Your first show

Patch a rig, build a look, store a cue and play it back - end to end.

A complete pass through the console: patch, look, cue, playback, save. Ten minutes at the keyboard, no rig required - the 3D visualiser will show you everything.

1. Patch some fixtures

Open the Fixtures & Groups tab and click Patch wizard. Pick a manufacturer and model, say how many you want and where the first one is addressed, and the wizard lays the rest out for you.

The Patch wizard button on the Fixtures & Groups tab

If you would rather type it:

ADD FIXTURE 1 TYPE Chauvet Professional Rogue R3 Spot AT 1/1
CLONE 1 2 AT NEXT
CLONE 1 3 AT NEXT
LIST FIXTURES

Fixtures need a position before the visualiser or any target aiming can do anything useful with them. The wizard asks for one, and UPDATE FIXTURE 1 THRU 3 POS 3 THRU 9 0 THRU 0 5 THRU 5 spreads three fixtures along a bar. See Fixtures and patching.

2. Make a selection

Click a row in the Fixtures table, or ctrl-click several, or type:

FIXTURE 1 THRU 3

The selection is what every attribute change applies to. Save one you will want again:

STORE GROUP 1 "Front Wash"

3. Build a look

With fixtures selected, drag the Intensity slider up, then open the Colour bank and pick a colour. Every control echoes its command into the history pane, so the same look typed is:

INTENSITY 100
RED 100 GREEN 20 BLUE 0

This is the programmer: a scratch layer that beats everything below it. The values you can see in the fixture table in blue are the ones you are holding. See The programmer.

Try fanning it - set a spread and watch the values distribute across the selection (Fanning and spread).

4. Store it as a cue

Go to the Cues tab and click Programmer →. The button tells you which cue number it is about to write.

The Programmer → button

STORE CUE 1 "Opening"

Now clear the programmer (CLEAR PROGRAMMER, or the Clear prog button) - the stage goes dark, because nothing is playing yet.

5. Play it back

Press GO.

The GO button

Build a second look and store it as cue 2, then GO again. GO walks forward through the cue list; GO 1 jumps straight to a cue; STOP fades the list out. See Cue lists and GO.

6. Put something on a fader

Faders are for the things you want under your hand rather than in a sequence. Build a look in the programmer, store it as a preset, then load it:

STORE PRESET 1 "Warm wash"
LOAD PRESET 1 AT FADER 1 NAME "Warm wash"
FADER 1 100

See Faders and pages.

7. Save the show

File → Save As…, or:

SAVEAS myshow.lmx

From then on Save (SAVE) overwrites it, autosave can be switched on, and LMX keeps a rotation of backups beside the file. See Showfiles, saving and backups.

8. Get it onto the rig

Nothing leaves the machine until you say so. Open File → Config… → Art-Net (or sACN, or USB DMX), enable it, and point it at your network:

CONFIG ARTNET ENABLE
CONFIG ARTNET BROADCAST 2.255.255.255
SHOW ARTNET

See DMX output.