Version 1.9.4.x Change Notes

Fix for 36676, 36708 both related to moving items with encoders.

Fix Waveform rendering issues introducted in v1.9.4.0

Fix Timeline Markers menu state issues introducted in v1.9.4.0

Add buttons to allow cues to have their TC reordered.

Added a way to display cues that aren’t ordered.

Added Cue Stack option to release Cue Stack using last step times. This enables releasing using complex fan times and different fade / delay times on different attributes and heads.

The last step times will apply when the whole Cue Stack is released and also when individual channels are released from the Cue Stack (e.g. when Tracking is set without L or H).

The channels must be programmed in the last step for times to take effect. The values in the last step are ignored - only the times are used. If channels are not in the last step then the overall Cue Stack release time will be used.

When this option is set it is not required to set the overall Cue Stack release time.

There is now a View Type with Head Nos + Names + Intensity. This is supported in the views with and without symbols.

Exec Grid items can now be copied to the Output Grids. This enables Palettes, Cues, Cue Stacks and Assign Special items to be shown and selected in the Output Grids.

Text can now be stored directly on the Output Grids. Press SET and store alphanumeric text. Note that if the entered text is purely a number, or a number including "." or "-" then the text will be treated as a head/element number and used to insert heads in the grid. For convenience, the text strings are the same as are used in the Pixel Mapper.

Items on Grids can now be copied between the different Output Windows.

When dragging items in the Output Grid over other items the drag is blocked. Previously the other items would get removed from the Grid. #0033376

The zoom and scroll of the Output Grid is now stored into Layouts. #0027123, #0024863

There is a separate vertical and horizontal zoom on Encoder E. Normally it will zoom both horizontal and vertical together. Hold ALT to zoom horizontal only. #0034540

Soft button E can now be used to zoom into the current cursor position and to reset back out to 100%. Previously it always reset to 100%.

The background image can now be rotated through 90, 180 and 270 degrees. Set the Grid Options.

The background image can now be colour inverted. Set the Grid Options.

It is now possible to copy programmer data between heads or copy programmer data between groups in the Output, View Plan. Note that as before, when in View Grid, copying modifies the Grid items rather than copying head programming.

There is now a Grid Option to enable selecting of whole lines of Heads by clicking on the empty item next to the Head. This behaviour was previously always enabled - now it is disabled by default and can be enabled per Grid as required. #0032668

Output grids can now be output to external monitors as pure pixels for driving LED walls directly via HDMI/Display Port directly rather than via network protocols such as ArtNet and sACN. This provides an alternative to using MagicHD for lower resolution installations.

In the Output Window, View Grid set the VIEW TYPE to Pixel. The Output window will then show as pure pixels - 1 pixel per Grid cell.

Zooming is supported to increase the number of pixels covered by each Output Grid cell. Soft button F can be used to zoom the Grid to fit to the window size.

When the Output Window is placed on an external monitor it will show without title bar and borders - i.e. pure pixels output from the Pixel Mapper.

When using this feature it is recommended to use Output Windows 2 or 3 and to fix them to the external monitors, by setting them as the Fixed Window for a monitor in Setup, View System, View Monitors.

The RDM View in the Net Manager now has a column to show a selected PID. This enables simultaneous viewing and setting of the selected PID in multiple fixtures. Use soft button X to set the required PID. Pressing the soft button will go to the next PID supported by the fixture. Pressing SHIFT and the soft button will go to the previous PID supported by the head. Use SET and the soft button to set a specific PID value.

All manufacturer PIDs can be viewed and set. Standard PIDs can only be viewed and set if they are simple PIDS with a single parameter.

In VIEW PIDS it is now possible to copy a PID from one fixture to all other fixtures of the same type - press the COPY PID soft button. Press SHIFT and COPY ALL PIDs to copy all PIDs to fixtures of the same type. Note that only PIDs that are writeable will be copied.

In Net Manager, View PIDS, the soft button "LOG RDM" has been renamed to "EXPORT RDM" to avoid confusion with MagicQ logging. The exported file is saved to the show folder with the name rdm_<manufacturer>_<short name>_<ESTA ID>_<UUID>.csv.

It is now possible to link adjacent Speed Masters. Set the "Linked" field in Playbacks, View Speed Masters to link a Speed Master to the previous Speed Master. When linked, the Speed Master takes its base timing from the previous Speed Master. The source will always be the same as the previous Speed Master - for example, setting the primary Speed Master to DJ Beat will also set the linked Speed Masters to DJ Beat. When linked each Speed Master can have a different rate divisor and has separate Activate and Halt - it is only the base timing that is linked.

The Speed Master source can now be selected in Playbacks, View Speed Masters. Previously it was only possible to select source via an Execute Item. Now when selecting a new source, the other sources are automatically deactivated.

The Rate Divisor of the Speed Master can now be set to multiply by values greater than 2. This is useful for some FX when using larger numbers of fixtures.

There is a new Speed Master Exec Item "Resync Beat". This resyncs to the beat rather than resyncing to the start of the FX. This enables resyncing where the FX is off beat.

The DJ BPM option now takes its BPM speed directly from the DJ system - previously it would recalculate the BPM based on the incoming beat grid.

Added support for fanning based on the row in the Group Grid. In the FAN toolbar there is now a Group Grid option. When selected, the fanning is performed using the Heads in each row separately. This enables a Group Grid to be quickly set up with multiple trusses, each with their own row in the Grid and the fanning to occur by truss. This is an alternative to fanning by separate Groups.

Added Cue Stack option for GO to step Cue Stack without activating.

Reverse Gobo rotation speed is now supported for Group Cues.

Allow VDIMs on separate personality functions even if another function has intensities.

Added support for import of a TC Track from a CSV file. In the Cue Stack Window, press VIEW TC and then IMPORT TC TIMINGS. Select Make TC Track. If the Cue Stack already exists it will be added to the current Track otherwise a new Cue Stack is created and the times added to TC Track 1.

Added extra options to the Speed Masters in the Execute Windows to enable Audio BPM and DJ BPM. When Audio BPM is activated the Speed Master takes its BPM from the Audio input. When DJ BPM is activated the Speed Master takes its BPM from the DJ input. In both cases the Tapped BPM and any fader level for the Speed Master is ignored. The Speed Master rate divisor is applied to the BPM.

Changes for MQ80s manufactured after March 2023. Previous software releases will not work on these consoles.

Changes for MQ50s and MQ70s manufactured after March 2023. Previous software releases will not install on these consoles.

Added new Setup option to enable and to disable generation of default palettes. In Setup, View Settings, Cue Storage set the Auto Create Default Palettes setting. The options are None, IC, IP, IPC and IPCB. The default is IPCB. Previously default palettes were only created when Group Cues was in operation. Now the creation of default palettes is independent from Group Cues. When loading older shows this option will be set to IPCB if the previous show had Group Cues set, otherwise it will be set to None. #0035758

Added support for MIDI Sysex Autom - was removed in recent betas as was not working.

Fixed Timeline scroll encoder so you can now set values.

Fixed Timeline issues when updating timecode of items with encoder.

Fixed reset when deleting marker set layers.

Timeline A-D Encoders will always show values of the item with the lowest TC from the currently selected items.

Fixed issue with renumbering Cue IDs in the Timeline.

Fixed issue with inconsistent name of layer names in the Timeline.

Fixed issue with audio markers sets being displayed in other cue stacks in Timeline.

Fixed issue with copied Cues not having valid Cue IDs in Timeline.

Fixed issue with record Cues in Timeline having a Cue ID of 99.999

Fixed a reset in the Timeline window if lock is pressed with a Cue selected.

Fixed a issue with the Audio positioning in the Timeline window where the audio start offset wasn’t being applied.

Fixing Cue numbering issue #35797

Fixed Beat markers so they now follow the audio offset #35868

Fixed an issue with wiggling occuring when a number of items were being moved with encoder A. #34579

Recording TC tracks while the playback is active will now play newly recorded items without restarting the cue stack.

Fixed positioning issues while copying and moving cues, tc steps and markers with offsets.

The extended copy now accounts for the full width of the selection if no offset is used.

Fixed an issues with previously selected items jumping to the position of a newly selected item

Fixed issue with with previously selected items moving when using encoder A.

Fixed a issue with TC steps moving when the duration was being changed with encoder C.

Positioning of all items is new based off of the frame rate type.

Cue Stack Favourites provide a way to quickly apply favourite settings to different types of Cue Stacks.

Cue Stack Favourites include:

In the Cue Stack window there is a new view with 100 favourites. Press VIEW OPTIONS (or click 3 times on the S button) and then press VIEW FAVOURITES.

The settings of the current Cue Stack can be recorded onto a selected Favourite. The Favourite can then be applied to any Cue Stack.

Favourites can be named, moved, copied and removed in a similar way to all other MagicQ items.

Note that when applying to a Cue Stack with multiple steps fade times are not applied. Release times are applied in all cases.

Icons are only applied if the Favourite has an Icon in it - otherwise the icon on the current Cue Stack is retained.

Cue Stack Favourites are stored in the show file. They are also stored in the settings file when using SAVE SETTINGS and IMPORT SETTINGS.

It is now possible to clone and remove Groups from programmed Cues. Previous versions only supported replacing of Groups in programmed Cues. Cloning Groups in Cues enables expanding a show to use more Groups than originally programmed. Removing Groups in Cues enables Groups to be taken back out of the programming.

The advantage of cloning / removing Groups in Cues rather than simply adding removing from the Groups is that split times and FX will be run separately for each Group rather than as a single Group.

Groups can be cloned or removed from individual Cues on a Cue Stack, from entire Cue Stacks, or from all Cues. The Stack Store and Cue Store filtering can be used to apply the changes to a specified set of Cues.

In the Group window press SHIFT + CLONE GROUP to clone a Group in Cues. Then select the Group to clone from, then the Group to clone to, then the item to clone in. Press ENTER to clone in all Cues - MagicQ prompts with a confirm box.

In the Group window press SHIFT + REMOVE GROUP to remove a Group in Cues. Then select the Group to remove from, then the item to remove from. Press ENTER to remove from all Cues - MagicQ prompts with a confirm box.

Cloning and removing of Cues is only supported when Group Cues is enabled.

Tap To Time for FX has now been improved with an option to take into account the number of steps in the FX and the number of parts selected rather than tapping per FX step. There is a new Timing field on the right side of VIEW FX in the Prog and Cue windows which can be set to Per Head or Per Step.

There is a new Timing option in the FX tab in the Cue Stack window, View Options, View Defaults. In new and old shows this is set to Per Step by default. Changing it to Per Head will affect any new FX created.

There is a new soft button in the Cue Store window to convert all FX in Cues between Per Cycle and Per Head timing. This can also be used with the filtering to select a sub set of the Cues to change.

The Global Tap to Time button functions in previous software versions have been renamed "Tap to Time active" to reflect their actual function.

Added new setting Setup, View Settings, Playback, Tap fn to specify the function of the physical Tap button. Previously it always performed Tap to Time active. Now it can be set to Tap to Time Selected, Tap to Time active or Tap to Time for any of the Speed Masters SP1 to SP15.

Added Tap to Time active, Tap to Time SP1, Tap to Time SP2 and Tap to Time SP3 options to DBO button options - Setup, View Settings, Playbacks, DBO.

Added Tap to Time active, Tap to Time SP1, Tap to Time SP2 and Tap to Time SP3 options to the Crossfade button function options - Setup, View Settings, Playbacks, Crossfade button function.

Added Tap to Time SP1, Tap to Time SP2, Tap to Time SP3 to the remote trigger action option in Setup, View Settings, Ports. Also added Step SP1, Step SP2, Step SP3 to enable the remote trigger input to step the FX and chases on the received beat.

There is now an additional shortcut ALT + FLASH in Setup, View Settings, Playback, Tap to Time used to Tap to Time directly the timing of the current Cue from the Cue Stack on the Playback. #0033631

In order to avoid accidental shut down of the console the keyboard shortcut to power off the console has been changed from CTRL + DBO to SHIFT + CTRL + DBO. The old unused SHIFT + DBO reset graphics is no longer supported.

The following default for FX can be set in Cue Stack, View Options, View Defaults, FX.

The Speed was previously supported but was only used when creating new waveform FX in the FX Editor. It was not used when applying FX. Now, when non zero this over rides the default speed from the FX file. When set to zero the default from the FX file will be used.

The defaults for FX size, width, crossfade, spread, rnd, one shot are always taken from the FX File as they are specific to the FX.

Within FX the Speed Type has been enhanced so that now as well as Run, Stop and Double there are now the options Div 2, Div 3, Div 4, Div 5, Div 6, Div 7, Div 8.

This enables FX to built up with different attributes at multiples of one rate but still synced.

The Speed Type can be set in the Programmer or Cue window.

The divisors / doubler is applied after all other rate controls regardless of whether the FX is using its own timing or is being controlled by a Speed Master.

MagicQ now supports 100 Speed Masters which can be used to Tap to Time speed and apply the speeds to chosen Cue Stacks. Some users may wish to use just one global Speed Master whilst others may wish to use a Speed Master per song page.

Each Speed Master can be set to either control all attribute types, or can be selected individually for Intensity, Position, Colour and Beam.

When a new show is started all Speed Masters are reset to a disabled state.

All Cue Stacks by default are controlled by Speed Master 1 (SP1). In the Cue Stack, Advanced options, the Speed Master option can be set to choose any of the 100 Speed Masters, or to Ignore - in which case the Cue Stack ignores all Speed Masters.

Each FX in a Cue Stack can also be assigned to a different Speed Master - in this case it takes precedence over the the Speed Master for the entire Cue Stack. If the FX is set to "Ignore" then the Speed Master setting for the entire Cue Stack is used.

Cue Stacks are affected regardless of whether they are executed from a Playback, from an Execute Window or from the Stack Store.

By default FX that are in the Programmer are not affected by any enabled Speed Masters - this ensures that during programming default speeds can be programmed into Cues. For playback (busking) the Programmer can be controlled by a Speed Master - in Setup, View Settings, Prog set the Programmer Speed Master to the required Speed Master. Set it to Ignore to make it ignore all Speed Masters.

When enabled, the Speed Master will control the speed of chases in the Cue Stack and all the FX in the Cue Stack, including any Pixel Map FX. The programmed chase time and programmed FX time are ignored. When a Speed Master is deactivated all chases and FX under control of that Speed Master revert to their programmed speeds.

When Tap to Time is used to set the speed of a Speed Master, all controlled chases and FX will be phase synced to the Taps as well as setting the speed. This means that after a Tap to Time on a Speed Master all chases and FX will be in sync.

A "No Tap Sync" can be set for each Speed Master, so that Tap to Time on that Speed Master will only set the tempo, it will not phase sync the FX and chases.

"Fader 200%" can be set for each Speed Master, so when the fader is at half the temp is the tapped tempo and when at fill it is 200% of the tapped tempo.

Speed Masters can be accessed as options through the following features:

The current status of the Speed Masters can be viewed in the Playback Window, VIEW SPD MASTERS view. In this view it is also possible to activate/deactivate the Speed Master, to set the Speed Master running or halted and to set the Speed Master BPM and Rate Divisor.

Speed Masters are set to Per Head Timing by default. They can be set between Per Step and Per Head timing in the Playback Window. If either the FX or the Speed Master is set to Per Head timing then Per Head timing is used.

Using Speed Masters it is now possible to resync FX back to the start of the FX. Press CTRL and any of the TAP shortcut buttons above.

When a Cue Stack has the Cue Stack option, Advanced, Masters affect Levels set to "No" the Cue Stack now ignores FX Speed and FX Size Masters and also the new Speed Masters.

When a Cue Stack has the Cue Stack option, Advanced, Rate Divisor set to "Ignore" the Cue Stack now ignores FX Speed Masters and Speed Masters. This option does not affect FX Size Masters.

There is a new shortcut for the Intensity wheel. ALT + scrolling the intensity wheel will scroll the current window. Note that if the Intensity wheel is set to "Intensity Require ALT key" then it will do Intensity as normal. #0033189

The "Rate" option has been renamed "Sel PB Speed" to better identify the function.

There are three new options for the Intensity wheel:

When the intensity wheel is used to scroll Windows, the direction has now been inverted so that scrolling the wheel down scrolls down the window. #0033912

The legend for the Intensity encoder has been improved. #0029658

When Bank 2..6 are selected, the Page Window and the Page keypad syntax (e.g. Page 20 ENTER) now operate on the current bank rather than Bank 1 (the main bank).

Added Bank selection to the Page window (previously you could just SET BANK 1) and indication in the title bar when it is not Bank 1.

In the Execute Window, the View Item soft button is now supported in the VIEW EXECUTE view as well as the VIEW DESIGN view.

Perform Move When Dark when releasing channels from other playbacks / programmers to Cue Stacks that have Move When Dark set.

Added Unused Cues filter to Cue Store and Unused Cue Stacks filter to Stack Store.

Cue Stacks with the Make Fader Jumps to Cue Step option set will now indicate the current step even when not activated. This is particularly useful on Encoder playbacks.

Changes to the GDTF import makes it better at importing the attributes numbers correctly.

Group Cues - add support for Make FX from Cue Stack which was not previously supported.

Added "Only sub selected heads" option to Setup, View Settings, Prog, Recording to Palettes setting. #0025342

There is a new channel activation option "IPC B Split" for the Chan Activates setting in Setup, View Settings, Programmer. This activates Intensity, Position and Colour as per the IPC option, then Beam is split.

A number of legacy features have been removed from this version to facilitate improvements for our current console range.

This version is not available for the long time discontinued consoles - MQ100, MQ200, MQ300, MQ40, MQ40N, MQ60 and original MQ70. Version 1.9.3.7 is the latest released version supporting these consoles.

The old Net Wing mode has been fully removed.

The Setup, Keyboard & Encoders, Swap Palette and Cursor option has been removed (only applied to MQ100s and Maxi Wings).

The Setup, Ports, Serial Touch monitor option has been removed along with the serial touch monitor support from the Serial remote protocol option.

Support for the RS232 serial port has now been reduced - the MQ500M is the only current product to have a serial port. Serial touch monitors are no longer supported. MagicWand, ChamSys Remote Protocol and serial Automs are still supported.

Timeline spectrogram view for the audio has been removed.

Added preview of the first CUE to the steps layer with a track.

Added audio metadata into the timeline.

Added button to hide/unhide all the beat markers.

Added a button allowing the beat markers to be locked and prevent accidental selection/adjustments.

Audio waveforms are no longer rendered using 30 second images, the song/track is analysed and it’s data is stored in "show/audio/_bin". If you have any issues loading a waveform please delete the respective folder/directory created within "_bin". Then load it again and make sure to wait until you see "Status: Loaded".

Support has been added for the Megapixel VR Helios LED processor. Within MagicQ the Megapixel VR Helios is treated like a media server with control of multi layers (referred to as MP Groups) each with intensity, position and colour control.

Whereas media servers generally take multiple layers of video with different position and size and combine them into one media output, the Megapixel VR Helios takes one media source and distributes it onto multiple LED outputs at different positions. However, from a control perspective it is similar control of multiple items that have Intensity, Position and Colour and have live previews.

Unlike other media servers the Megapixel VR Helios is not controlled over DMX - instead MagicQ connects directly to it over the network using the public REST API provided in the Helios enabling greater control and flexibility. MagicQ converts its internally calculated DMX values to suitable values for sending over the REST API.

The Megapixel VR Helios is patched in the Patch Window by selecting CHOOSE DIM/MEDIA, selecting "media server" and then selecting "megapixel". This will automatically patch 30 Megapixel Group 20ch heads each named MP GrpX where X is 1 to 30. It will also create a Media Server in Setup, View System, View Media set to type of Megapixel VR and referencing the patched Megapixel heads. Each head in MagicQ is automatically defaulted to control a Megapixel Group (1 to 30) - although this can be overridden when programming.

The Magapixel Group 20ch personality has the following attributes:

Note that there is no correlation between the normal MagicQ groups and the MP Groups on the Megapixel VR Helios. When the Megapixel VR Helios is patched fresh into an empty show on MagicQ then the MP Groups will be patched as Heads with Head numbers 1 to 30 in MagicQ. There will only be one MagicQ Group generated - which has all 30 MP Group heads in it. We recommend that the Megapixel VR Helios is configured with one Megapixel Group for each LED panel controlled starting at Megapixel Group 1.

In order to connect to the Megapixel VR Helios set the IP address of the media server in Setup, View System, View Media to the IP address that the Megapixel VR Helios is using (displayed on its front panel display) and then set Live Preview to Enabled.

The Media window now has a View VR view which can be selected by toggling through the views on the top left soft button. In VIEW VR the whole window is used to show a large preview from the media server. Note the Megapixel VR Helios limits the preview refresh rate to every half a second. Unlike the View Servers View in the Media window, the Preview will continue to be refreshed even when the Megapixel VR Server is not selected in MagicQ - thus enabling the Preview to be constantly viewed regardless of selected heads.

The MP Groups are drawn on top of the preview. Pressing within a MP Group selects it within MagicQ. Selecting a MP Group selects that MP Group (Head in MagicQ) enabling it to be controlled. The MP Group can be dragged around the preview to a new position.

The 10Scene Wall Plates now support pressing and holding of 10Scene buttons to set the level of the scene. After the 10Scene button has been held for a second, them whilst the 10Scene button remains held the level will decrease until the button is released until the level reaches 1%. Subsequent press and hold for more than 1 second will increase the level until the level reaches 100% of the programmed state. Each subsequent press and hold alternates between increase and decrease.

Normal pressing and releasing of buttons is not affected. The 10Scene button will always activate to 100% of the programmed Scene when the button is first pressed, and when reactivating after the 10Scene has been previously released.

10Scene trigger on MQ250M/Stadium Connect/Compact Connect now also executes normal remote port function as per older MagicQ consoles / PC Wings with a DIN type remote port connector.

When removing Pixelmapper and Media servers layers from the Patch window, MagicQ will also now remove any associated Media Server data from the Media Sever list in Setup, View System, View Media.

Display actual sunrise/sunset times in Scheduled events.

Add option to convert only selected heads from Head Cues to Group Cues when converting from the Cue Store.

The 2CMY, 3CMY, 4CMY FX have been moved to the Old FX folder to avoid confusion with 2Col, 3Col and 4Col.

Make Cue Stack button backlight red when ALT pressed to indicate LAYOUTS window.

In the Patch Window the Head tabs are now sorted alphabetically to make it easier to find Head types.

Show negative timecode values in Cue Stack window in Caption and on TC Sim soft button when there is a TC offset set for the Cue Stack.

The Network Switch setting "Normal" has been renamed to "Enable IGMP Snooping". We recommend all systems to run with this set to "Disable IGMP Snooping".

When upgrading to this version from older versions the Network Switch setting (for MQ500/MQ70/MQ50) is set to Disable IGMP Snooping.

Add Setup option in Setup, View Settings, Keypad & Encoders to auto cursor down on enter.

In the Head Editor when setting attributes to Intensity, Pan, Tilt and Zoom set the default, locate, highlight and lowlight values if they are not already set.

Add option when converting to Group Cues to use Groups with a single Head in them.

Fixed reset when deleting a Flash with REM and selecting it. #0033406 #0033425

Reduced memory usage when loading multiple long audio tracks, allows for tracks over 1 hour being loaded. #0029738

Improved audio waveform rendering quality in Timeline window.

Prevented entry of blank text into section and unique markers.

Adjusted the buttons in the Cue Stack Audio layer to accommodate the new information.

If larger audio files are being processed, feedback back is provided by using staged "…​" after the word "Loading".

Holding shift and left clicking and dragging on the ruler will allow you to drag around the cursor.

Fixes for user names containing a full stop and preventing audio files loading in Timeline.

Fixed offsets on timecoded TC tracks meaning they didn’t appear in the timeline.