Controlling Heads

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 @@

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.

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.

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.

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 selecting multiple groups.

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 2 views, View Prog and View Pre-set – faders changed in the Prog View affect the intensity levels in the programmer and are recorded into Cues. Faders changed in the pre-set View are like traditional “one per channel” pre-set faders on older lighting consoles – this enables levels on channels to be set without affecting programming. This is equivalent to “Parking” on other consoles.

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.

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 to see the beam. Select the heads and then press SHIFT LOCATE. This runs the "Lamp On" macro.

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 the MagicQ there is a window for each of these attribute types. Select the required heads, and then open the required window.

You can quickly open all the Palette Windows by holding CTRL and pressing the top soft button marked Palettes – this opens the windows in the layout below.

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.

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.

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.