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Fixture Advanced Options

Fixture macros and Lamping fixtures on and off

Many fixtures have a control channel which allows you to perform functions like lamp on, lamp off, fixture reset, and so on. This can be useful to shut down fixture lamps at the end of a show while the fans continue to run, or to reset a fixture which has gone haywire.

The console allows you to access these functions using Fixture Macros (not to be confused with keypress macros).

  1. Keep pressing Exit until you are at the top level menu (or AvoExit takes you straight to the top).
  2. Select the fixtures you wish to control. Macros may not work across groups of fixtures from different manufacturers so it’s best to do each type of fixture separately.
  3. Press Macro then Fixture Macros (for consoles with ML Menu button you can also find the Fixture Macros function there).
  4. The softkeys show a list of the functions available. Press the one you want to action.
  • Some macros involve timed sequences and can take up to 30 seconds to execute.

The ML Menu button

Some consoles have a button labelled ML Menu. When the console is at the top level menu, this button opens the Moving Light Actions menu which contains options to Locate Fixture (same as the Locate button) and to run Macros on fixtures such as Lamp On, Lamp Off, Reset etc. The Align Fixtures and Flip functions as described above are also in this menu.

On the Pearl Expert and Tiger Touch 1, this button also latches the current menu when the console is not at the top level menu. Press Exit to get back to the top menu so that you can access the Moving Light menu. On other consoles there is a dedicated Latch Menu button.