The SoundSwitch Shortcut is compromised of 4 different groups of lights in mind:
– Uplights
– Pixel Tubes
– Moving Heads
– Dance Floor Washes
The autoloops are designed to look good with any combination of these lights. The design includes some unique addresses to run chases to add movement and energy. There’s:
– 4 uplights
– 4 pixel tubes (on 16-zone mode)
– 2 moving heads
– 1 dance floor wash.
The shortcut is mean to be scalable, meaning that if you have a bigger setup (e.g. 16 uplights, 8 pixel tubes, 4 movers, 4 washes, etc…)
You just repeat the addresses. For example, if you have 16 Both Lighting IR4 Uplights, and 4 DMX addresses (1, 7, 13, 19 respectively), you just divide the amount of lights you have with the available addresses. When placing the uplights around the venue, place them in order (the best you can) and you’ll get some cool room patterns.
Be sure to check the fixtures in Universe 2! You can drag and drop them into Universe 1 and Vice Versa.
Step 1: Delete any fixtures that you don’t own or plan on owning
This helps reduce clutter.
Keep the 4 Both Lighting Pixel Tubes, and the first 6x18w pars as a reference until you add your own. Also keep the Mover 1 and Mover 2 and Wash (Dance floor) Groups.
Step 2: Add your own fixtures
The steps are slightly different for each type of group of light:
Uplights:
The profile used is 6×18 RGBWA UV 6in1 in 6-channel mode. This will work for a variety of uplights (including the IR4), as long as they the colors RGB White Amber UV, in that order. Many uplights with 6-colors swap the Amber and White order.
In that case, go to Edit Mode, and click on the plus button and find your par in your desired channel mode.
Then click Add Multiple and then add 4, ensure the Add to new group checkbox is checked.
Click Auto Address (you can change the addresses later)
In the DMX map, change the type of the newly added uplights to Wash (Primary) and Group1
Now we’re going to copy the programming for each autoloop in the existing uplight group. One step to make this easier is to collapse every fixture besides the two groups, and then move your new uplight group right next to the 4 Uplight group.
Now expand both groups by clicking on them, and then select the entire 5 rows and copy it (Ctrl + C or CMD + C). Then paste in your newly created uplight group. (Ctrl + V or CMD + V)
Now repeat this process for each of the autoloops.
Next you’ll want to edit each of the static scenes to mimic what the other 4 group of uplights are doing:
Be sure to click the enable button, change the color, and bring up the intensity. (And possibly strobe) Note that not all pars have amber and white diodes
Tubes (eye candy):
If you have your own multi-cell fixture, the workflow will be similar to the pars described above. To get the programming, it will work best if you use your fixture in a multi-zone DMX mode, and if it has a 16-channel mode.
You can’t put multi-cell in a group.
There’s 4 pixel bars to be able to run chases across the tubes, so there’s 4 unique addresses. For our example we’ll use the Well STX 180
In the DMX map, change the drop down to Multi Cell (Primary), and Group2.
You’ll now have to copy and paste each autoloop. That’s 68 lines in total, expand all of the rows. The easiest way to scroll to the top, and then use your mouse to navigate to the bottom of the Both tubes. Then scroll back up and it will quickly take you to the top. Then copy it (ctrl + C)
Then at the top of the new group on the very first row, paste it in.
Then edit each static scene to include your new mutli-cell fixture.
Movers:
Import 2 copies of your mover, do NOT add them to a new group.
In the DMX Map, ensure they’re on Mover(Primary) and Group 3
There’s two groups called “Mover 1” and “Mover 2”. Drag and drop your two newly created mover fixtures into one of the two groups.
Now adjust the positions to match the other existing ones:
The attribute cues are distributed randomly across the various autoloops, you just need to add your mover to the EXISTING and APPLICABLE attribute cues for functionality like prism, gobos, focus, etc…
Will vary based on the mover that you add.
Add programming info for all of your newly added movers in the static looks. Note that by default, the position in THRU, which means the mover will move around following the current autoloop is playing. You have the option to change that to a static position like UP or DOWN. You also have the option to set attribute cues like Gobos, and Focus.
Washes:
These are the easiest to add. Simply drag and drop a wash fixture of your choosing into the Wash (Dance Floor) folder and that’s all you need to do for all of the autoloops
Then add it into all of your static scenes. For a lot of my simple static scenes, I usually like to keep this off.
3. Enjoy the Shortcut!
You should be good to go to start using the autoloops, static scenes, and even creating autoscripts. Be sure to save a copy of this working state, before modifying this template. Let me know if you have any questions!