface will then decode the four Art-Net universes starting from that Art-Net subnet and universe.

In most networks the Art-Net sub-net is set to 0. If you are using only one Ethernet to DMX512 interface then you can normally use subnet 0 universe 0.

If you are using multiple Ethernet Interfaces then you will need to set each Ethernet Interface to a different Art-Net Universe – for example when using two ChamSys SnakeSys B4 Interfaces set the ﬁrst Interface to Art-Net Universe 0 and the second one to Art-Net Universe 4.

MagicQ includes a DMX viewer for monitoring Art-Net on the Network – select Tools, DMX View.

6.5 Connecting a MagicQ Playback Wing

To connect a MagicQ Playback or Extra Wing simply connect the Wing to the MagicQ console via USB. In the Setup Window, View System, View Wings set the ﬁrst Wing to be type USB Wing.

By default the Playback Wings are set so that the Wings change page when the Next Page / Prev Page button are pressed on the MagicQ console. It is possible to make the Wings operate completely independently of the main MagicQ console by changing the “Lower Bank Tie” and “Upper Bank Tie”.

To use multiple Playback Wings simply connect them and change the type to USB wing.

6.5.1 Setting Playback Wing IDs

When using MagicQ consoles with multiple Playback / Extra Wings (or multiple Execute Wings) it is now possible to set a Wing ID for each Wing. The required wing ID can then be set in Setup, View Wings to ensure that the Wings are identiﬁed correctly and control the correct Playbacks. Previously Wings could swap over if one was reset or they were powered on in a different sequence.

Note that the Wing ID is only supported on new Wings with blue LCDs and the most recent Wing ﬁrmware). The Wing ID is set by holding the reset button under the armrest of the Wing whilst holding the lower most Page UP and Page Down buttons.

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6.6 Connecting External Monitors

MagicQ consoles have VGA connectors on the rear panel for connecting external monitors. These monitors can be touch screen monitors.

6.6.1 Pro 2010 and Pro 2014 Operating System

On MagicQ consoles running the Pro 2010 there is support for two external monitors with resolution up to 1440x900. The Pro 2014 supports one external monitors up to 1920x1080 resolution.

Monitors can be touch screens (only External 1 on Pro 2010/14). MagicQ supports a number of touch screen protocols

External monitors must be powered and connected when the console powers up in order to be detected correctly.

Set the required resolution in the Resolution column and enable it.

When using USB touch screens, go to Setup, View System, View Monitors to see the status of the connected touch screens.

6.6.2 Pro Operating System

From MagicQ version 1.5.9.4 there is no longer support for an external monitor on the original Pro systems since the graphics card is not capable of handling the resolutions of modern monitors. Full external monitor support can be obtained by upgrading the hardware to Pro 2014.

6.7 Patching

Open the Patch Window by pressing the PATCH button. The Patch Window has three views, VIEW HEADS, VIEW CHANS and VIEW DMX. In this section we describe patching in VIEW HEADS.

Choose the head you wish to patch by pressing the CHOOSE HEAD soft button. The Window will change to give you a list of manufacturers and heads. Select a head by pressing the touch screen. Alternatively scroll around the Window using the cursor keys, and press ENTER when the cursor is over the correct head.

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Once you have chosen a head you will be returned to the Patch Window. Press the PATCH IT soft button to patch the head. You will be prompted for the number you wish to prompt and the address where you wish to patch the heads. Use @ to patch at a speciﬁc address.

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For example to patch 5 Mac250 mode 4 to Universe 2 channel 1 enter

5 @ 2 - 1

If you wish to patch multiple channels at ﬁxed offsets e.g. ﬁve Martin Mac250s at DMX channels 1,21,41,61,81 then enter

5 @ 2 – 1 / 20

To patch a dimmer, simply press CHOOSE DIM/MEDIA, select Generic Dimmerer and then patch one or more dimmers as above.

In the Patch Window all the lighter coloured ﬁelds can be conﬁgured. To modify a ﬁeld, ﬁrst move the cursor to the ﬁeld, then input the new value using the keypad and keyboard, and ﬁnally press ENTER.

In this way you can modify DMX address, head number, head name and gel for each of your patched heads.

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6.7.1 Naming and Numbering Heads

Once you have patched all the heads you can then name and number them as you wish. It is recommended that you name the dimmer or the head based on its location (e.g. front wash / back truss SL). For dimmers you may wish to conﬁgure the gel. This makes programming easier – enabling the console to auto program cues for you.

The gel ﬁeld uses gel numbers. For Lee colours enter the gel number directly (e.g. 181 for Lee 181). For Rosco colours enter the gel number preceded by dot (e.g. .14 for Rosco 14). For no colour enter 0. If you would prefer to use colour names rather than gel numbers then simply enter the colour name.

To test a patched head or dimmer, simply press the TEST MODE soft button (soft button encode C) and the head which the cursor is over will be tested. For heads it locates the ﬁxture; for dimmers it sets the dimmer to 100%. Press the TEST MODE soft button again to turn test mode off.

6.8 Controlling Heads

6.8.1 Selecting Heads

In order to control intelligent heads it is necessary to be able to select which heads to use. The MagicQ console keeps track of the currently selected heads to enable it to determine which heads to apply changes to. The operator can select head individually or can use groups to recall conﬁgurations of heads that are used frequently.

In “Hog Warp” mode or when the Setup option “Keypad always selects head is set” you can select heads from the keypad – for instance to select heads 1 through 4.

1 THRU 4 ENTER

In other modes, you can select the heads using

1 THRU 4 @@

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6.8.2 Selecting heads from the Group/Heads Window

The console automatically generates a group for all the heads of a particular head type. In addition new groups can easily be recorded.

The Group Window has two views. VIEW GROUPS enables selection of heads using groups whilst VIEW HEADS enables individual selection of heads.

In VIEW GROUPS, pressing the touch screen for a particular group selects all the heads associated with that group. All other heads are deselected. To select multiple groups, press SHIFT and a group to toggle the group in and out of selection.

In VIEW HEADS, individual heads are selected / deselected by pressing the touch screen. Use PG UP and PG DN to scroll through the heads.

6.8.3 Recording a Group

Select the heads you want in a group using keypad selection or in the VIEW HEADS view of the Group Window.

Change to the VIEW GROUPS view.

Press RECORD and then select the group you wish to record either by pressing the touch screen or by using the cursor keys and then pressing ENTER.

6.9 Naming a Group

When recording a group, if you key in a name before pressing the touch screen (or pressing ENTER) then the group will be named at the same time as it is recorded.

You can name a group at any time by keying in the name, pressing SET, and pressing the touch screen.

If you do not have a keyboard then press SET and select the group to name by pressing the touch screen (or using cursor keys and ENTER). A keyboard window will be displayed for you to enter the name on screen.

6.10 Recalling a Group

Once a group has been recorded then pressing the touch screen for the group will make all the heads in the group selected. All other heads will be deselected. Use SHIFT to select multiple groups. There is a Setup option to allow the user to default to selecting multiple groups.

6.11 Setting Levels for Dimmers

From the keypad you can enter commands such as

1 @ 50 ENTER

1 THRU 4 @ FULL ENTER

It is also possible to use the Intensity Window by pressing the INT button. This window displays a fader for each dimmer and head patched onto the console. Pressing the slider part of the fader sets the appropriate level. When a fader is moved from 0 the channel in the programmer is activated – and the fader will turn red.

The Window has two views, View Prog and View Preset – faders changed in the Prog View affect the intensity levels in the programmer and are recorded into Cues. Faders changed in the Preset View are like traditional “one per channel” preset faders on older lighting consoles – this enables levels on channels to be set without affecting programming. This is equivalent to “Parking” on other consoles.

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The SQUARE OFF soft button enables fast programming of intensities. Using the touch panel select the channels you wish to have at full and at zero – but don’t bother being exactly accurate with the level of the selection. Pressing SQUARE OFF ﬁnishes the job by setting all channels that are less than 50% to 0 whilst setting channels above 50% to full.

Use the ALL TO FULL and ALL TO ZERO buttons to change the level of all the channels.

Press the CLEAR soft button to clear the programmer.

6.12 Locating Heads

The ﬁrst action you are likely to want to do is to locate the heads – i.e. to put them into a starting position. Select the required heads and then press the LOCATE button. Locating a head brings all the attributes for that head into the programmer.

If the heads enable DMX control of the striking of the lamp then you may need to “Lamp On” the head in order to see the beam. Select the heads and then press SHIFT LOCATE. This runs the "Lamp On" macro.

6.13 Modifying Attributes

Intelligent heads have several different attributes typically including pan and tilt, colour, gobo and iris. When the MagicQ lighting console patches an intelligent head it maps the head parameters to standard attributes to enable easy access of the features of the head.

Attributes are categorised into four types – Intensity, Position, Colour and Beam. On MagicQ there is a window for each of these attribute types. Select the required heads, then open the required window.

You can quickly open all the Palette Windows by pressing Layout 1 or holding CTRL and pressing the top soft button marked Palettes – this opens the windows in the layout below.

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The highlighted window enables controls the soft buttons and rotary encoders. In each of the Windows the X and Y encoders control the most important attributes – Pan and Tilt in Position Window, Col Wheel 1 and Col Wheel 2 in the Colour Window and Gobo Wheel 1 and Gobo Wheel 2 in the Beam Window. In the Beam Window there are more than eight attributes to be controlled – these are accessed using multiple pages of encoders – by pressing the NEXT PAGE soft button.

For indexed attributes such as colour wheels and gobo wheels, the button associated with each encoder can be used to bump the attribute value to the next range. Pressing SHIFT and the button bumps back to the previous range.

In addition the window enables selection of palette values for the attribute type using the touch screen. When heads are recorded the system automatically generates palettes for each attribute type. You can record new palette entries, or modify existing ones as you see ﬁt.

In the Colour Window pressing the COL MIX / COL ATTRIBS button changes to the colour picker. Press COL TYPE to select standard colours, Lee colours, Rosco colours or HIS model.

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6.14 Recording a Palette

To record a favourite combination of attributes into a palette (e.g. a rotating triangle with a prism on a MAC500), ﬁrst modify the attributes to the values you wish to record. Then press RECORD and select the palette entry you wish to record. By default only selected heads get recorded into a palette (this can be changed by pressing SHIFT + RECORD and choosing Record options).

To name the palette, key in the name on the external keyboard, then press SET and select the palette entry you wish to name. To use the on screen keyboard, ﬁrst move the cursor over the palette entry, then press SET and key in the name followed by ENTER.

6.15 Adding in FX

To add a FX to some heads, select the heads then from the Group Window or the Prog Window press the ADD FX soft button. Choose the FX to add.

Once you have chosen a FX you are returned to the Prog Window. Use the encoders to modify the parameters of the FX such as the speed, size and spread between heads.

You can add multiple FX to a head, provided that the FX uses different attributes - e.g. you can mix a Pan Sine with a Tilt Sine.

6.16 Recording a Cue

To record a look onto a Cue, ﬁrst set up the look, then press RECORD and press the S button of the Playback to record the Cue onto.

To test the Cue, ﬁrst clear the programmer by pressing CLEAR then raise the Playback fader or press the Playback ﬂash button.

Note that recording a Cue onto a Playback, generates a Cue Stack with a single Cue. However, as there is only one step, it behaves as though it is just the Cue on the Playback.

To view a recorded Cue, press the S button for the Playback, and then press CUE to open the Cue Window.

To conﬁgure options when recording, press SHIFT + RECORD and a toolbar of record options will be displayed. Choose the options you require then press the S button of the Playback as above.

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6.17 Recording a Cue Stack (Chase or Theatre Stack)

Recording a Cue Stack is the same as recording a Cue - you simply record multiple Cues onto a Playback and you end up with a Cue Stack.

So, for example to record a stack of two looks, the ﬁrst yellow dots, the second blue triangles:

• Generate the yellow dots look.

• Press RECORD and press the S button of the playback.

• Generate the blue triangles look.

• Press RECORD and press the S button of the playback.

To test the Cue, clear the programmer by pressing CLEAR then raise the Playback fader or press the Playback ﬂash button.

View the Cue Stack by selecting the Playback and pressing CUE STACK to open the Cue Stack Window.

When you record more than one Cue onto a Playback the Cue Stack controls the transition from one Cue to another. In Normal mode by default the Cue Stack operates like a chase - i.e. each Cue is executed in turn, with timing being handled by a Chase Speed for the whole Cue Stack.

In Theatre Modes the default timing is Cue Timing – individual Fade times on each step with GO stepping from one step to the next.

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The timing mode can be changed, so that the Cues play back in a theatre style using the GO / STOP buttons. Select the VIEW OPTIONS view and press the CUE TIMING and CHASE TIMING soft buttons to modify the timing mode.

6.18 Selecting and recording complete window layouts

The console enables complete window layouts to be recorded and selected. The console incorporates several standard window layouts including Palettes and Cue Stacks.

There are physical buttons for Layout 1, 2 and 3. Layouts 1 to 12 can also be accessed by holding CTRL and selecting one of the top soft buttons.

To select a Window layout press one of the Layout buttons, or hold down CTRL and select one of the top soft buttons.

To record a Window layout ﬁrst close all windows (SHIFT + CLOSE). Then open the required Windows and size them appropriately. Press RECORD and then press a Layout button or hold down CTRL and select one of the top soft buttons.

To name the Window layout, press SET and then press a Layout button or hold down CTRL and select one of the top soft buttons. Enter a name for the layout.

6.19 Saving the Show

When programming a show the show is stored in memory. In order to store your show on the disk you need to press the SAVE SHOW soft button in the Setup Window.

Whilst programming, you should regularly save your show, so that if the power fails your show data is not lost. You can chose any ﬁlename - MagicQ will automatically set the ﬁle extension to .shw.

By default, MagicQ periodically saves a backup of your show to disk. It uses the same show name but with the ﬁle extension .sbk.

It is a good idea to save your show to different ﬁle names so that you have various points you can back-track to if things go wrong. For example, save the show as myshow-patch.shw after you have patched and then as myshow-ﬁnal.shw after you have ﬁnished programming.

When you shut down MagicQ through the QUIT soft button in the Setup Window, MagicQ automatically saves a backup copy of your show with a .sbk extension. When you subsequently restart MagicQ this ﬁle will be re-loaded. This ensures that MagicQ starts up as it was when the QUIT soft button was pressed.

MagicQ show ﬁles are typically only a few megabytes in size so many different shows or versions of a show can be saved without problem.

6.20 Playback

Now you have Cues and Cue Stacks recorded you can play back your show using the Playback faders and buttons. You can control how each Cue Stack is played back using the Cue Stack options – for example you can set the fader to control LTP fades or FX size and speed.

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Make sure the master faders are raised!

Note that if you have a large show ﬁle you may wish to turn auto backups off during playback. Remember to turn them back on when you are programming.

If you get stuck at any point, just press the HELP button!

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Chapter 7

Patching

7.1 Patching on MagicQ

MagicQ considers DMX and console channels to be the same and therefore there is no need for complex patching to be carried out before the console can be used. MagicQ allows access to all DMX channels on all DMX universes supported on the console. Each channel can be controlled and programmed independently.

Each head can be allocated a head number for recall using the keypad and a name for identiﬁcation. However to save time, MagicQ will automatically allocate numbers and names according to head types.

7.2 Getting started with patching

MagicQ supports comprehensive patching facilities for allocating dimmers and intelligent heads to DMX channels. Patching can be carried out at any time and has an immediate effect.

Press the PATCH button to open the Patch Window. The Patch Window has four views, VIEW HEADS, VIEW CHANS, VIEW DMX and VIEW VIS.

VIEW HEADS is used to patch heads, name and number then and set and gel colour.

VIEW CHANS is used to carry out operations on individual DMX channels, such as testing the channel and setting inverts.

VIEW DMX is used when patching more than one DMX channel a MagicQ dimmer.

VIEW VIS is used for setting up and modifying visualiser heads in the MagicVis visualiser.

7.3 Patching a Head or Dimmer

MagicQ supports a large library of heads. MagicQ treats dimmers just like any other head - they just happen to have a single channel. Dimmers use the "Generic Dimmer" personality.

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Choose the head you wish to patch by pressing the CHOOSE HEAD soft button. The Window will change to give you a list of heads. Select a head by pressing the touch screen. Alternatively scroll around the Window using the cursor keys, and press ENTER when the cursor is over the correct head.

Once you have chosen a head you will be returned to the Patch Window. Press the PATCH IT soft button to patch the head, and you will be prompted for an address to patch the head to.

Press ENTER to patch to the next free address – the title bar shows the next free address that a head of the chosen type can be patched. If you wish to patch multiple heads at ﬁxed offsets e.g. four Martin Mac500s at DMX channels 1,21,41,61 then enter 4/20.

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To patch a head at a speciﬁc address use @. For example to patch 10 dimmers at DMX address 20 key in 10@20. To patch to the 2nduniverse use 10@2-20. To patch at the ﬁrst free address on a universe other than the ﬁrst universe use +, e.g. for the second universe use 10@+2-1.

If this is the ﬁrst patch you have patched then MagicQ will prompt you whether to add the head into the visualiser. Pressing yes will create a visualiser head within the show ﬁle, so that you can see the head in the MagicQ visualiser.

To patch more heads, just repeat the above process.

To patch a dimmer, simply press CHOOSE DIM/MEDIA, select Generic Dimmer, and then patch one or more dimmers as above.

In the Patch Window all the ﬁelds coloured yellow can be conﬁgured. To modify a ﬁeld, ﬁrst move the cursor to the ﬁeld, then input the new value using the keypad and keyboard, and ﬁnally press ENTER.

In this way you can modify DMX address, head number, head name and gel for each of your patched heads.

7.4 Head Names and Head Numbers

Press the VIEW HEADS soft button to check the heads you have patched, and to name and number them as you wish. In the Patch Window all the light coloured ﬁelds can be conﬁgured. To modify a ﬁeld, ﬁrst move the cursor to the ﬁeld, then input the new value using the keypad and keyboard, and ﬁnally press ENTER.

Multiple head names and numbers can be set at the same time by using SHIFT and the cursor keys to select multiple items. Turning on test mode using the TEST HEAD soft button makes it easy to view each head / dimmer in turn.

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By default the VIEW HEADS view is sorted by head number. If you are setting head numbers by entering each head number individually then you may ﬁnd it easier if the view is sorted by DMX. Press the SORT soft button and select BY DMX. Note that the sort also affects the order in the Intensities Window, the Programmer Window and the Group Window.

7.4.1 Head Names

Head names are used to identify the Dimmer or Head. We recommend that you set the head name based on its location (e.g. front wash / back truss SL). It is not necessary to name intelligent heads according to their product name (e.g. Mac500) as this is already stored in the head.

7.4.2 Head Numbers

Head numbers are used in various displays to indicate which heads are being operated on. Head numbers can also be used for selecting heads and setting intensities directly from the keypad.

By default MagicQ numbers in the order that they are patched starting from 1.

If you expect to be selecting heads using the keypad then we recommend you use unique head numbers for each head. MagicQ uses unique numbers by default. You can modify head numbers manually so that they are more meaningful to your rig. Alternatively you can use one of the in-built renumber algorithms.

For multi head elements, by default MagicQ allocates each element of a multi element head ascending head numbers. MagicQ also supports the multiple elements of a multi element head all having the same head number and then use of the dot (.) operator to select individual heads.

Multiple multi head elements can be set to use only a single head number in Patch, View Heads by setting the Head Number appended with /1 to indicate only 1 head number in use for that ﬁxture.

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7.4.3 Renumbering Head Numbers

Pressing RENUM HEAD NOS and selecting BEST FIT causes MagicQ to use an intelligent algorithm to allocate heads starting with numbers that you can easily recall. For example, if you patch 4 MAC500s and 4 HPEs then when you renumber using BEST FIT it will number the MAC500s from 1 to 4 and the HPEs from 11 to 14.

If you would rather work with DMX channel numbers, then press the RENUM HEAD NOS soft button and select BY DMX. This will conﬁgure the head number for all patched heads to be the DMX channel address of the head. You can then select heads and set intensities using the DMX channel numbers.

Selecting HEADS (ALL START 1) sets the head numbers so that for each head the numbers start from 1 - this is the default option. Selecting BY NAME sets the head numbers so that they use head name, gel and type to order the heads.

7.4.4 Patching to speciﬁc Head numbers

It is possible to patch direct to a speciﬁc head number using the * operator.

For example:

10 @ 7 – 2 * 201

This will patch 10 heads at channel 2 on Universe 7 starting at head number 201.

7.5 Gel name and number

For dimmers you may wish to conﬁgure the gel name or number. This makes programming easier – enabling MagicQ to auto program cues for you.

7.6 Generating auto groups

MagicQ automatically generates groups for each of the different heads patched – e.g. “All Dimmers”, “All Mac500”.

MagicQ is also capable of generating groups based on gel colours and head names. Press the AUTO GROUPS soft button in the VIEW HEADS view of the Patch Window and then select Dimmers and/or Heads.

When Dimmers are selected MagicQ will examine all dimmers patched and generate a group for each different gel colour and a group for each different head name.

When Heads is selected MagicQ will generate a group for each different head type that has heads with a distinct head name. Thus if you have named some of your Mac500s “front” and some of them “back” it will generate a “Mac500 front” group and a “Mac500 back” group.

7.7 Multi Element Heads

For heads that have multiple attributes of one type – e.g. more than one dimmer or more than one red, green or blue channel MagicQ uses multi element heads.

Multi element heads are patched in exactly the same way as normal heads, but MagicQ shows a * next to the DMX address to indicate that it is a multi element head.

Multi element heads have a separate head number for each element in the head – therefore when patching several of these heads, the head numbers will increase by more than one per head.

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MagicQ recognises three kinds of multi element heads – those which simply have a repeated element, those that have a main element followed by a repeated element and those that have repeated elements followed by a main element.

When multi element heads are patched MagicQ generates the “All” group which contains both the main and repeated elements. MagicQ will also generate separate groups for the main “Mn” part and the repeated “Ele” part.

The separate elements of the head can also be sub selected using the dot operator from the keypad – for example for head 2 you can select 2.4 to sub select the 4thelement.

7.8 Inverting and Swapping

In VIEW HEADS you can invert the pan and tilt channels of moving heads and also swap the pan and tilt channels. Pressing ENTER in the appropriate ﬁeld changes the ﬁeld value.

Individual channels can also be inverted in VIEW CHANS if required.

7.9 Pan and Tilt Offsets

To add a Pan or Tilt offset then enter the offset in degrees in the Pan offset or Tilt offset in the Patch Window. The offset affects all programmed values.

7.10 Applying Offsets using Update

MagicQ supports a quick method of applying an offset to channels such as a pan or tilt offset, or an offset on a colour scroll.

To apply an offset, playback the Cues and then override only the parameters you wish to offset in the programmer. Then press the Update button. The Update options have been modiﬁed to include an extra option “Patch Offset”. Selecting this option applies a permanent offset to the channel in the Patch rather than modifying the individual Palettes and Cues.

To remove the offset go to Patch, View Chans and remove the offset from the appropriate channels.

Offsets apply only to LTP channels, not to HTP (Intensity) channels.

The Outputs window shows channels with offsets in green colour.

The Patch window shows offsets applied to Pan and Tilt in the Pan Offset and Tilt Offset ﬁeld.

7.11 Minimum and Maximum levels

You can set minimum and maximum levels for each patched channel from the VIEW CHANS view. This is useful for setting pre-heat on dimmers or for limiting output values of certain lamps where power is tight.

The minimum and maximum levels have absolute over-ride over all other playback and programming. Master faders and the DBO button do not affect the minimum and maximum levels.

Minimum levels can be useful to force a minimum light level on a stage, for example during a changeover.

7.11.1 Limits and Offset.

It is possible to set limits and offsets on channels using the Limit and Offset dimmer curves.

Limit enables a maximum level to be set for the channel whilst retaining the normal linear dimming curve. When dimmer curve is set to “Limit” the channel has a linear curve up to the maximum value rather than using the normal linear curve and then stopping at the maximum value.

Offset enables an offset value to be applied to a channel – this can be useful if a moving light is not calibrated correctly or it has been moved. When dimmer curve is set to “Offset” then the minimum value speciﬁes the offset to be applied. When a channel value exceed 255 then it wraps back to 0.

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7.12 Dimmer curves

MagicQ supports 10 user dimmer curves that can be selected in the Patch Window, View Chans view.

User dimmer curves are speciﬁed in ﬁles of format csv (comma separated variable) with ﬁlename dimmercurveuser1.csv, dimercurveuser2.csv etc. . . stored in the show/heads folder.

The ﬁles consist of 256 lines each with a value between 0 and 255. These ﬁles can be generated in a spreadsheet (e.g. Microsoft Excel) and saved as csv format.

From v1.6.0.7 dimmer curves can have 16bit values (0..66535) instead of just (0..255). If any value in the user dimmer curve ﬁle is over 255 then 16bit is assumed.

User dimmer curves are not stored into the show or settings ﬁles. Each MagicQ system that uses user dimmer curves must have the curves stored in the show/heads folder.

In the CSV ﬁle the line after the last line of data (the 257thline) can hold a name for the curve which is then displayed in MagicQ. The name has a maximum of 15 characters.

Dimmer curve ﬁles are read on startup of MagicQ – so you will need to reset MagicQ for new curves to be loaded.

7.13 Testing channels

To test channels in VIEW CHANS press the TEST CHANS soft button to enter test mode. In this mode the channel which the cursor is on is set to the level conﬁgured on the TEST CHANS encoder. Use the cursor keys to move through different channels. Test mode remains active until the TEST CHANS soft button is pressed again.

Channel testing works for both patched and unpatched channels. Note that for channels patched as LTP, the level of the Grand Master does not affect the channel level and after test is turned off the channel remains at the test level. LTP channels can be set to zero by pressing CTRL CLEAR.

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You can also test channels by moving to the appropriate channel and pressing the TEST SELECT CHANS soft button. The channel will be set to the level of the Grand Master fader. Pressing TEST SELECT CHANS soft button again returns the channel to zero. You can test multiple channels by using SHIFT and the cursor keys to select multiple channels and then pressing the TEST SELECT CHANS soft button. Channels that are in test mode are highlighted in red.

Pressing Soft Button A (NEXT UNI or PREV UNI) soft button moves you up or down the window to the ﬁrst channel of the next or previous universe.

7.14 Changing the DMX address of heads

Heads (including Dimmers) can be moved to different DMX addresses as required. When they are moved all the programming and palettes associated with them also moves to the new channels. In Patch, VIEW HEADS simply edit the DMX ﬁeld with a new address.

If you try and move to a location where there are already channels patched then MagicQ will prompt whether you wish to continue and move the already patched channels aside. If you conﬁrm YES the already patched channels will be moved to the next free locations. If you conﬁrm NO then no move will be performed.

Multiple heads can be moved at a time using SHIFT and the cursor keys. When making a change to multiple heads the change defaults to an absolute change – the ﬁrst head will be moved to the speciﬁed address and the next heads to the addresses immediately following. To make a relative change enter a / after the new address - i.e. to move 4 heads from 1-1 to 2-1, but keeping the relative DMX offsets between the heads, enter 2-1/. You can also specify an explicit offset to use, just like when patching e.g. 2-1/20.

7.15 Patching a Head to multiple DMX addresses

The View DMX view in the Patch Window enables multiple DMX channels to be easily assigned to one head. Up to 5 additional DMX channels can be set up for each Head in addition to the main DMX address. Remove additional channels by pressing REMOVE and selecting the additional channel ﬁelds or by typing “u” (unpatch) instead of a DMX address.

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7.16 Unpatching a Head from a DMX address

It is possible to “unpatch” a head – i.e. to remove the association between the programmed data and a DMX address. The programmed data for the head is maintained and the head can subsequently be patched to a new DMX address. To unpatch a head move the cursor to the ﬁrst DMX ﬁeld in View DMX view and press REMOVE, or type “u”.

7.17 Patching scrollers

There are two ways to patch scrollers – the ﬁrst method is to patch the dimmer and scroller separately – then the dimmer and scroller will operate independently. Use the “generic dimmer” personality for the dimmer and the “generic scroller” personality for the scroller.

MagicQ has enhanced support for scrollers, so that the colour scroll channel can be tied up with the dimmer channel in one head.

To use this support, patch a Generic Scroller With Dim. This will appear in the View Heads with the DMX address marked as “virtual” and any DMX address you speciﬁed when you patched it will be ignored. Change to the View DMX view and specify in the appropriate DMX columns the DMX address of the dimmer and the scroller.

The Generic Scroller With Dim is set up as a “Virtual” personality – i.e. the channels in the personality can be patched to any location on MagicQ – unlike normal personalities where the channels are sequential from the DMX start address. In the View DMX view, the DMX address ﬁelds are used to specify the addresses for each channel in the virtual personality – up to a maximum of 5 channels. (For normal personalities these ﬁelds are used to specify multiple heads patched to one head.)

7.18 Editing Heads

You can modify the Head or create a new head in the Head Editor. Choose the head you wish to edit and then press the EDIT HEAD soft button.

To quickly choose a head that you have already patched move the cursor to the head in the Patch Window, hold SHIFT and press CHOOSE HEAD.

To quickly edit a head that you have already patched move the cursor to the head in the Patch Window, hold SHIFT and press EDIT HEAD.

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7.19 Cloning (Adding extra heads / dimmers to a programmed show)

Cloning enables a show programmed with a certain number of heads to be expanded to use more of the same head type without having to reprogram all of the show.

For example, if you have a show programmed with 4 MAC500s and you want to add 4 more MAC500s, then you can clone the 4 programmed MAC500s. All the Cues, Cue Stacks, Groups and Palettes that have the original 4 MAC500s will now have the additional 4 MAC500s as well.

By cloning heads in this way you have a quick and easy approach to expanding your show. You can then programme some new Cues and Cue Stacks that use the new and old heads individually.

To Clone heads

Enter the Patch Window and choose the view heads view. Select the heads you wish to clone using SHIFT and the cursor keys. Note a new cloned head is created for each of the selected heads. e.g. selecting 4 heads when cloning will patch 4 more ﬁxtures each cloned to one of the 4 selected heads.

Then press the CLONE HEAD soft button.

Cloned heads are patched on the next free universe/channel in MagicQ, these can then be re addressed as needed.

There are several options when cloning heads. It is possible to choose whether both Palettes and Cues are cloned or just Palettes.

It is also possible to specify that FX are split when the heads are cloned, so that the new heads are part of a different FX from the original FX. This function should be used with care when cloning multiple heads in order to avoid fragmenting the F X too much.

7.19.1 Copy Head Programming

If you patch new heads into a show, without cloning it is still possible to then copy programming from other heads to the new heads. To copy programmed data from one head to another press the SHIFT + COPY HEAD PRG soft button in the HEAD VIEW, then select the source head followed by the destination head. All the Cues, Cue Stacks, Groups and Palettes that contain the source head will be updated to include the destination head.

7.19.2 Patch Channel Copy

Another way to expand existing shows is to patch the new heads and dimmers but then in the Patch window to set a real time channel copy from another already programmed channel. The value of the channel will always be that of the already programmed channel. Any programming of the newly patched channel will be ignored. To set up real time copies, edit the Merge and From Chan columns in the View Chans view of the Patch Window. Press ENTER in the Merge column to change it to "Copy" and then set the From Chan column.

7.20 Morphing Heads (Changing Head type)

It is possible to morph one head type into another head type. The system will copy the programming from the old head type to the new head type. The system takes into account the different pan and tilt ranges of the heads when copying pan and tilt data.

As no two heads are exactly the same, the programming will not create exactly the same looks as with the original heads. A closer representation will be obtained by morphing a spot into a spot compared to a spot into a wash light.

If the new head types have more channels than the original head types then MagicQ morphs the heads but leaves them unpatched – the user must then repatch the heads at a suitable location.

In the Patch Window, choose the new head type, then move the cursor to the head to change or select a block of heads using SHIFT and the cursor keys. Press the MORPH HEAD soft button and conﬁrm that the action is what is required.

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After morphing heads your groups, palettes, and cues will be updated to reﬂect the new head types.

7.20.1 Morphing Multi Part Heads

From v1.5.1.0 MagicQ supports full morphing between multi part heads, from single part heads to multi part heads, and from multi part heads to single part heads.

When morphing between multi part heads, if the new head has less parts than the original head then the excess parts in the original heads will be ignored. If the new head has more parts than the original head then the excess parts in the new head will be a repeat of the parts from the original head.

This also enables easy changing of mode of multi part heads which was not previously possible – e.g. when changing a Thomas Pixeline from 18 pixel to 9 pixel mode, or when changing a Chromalec Jarag from 25 to 31 channel mode.

7.20.2 Morphing Heads with virtual dimmers

It is possible to morph between heads with inbuilt dimmers and heads with virtual dimmers. For example it is possible to morph a RGB head with an inbuilt dimmer to a RGB head with a virtual dimmer. It is also possible to morph back from a head with a virtual dimmer to one that has an inbuilt dimmer.

7.20.3 Morphing between CMY and colour wheel Heads

When morphing between heads with CMY/RGB and Colour Wheel to heads with only Colour Wheels, MagicQ now converts the CMY/RGB data to Col Wheel rather than trying to map between the Colour Wheels. This ensures that shows programmed with Cues using RGB palettes morph to Col Wheel palettes.

When morphing to heads with greater number of colour wheels or greater number of gobo wheels MagicQ now includes the extra colour or gobo wheels channels in Palettes and Cues where the colour wheels or gobo wheels were previously used. This enables easy updating of shows, for example when changing from heads with only 1 gobo wheel to heads with 2 gobo wheels.

7.21 Importing Heads

A quick way of patching heads is to import the heads from a ﬁle. MagicQ supports comma separated variable ﬁles (.csv) which can be generated from most spread sheets and word processors.

The ﬁrst row of the ﬁle indicates which columns are present in the ﬁle. The next rows of the ﬁle contain the data for each head.

Headno,Headname,Dmxno,Headtype,Gel,Pinv,Tinv,Swap 0001,Spots,1-001,Generic Dimmer,No col,no,no,no 0002,Spots,1-002,Generic Dimmer,No col,no,no,no 0003,Spots,1-003,Generic Dimmer,No col,no,no,no 0004,Spots,1-004,Generic Dimmer,No col,no,no,no 0005,Finger L,1-005,Generic Dimmer,R59 Indigo,no,no,no 0006,Finger L,1-006,Generic Dimmer,R312 Canary,no,no,no 0007,Finger L,1-007,Generic Dimmer,R356 Middle Lavender,no,no,no 0008,Finger L,1-008,Generic Dimmer,R27 Medium Red,no,no,no

7.22 Exporting Heads

The patched heads can be exported using the same ﬁle format as used for import. This ﬁle can then be read by a standard spread sheet or word processor. Patch lists can then be printed.

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7.23 VL5 type channels (split personalities)

MagicQ supports heads such as the Vari-lite VL5TMwhere the head functionality is split between different noncontiguous DMX addresses.

The personality for the main channels in the head includes the extra channels. The extra channels are then patched separately and set to have their levels copied from the main channels.

For example for a VL5, patch the VL5 to the required DMX address for the main head. This will include a dummy dimmer channel.

In Patch, View DMX set the address of the real dimmer channel in the second DMX ﬁeld.

7.24 Merging with DMX input

MagicQ supports comprehensive merging of data from each of the input and output universes. Any output channel can be set to output data from any received input channel, or to merge the two.

In addition channels can be conﬁgured so that they are passed through transparently unless MagicQ is controlling the channel from the programmer or a playback. This provides a powerful over-ride mode.

To set a channel to output data received as input from another channel set the Merge ﬁeld to “Input” and the From ﬁeld to the channel number you wish to get the data from.

You can easily set up a large number of channels by using SHIFT and the cursor keys to select multiple channels.

You can also set up a channel so that it outputs data from an input channel except when that channel is being controlled by a playback or the programmer. Set the Merge ﬁeld to “Over”.

To HTP merge the output with the received input use the “Merge“ option.

The “Mult” option enables another channel on the console to control the level of the output of the channel- this is useful with RGB LED heads where you wish to make another channel control the overall level of the RGB.

The “Mul-In” option multiplies the received input with the calculated value for the channel. MagicQ can therefore be used as a DMX modiﬁer to modify the level of individual or groups of channels.

It is possible to set multiple channels all to copy or multiply by one channel. Use SHIFT and the cursor keys to select all the required channels and enter <chan> / 0.

7.25 Customising Locate, Default, Highlight and Lowlight values

MagicQ allows the user to deﬁne the Locate, Default, Highlight and Lowlight values for each attribute of each patched heads.

The Locate values are the values that are used when the Locate button is pressed. The Default values are the values that are output when a channel is not in the programmer and no playback is controlling a channel. Note that the Setup Window option “Unused chans return to defaults" must be enabled for this mode of operation.

The Hightlight and Lowlight values are used when Highlight Mode is set to one of the Advanced modes.

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By default, the Locate values and Default values are taken from the personality of the patched head – these typically put the position to centre, beam open, colour white and intensity at full.

These values can be re-programmed by creating a Cue that represents the desired Locate Values and/or a Cue that represents the desired Default Values. For Highlight and Lowlight create a Cue that represents the desired Highlight or Lowlight values.

Simply record a Cue into the Cue Store and then press the SET LOC CUE, SET DEF CUE, SET HIGHL CUE, SET LOWL CUE soft buttons. The Cue is indicated as Default, Locate, Highlight or Lowlight by a D, L,H or Lo after the Q number.

Only one Cue can be set for each type - however one cue can be set for more than one type – e.g. one Cue can be set for both the Default Cue and the Locate Cue.

It is not necessary to program all the different attributes into the Locate, Default, Highlight or Lowlight Cues. Simply program the values that you want to be different from normal operation. For instance to record a default position with all heads positioned towards FOH position, simply record a Cue with the FOH position data and press the SET DEF CUE soft button.

If you wish to change the Locate, Default, Highlight or Lowlight Cue then simply re-record the Cue. If you update Palettes used in the Cue, or modify the Cue directly from the Cue Window then you may need to reset the Cue in the Cue Store before the change takes place. Press the CLEAR DEF CUE and SET DEF CUE for the desired Cue.

7.26 Theatre Patch syntax

MagicQ supports a Theatre Patch option which changes the syntax used for patching to simplify patching (and re-patching) of large numbers of dimmers.

The option is enabled in Setup,View Settings, Keypad, Keypad Syntax Theatre Patch. When this option is set to “yes” the keypad can be used to patch a dimmer or moving light directly to a DMX address and head number – e.g.

10 @ 2 – 5 will patch head number 10 to Universe 2 channel 5.

7.27 Virtual Dimmers

MagicQ enables LED and other heads with colour mixing but no dimmer channel to have an associated virtual dimmer. This allows the LED heads to be used as simple RGB ﬁxtures with a dimmer. This development does not affect the internal pixel mapping (Bitmap FX) which already has a virtual dimmer.

To add a virtual dimmer channel for a LED head (i.e. a head without a dimmer) simply patch a generic dimmer and set the head number to the same head number as the LED head. The generic dimmer will then be shown with a ‘v’ after the head number to indicate the association with the LED ﬁxture. The LED head will then appear with a dimmer in the Intensity, Group, Outputs and Programmer windows.

Note that virtual dimmers will only work if there are only 2 heads with the same head number – if there are more than 2 heads with the same head number then each head will be treated as a separate head.

When MagicQ assigns a virtual dimmer in this way, in the Cue Engine it takes the value of the RGB (CMY) attributes from the playbacks and programmer and then scales these values according to the value of the virtual dimmer channel.

Virtual Dimmers take effect at the Patch level rather than at the Programmer level. This means that the Output Window, View Heads will show the virtual levels on the RGB channels (i.e. the RGB levels before the virtual dimmer is applied).

The Outputs Window, View Chans, View DMX will show the actual levels output to the RGB channels (i.e. the level after the virtual dimmer is applied).

The full head can be selected using the head number. The title bar of the Group, Pos, Colour, Beam windows will show +v for each head with a virtual dimmer.

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7.27.1 Quickly adding Virtual Dimmers to patched heads

It is possible to add virtual dimmers to a head in the Patch, View Heads view using a single action. Place the cursor on the head you wish to add a virtual dimmer for and then press SHIFT and ADD VDIM. You can use SHIFT + the cursor keys to select multiple heads.

Virtual dimmers can only be added to heads that do not have an intensity channel. For heads with multiple RGB elements, a virtual dimmer will be made for each RGB element.

Virtual dimmers added in this way will appear unpatched. Note that virtual dimmers take up channels from the total channel count.

7.27.2 Heads always with virtual dimmers

It is possible to make heads that automatically patch a virtual dimmer. In the Head Editor, View General, Options there is an option "Virtual Dim". If this is set to "yes" and the head has no dimmer then a virtual dimmer is automatically patched for this head.

The MagicQ head library includes a mode of LED3chan with a virtual dimmer.

Note that Virtual Dimmer is distinct from Virtual Channels where all the channels of the head have separate DMX addresses.

7.28 Patch Head Filtering

In Patch, Choose Head it is possible to ﬁlter personalities by type, making it easier to ﬁnd the personalities required. Filter options include All, Patched, Live, Club, Film/TV and User.

Patched enables users to see which heads are patched in the current show and to re choose them easily.

Users can tag heads that they use frequently so that they appear in the User ﬁlter. This could be used for example to include all heads in the stock of a rental company.

Heads can be tagged and untagged in both Choose Head, Simple View and Choose Head, Adv View. In Simple View you can tag all heads from a particular manufacturer, or all modes of a speciﬁc head. In Adv View you can tag individual modes of a head.

In Adv View the Tag column shows a "U" for all heads tagged as user.

MagicQ stores a ﬁle of all tagged heads in the heads folder called userheads.csv. It is possible to create or edit this ﬁle with a text editor/spreadsheet. The format is:

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Chapter 8

Setting Intensity levels

The intensity level of heads (including dimmers) are controlled from the Intensity Window. Press the INT button to open the window.

8.1 Using the on screen faders

This window displays a fader for each head (including dimmers) patched onto the console. Pressing the slider part of the fader sets the appropriate level. When a fader is moved from 0 the channel in the programmer is activated – and the fader will turn red.

The SQUARE OFF soft button enables fast programming of intensities. Using the touch screen select the channels you wish to have at full and at zero – but don’t bother being exactly accurate with the level of the selection. Pressing SQUARE OFF ﬁnishes the job by setting all channels that are less than 50% to 0 whilst setting channels above 50% to full.

Use the ALL TO FULL and ALL TO ZERO buttons to change the level of all the channels.

Press SHIFT and SQUARE OFF to invert the faders - all channels less than 50% go to 100% whilst all channels above 50% go to 0%.

Press the CLEAR soft button to clear the programmer.

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8.2 Using the encoders

A single fader or multiple faders can be controlled using the top right rotary encoder in the Intensity Window. The encoder controls the fader, which the cursor is over. Selecting a block of faders by pressing the cursor keys whilst holding the SHIFT button down enables multiple faders to be selected.

8.3 Using the keypad

The level of the intensity channel of heads can be set from the keypad. Head numbers are used to reference the required heads.

If you intend to use this method for setting intensities then you should set up the head numbers when patching. It is easy to do the console can automatically renumber them, or they can be set to be the same as the DMX start address of the dimmer / head. See the section on patching.

Keypad setting of intensities is supported regardless of which Window is currently active.

To set heads 1 to 4 to 40% key in

1 THRU 4 @ 40

To set heads 1 to 4 and heads 8 to 11 to 100% key in

1 THRU 4 + 8 THRU 11 @ FULL

To set heads 1 through 12 but not head 7 to 10% more than their current value key in

1 THRU 12 - 7 @ +10

The console supports theatre style key entry – so you can set head 1 to 40% by typing

1 @ 4 ENTER

and you can set head 1 to 4% by typing

1 @ .4 ENTER or 1 @ 04

Note that if the Setup option "Auto enter on keypad intensity set" option is set, you do not need to press ENTER after you have entered a 2 digit level. The console knows that you are setting an intensity due to the @ key. Valid levels are 0% to 100%.

On MagicQ PC / Mac you can use > to indicate THRU and # to indicate FULL.

8.3.1 Setting fade times from the keypad

Fade times for intensity channels can be entered from the keypad. Ensure that “Auto Enter on Keypad Intensity Set” is set to “No” for this to function correctly.

This can be done when setting levels, e.g. to set heads 1 to 4 at 80% with fade time of 5 seconds:

1 > 4 @ 80 / 5

Or without changing the level

1 > 4 @ / 5

To set a delay time and a fade time (e.g. delay 2 seconds, fade 5 seconds)

1 > 4 @ / 2 / 5

Split fade times can be set from the keypad:

1 > 10 @ FULL / 3 * // Heads 1 to 10 at 100% split times over 3s

1 > 10 @ FULL / 0 > 5 // Heads 1 to 10 at 100% split fades 0s to 5s

1 > 10 @ FULL / 0 > 4 / 1 // Heads 1 to 10 at 100% split delays 0s to 4s, 1s fade

1 > 10 @ FULL / 0 > 5 / 0 > 4 // Heads 1 to 10 at 100% split delays and fades

When using split fade times it is possible to enter max > min as well as min > max.

1 > 10 @ FULL / 4 > 0 / 1 // Heads 1 to 10 at 100% split delays 4s to 1s, 1s fade

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8.4 Multi Element Heads

From software version 1.6.5.1 the "." operator is now universally used for selecting elements of multiple heads. The repeated element of a multiple head are indexed .1 .2 .3 etc.. whilst the main part of a multi element head in indexed as .0. Note that if a multi element head does not have a main part - i.e. it is just a repeated head then there is no .0 element. The operators +, -, and THRU (>) can be used to select more than one element of a multi element head. Only one . is supported per command.

Examples of supported syntax are:

. 3 // Select 3rd element of currently selected heads . 1 > 3 // Select 1st, 2nd and 3rd elements of currently selected heads . 1 + 4 // Select 1st and 4th elements of currently selected heads

1 > 10 . 1 @ FULL // Set element 1 of heads 1 to 10 at FULL 1 > 10 . 1 > 3 @ 50 // Set elements 1,2,3 of heads 1 to 10 at 50%

Depending on the MagicQ setup options, it may be necessary to enter @@ at the end of the line to select heads or to press ENTER at the end of the line to enter intensities.

MagicQ now supports the multiple elements of a multi element head all having the same head number. By default MagicQ allocates each element of a multi element head ascending head numbers - this can be modiﬁed in Patch, View Heads by setting the Head Number appended with /1 to indicate only 1 head number in use for that ﬁxture.

Note that prior to v1.6.5.1 the "." was used for selecting or setting intensity direct to a DMX channel rather than a head number. This functionality is no longer supported - see below.

8.5 Setting intensity levels for DMX channels

To set a DMX channel intensity rather than a head number intensity precede the dmx number with a *. For example to set DMX channel 1-50 to FULL.

• 1 . 50 @ FULL

8.6 Using Selected Heads

When you use the keypad to modify heads, by default this does not modify which heads are selected. This ensures that you can be busking moving heads whilst modifying individual dimmer levels at the same time.

However, at any time you can set the levels of the intensities of the currently selected heads using the keypad. To set the selected heads to 70% key in:

@ 70

This method also supports standard key entry syntax such as + and – for relative changes.

You can change which heads are selected at any time through the Group Window – see Selecting Heads.

In the Intensities Window you can change which heads are selected by moving the cursor to a fader and pressing ENTER. You can also select/deselect heads by holding down SHIFT and selecting faders. When faders are shown with a thick stem they are selected. Holding SHIFT and pressing the fader toggles the selection of the fader.

In the Intensities Window press SELECT ACTIVE or SHIFT and SELECT NON ZERO to select the heads you have modiﬁed – this can be useful for creating groups.

8.7 Using gel colours in the Intensity Window

Programming time is signiﬁcantly improved by making use of the gel colour facility built into the console. Assigning a colour to each dimmer is quick and easy and then enables the programming of scenes based on colours. In the Intensity Window the dimmers can be selected on a per colour basis, thus easily enabling the operator to identify the colour and position of the lamps to program into each scene.

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First ensure that each Dimmer has been given a name and a gel colour. This can be carried out either from the Patch Window or from the Intensity Window.

To name a Dimmer in the Intensity Window, either:

• Type in the name on the external keyboard and then press the SET NAME soft button.

• Press SET, then type in the name on the screen keyboard. Then press the SET NAME soft button.

To set a Gel Colour in the Intensity Window, either:

• Type in the colour number on the keypad. Press the SET GEL soft button. Note that colour numbers are assumed to be Lee – proceed the colour with a dot for Rosco colours.

• Type in the colour name (or part of it) on the external keyboard and then press the SET NAME soft button.

• Press SET, then type in the colour name (or part of it) on the screen keyboard. Then press the SET NAME soft button.

Note, you should not press ENTER in any of the above operations as this will try and use the text or number you have entered to set the level for the fader which the cursor is over.

8.7.1 Programming of Dimmers using gel colours

In the Intensity Window you can ﬁlter out faders based on gel colour, head type and head name thus providing a view of only the data you are interested in at the time.

Use the top three left rotary encoders / soft buttons to page through head types and gel types. The display will show only the heads and colours that match the selection.

At any time press the VIEW ALL soft button to revert to viewing all faders regardless of head type, head name and gel colour.

Pressing the ALL TO ZERO and ALL TO FULL soft buttons only affects the faders that match the selected ﬁlter. So for example in order to set all the red lamps to full, page through the gel type till you reach RED and then press ALL TO FULL.

Remember that although you only view the gel type that you have requested there may be other gel types that have been previously activated in the programmer. Press CLEAR before starting programming a new look.

8.8 Setting levels whilst running a show

The Intensities Window supports two fader views - Programmer View and Presets View. The faders in each of these views behave differently. In the Programmer View the faders control values within the programmer whilst in the Presets View the faders act like individual preset faders. Intensity channels are generally conﬁgured to be HTP so the level of a particular channel will be a combination of the faders in the two views - the highest of the two faders.

It is important to understand the distinction - preset faders do not affect the contents of the programmer and therefore can not be used for programming Cues.

When programming a show you should always use the Programmer View. When playing back a show you may wish to use the Presets View - this has the advantage that since it is not part of the programmer, fader values are not affected by actions on the Programmer such as CLEAR. You could, for example, add in some face lighting from some proﬁles using faders in the Presets View which would not be affected by effects that you are busking on some moving heads.

Faders in both the Programmer and Presets Views are affected by the level of the Grand Master. They are also affected when a SWAP button is pressed - any HTP channels in the Programmer or the Presets View will be reduced to zero.

8.9 Viewing Intensities in the Outputs Window

The Outputs Window includes a View for showing the intensities of all patched channels in a theatrical manner with channels and percentages. Open the Outputs Window by pressing the Out button and select the View Chans soft button.

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Chapter 9

Controlling Attributes

MagicQ supports many different ways of modifying the values of attributes for moving heads - using encoders, using buttons, and using the touch screen.

In order to control intelligent heads it is necessary to be able to select which heads to use. MagicQ keeps track of the currently selected heads to enable it to determine which heads to apply changes to. You can select heads individually or can use groups to recall conﬁgurations of heads that are used frequently.

9.1 Selecting Heads

MagicQ automatically generates a group for all the heads of a particular head type. In addition new groups can easily be recorded.

The Group Window has two views. VIEW GROUPS enables selection of heads using groups whilst VIEW HEADS enables individual selection of heads.

In VIEW GROUPS, pressing the touch screen for a particular group selects all the heads associated with that group. All other heads are deselected.

In VIEW HEADS, individual heads are selected by pressing the touch screen. All other heads are deselected. Use PG UP and PG DN to scroll through the heads. To select multiple heads hold SHIFT and press a head. The head will be toggled in and out of selection.

9.2 Using Groups

Once a group has been recorded, then pressing the touch screen for the group will make all the heads in the group selected. All other heads will be deselected. To select multiple groups press SHIFT and a group to toggle the group in and out of selection. (Note that you can change an option in the Setup Window to enable multiple groups to be selected without pressing SHIFT.)

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When in the VIEW GROUPS view you can also use the keypad to select a group - simply enter the group number. You can use + and - to select multiple groups.

Pressing + before a group is selected adds the group to previously selected heads, i.e. the heads in the group are all selected as before, but other heads are not deselected.

For example to select groups 1 and 3 press

1 + 3 ENTER

To deselect group 4 from the selection press

- 4 ENTER

MagicQ generates groups for each head as they are patched. In addition MagicQ can generate auto groups based on gel colour and head name.

9.2.1 Recording a Group

Select the heads you want in a group in the VIEW HEADS view of the Group Window.

Change to the VIEW GROUPS view.

Press RECORD and then select the group you wish to record either by pressing the touch screen or by using the cursor keys and then pressing ENTER.

9.2.2 Naming a Group

When recording a group, if you key in a name before pressing the touch screen (or pressing ENTER) then the group will be named at the same time as it is recorded.

You can name a group at any time by keying in the name, pressing SET, and pressing the touch screen.

9.3 Selecting Heads using the keypad

Heads can be selected based on the head numbers of your dimmers / moving lights - if you intend to use this method then you should set up the head numbers of your lamps when patching. It is easy to do; MagicQ can automatically renumber them, or they can be set to be the same as the DMX start address of the dimmer / head. See the section on patching.

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By default on MagicQ the keypad is used for many functions including selecting heads, settings times, editing ﬁelds in spread sheets. This is different to some other consoles which primarily use the keypad for selection of heads. On MagicQ it is possible to select heads directly form the keypad at any time by entering the head numbers terminated by @@.

9.3.1 Selecting Heads on the keypad using @@

To select heads 1 to 4 key in

1 THRU 4 @@

To select heads 1 to 4 and heads 8 to 11 key in

1 THRU 4 + 8 THRU 11 @@

To select heads 1 through 12 but not head 7 key in

1 THRU 12 - 7 @@

To select all heads of a certain type without specifying the entire range use

1 THRU @@

This selects all heads of the same type as head 1 starting at head no 1 in ascending head order until it reaches a head that is not of the same type.

At any time you can select all of the heads of a particular type (regardless of head no) by selecting one of the heads and then using SHIFT ALL

1 @@

SHIFT ALL

Note that on MagicQ PC you can use > to indicate THRU.

@@ 0 deselects all heads.

To sub select an element of a multi element head use the dot operator, for example head 1 element 2.

1 . 2 @@ . 3 @@ // Select 3rd element of currently selected heads . 1 > 3 @@ // Select 1st, 2nd and 3rd elements of currently selected heads . 1 + 4 @@ // Select 1st and 4th elements of currently selected heads

9.3.2 Selecting heads on the keypad without @@

It is also possible to set the Setup Option “Keypad always select head”. In this mode entering numbers on the keypad always selects heads – however, to perform other operations, like editing ﬁelds in the spread sheet views, you need to press the SET button ﬁrst.

An alternative to using @@ is to use @ ENTER. This is only supported if the Select heads on intensity set option is set. This method works by detecting @ in the keyboard input and instead of passing the input to the active Window it attempts to parse the input as setting intensities for / selecting heads.

When selecting Colour, Beam or Positions the @@ can be replaced by COL, BEAM or POS if you set the Select Heads and Palettes from keypad] Setup option. For example:

1 > 4 COL 5 ENTER

Selects heads 1 to 4 and applies Colour Palette 5.

9.3.3 Remove Dimmer (Rem Dim) Function

The keypad now supports functionality to enable selecting of individual selections of heads and automatically setting all other heads to zero intensity – this is similar to the “Rem Dim” function found in some other theatre consoles. After selecting heads or setting intensities for heads, type - -.

For example, 1 THRU 4 @ FULL - - will set heads 1 to 4 at full intensity and all other heads in the programmer will have their intensity set to zero.

4 THRU 8 – will bring heads 4 to 8 at full intensity into the programmer, whilst all other heads in the programmer will be set to zero intensity.

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9.4 Selecting heads using the rig plan view

Heads can be selected from a plan of the rig in the View Plan view of the Outputs window. See Plan View.

9.5 Head Macros

MagicQ loads macros for the head from the personality ﬁle. Typical macros are "Lamp On", "Lamp Off" and "Reset" - however they are very head dependent.

The "Lamp On", “Lamp Off” and “Reset” macros can be run at any time by using the following short-cuts:

SHIFT + LOCATE Lamp on selected heads

CTRL + LOCATE Reset selected heads

CTRL + SHIFT + LOCATE Lamp off selected heads

Other head macros can be accessed in the Macro Window - press the HEAD MACRO soft button. A list of the available macros is displayed. Select the macro you wish to run. Progress of the macro is shown in the Input Display.

It is also possible to lamp on or off all ﬁxtures from the MACRO window.

9.6 Locating Heads

The ﬁrst action you are likely to want to do is to locate the heads – i.e. to put them into a starting position. Select the required heads and then press the LOCATE button.

Pressing LOCATE, locates all the selected heads. LOCATE places all the attributes of the head into the Programmer at their default values. The personality data for each head speciﬁes what happens to a head when it is located. Typically the shutter is opened, the dimmer is set to 100% and pan and tilt are set to the centre position.

You can locate individual attribute types by holding one of the Pos, Col, Beam or Intensity buttons and pressing LOCATE. Only attributes of that type are located and placed in the Programmer.

9.7 Modifying Attributes

Intelligent heads have several different attributes typically including pan and tilt, colour, gobo and iris. When MagicQ patches an intelligent head it maps the head parameters to standard attributes to enable easy access of the features of the head.

The window enables the control of all the attributes of that attribute type using the eight rotary encoders. In the Beam Window there are more than eight attributes to be controlled – these are accessed using multiple pages of encoders – by pressing the PAGE 1, PAGE 2, PAGE 3, PAGE 4 or PAGE 5 soft buttons or pressing the BEAM button again.

In the Colour Window there is a COL MIX soft button which gives access to libraries of pre-programmed colours. Pressing the COL MIX soft button toggles between the normal palette view and the colour mixing view. In the colour mixing view you can

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select a colour using the touch screen. The COL TYPE soft button enables the user to choose between the default colour library, the Lee colour library or the Rosco colour library.

To modify a 16bit parameter in high (i.e. 16 bit resolution), hold SHIFT and turn the appropriate encoder.

Layout 1 opens the Group, Position, Colour and Beam windows together.

9.8 Using a mouse or track-ball to control pan and tilt

It is possible to use the mouse or trackball for pan/tilt control. Enable the “Enable Mouse to control pan/tilt” option in Setup Window, View Settings.

Press the Right mouse button to enter pan/tilt mode. In this mode the mouse or trackball can be used to control pan and tilt of any selected heads. Press again to return to normal mode.

Support for this function is only available on MagicQ consoles and on MagicQ PC/Mac when connected to a MagicQ PC Wing or MagicQ MaxiWing. It is not available when connected to MagicQ MiniWing or MagicQ USB interface as these products do not have X and Y encoders.

MagicQ consoles support mice and track balls.

9.9 Flip / Mirror

Flip modiﬁes the pan and tilt parameters of a moving head so that the beam is positioned in the same place but from the other end of its movement ranges. Select the ﬁxtures and then press the FLIP soft button in the Position Window.

Use the MIRROR soft button in the Position Window to only invert the Pan attribute and not the tilt attribute. On older software versions press SHIFT + FLIP.

The MQ1000 includes a dedicated MIRROR button. On Compact consoles (MQ40, MQ60, MQ70) press ALT + FAN.

9.10 Setting attribute values using the keypad

You can set attribute values directly by pressing SET, entering the value on the keypad and then pressing the soft button for attribute in the Intensity, Position, Colour and Beam windows.

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9.11 Selecting individual Heads

When programming it is often useful to be able to control one head out of a group of heads - for instance, in order to set up it’s position on the stage. Alternatively you may wish to apply an effect to all the heads, such as fanning the position.

The head control buttons situated to the right of the touch screen enable the individual head to be selected quickly. Once a number of heads have been selected for programming, the head control buttons controls how changes are applied to those heads. By default changes are applied to all the selected heads.

On MagicQ you ﬁrst select the overall selection of heads you want to control using Groups or keypad selection, then you use the head control buttons to sub-select within that overall selection.

The title bar of the Group, Position, Colour and Beam Windows show the currently selected heads.

9.11.1 Single Mode

Pressing NEXT HEAD, PREV HEAD or SINGLE enters Single mode whereby only one head from the selected heads is sub selected for operation on at a time.

When Single mode is ﬁrst entered control is given to the ﬁrst head within the selection – i.e. the ﬁrst head within the group or the ﬁrst head the user selected after no heads were selected.

Single mode is indicated by a LED lit on the SINGLE button.

In Single mode changes made by the encoders or through selecting Palettes only affect the one sub selected head. The head is indicated by a * by the head number.

Once in Single mode, the NEXT HEAD and PREV HEAD buttons are used to transfer control between the selected heads. Pressing the ALL button returns the head control area to the default mode whereby all selected heads are controlled.

In Single mode, Locate only affects the sub selected head.

9.11.2 Pair

Pair mode is similar to Single mode except that instead of only a single head being sub selected, a symmetrical pair within the selected heads is sub selected.

Pair mode is indicated by a LED ﬂashing on the SINGLE button.

Pressing NEXT HEAD or PREV HEAD selects the next pair for sub selection. Pressing the ALL button returns the head control area to the default mode whereby all selected heads are controlled.

The MQ1000 includes a dedicated PAIR button. On Compact consoles (MQ40/60/70) press ALT + SINGLE to get Pair.

9.11.3 Odd/Even

Odd/Even mode is similar to Single mode except that instead of only a single head, half of the heads are sub selected. Odd/Even mode is indicated by a LED lit on the ODD/EVEN button.

Pressing ODD/EVEN selects the odd heads. Pressing NEXT HEAD or PREV HEAD toggles between the odd and even heads. Pressing the ALL button returns the to the default mode whereby all selected heads are controlled.

Holding the ODD/EVEN button brings up the Odd/Even toolbar for quick selection of odd/even or 3s, 4s, 5s. On MagicQ PC/Mac pressing SHIFT and ODD/EVEN opens the toolbar and keeps it open.