Live@Work - 20_KW18 - the new light equipment at York controlled by DMXControl 3

Also, in a club it is necessary from time to time to turn everything up to 180 – spoken now about the light equipment. After the old light equipment in the York had been aging sporadically since its installation in November 2010, the time was now ready for a complete redesign. As a result of many years of cooperation with the club owners, they approached Stefan and his brother in the summer 2019 with the desire to develop a fundamentally new light concept for the main floor. Two points had to be considered: on the one hand, all equipment had to be able to be mounted on the existing trusses over the main floor. On the other hand, the condition was that the new lighting concept should have a direct recognition feature, just like the old system. In the old system, this consisted of the 65 LED spots, which found their place in a matrix of 5 x 13 units above the main floor of the time. Finally, the owners had found LED bars very popular and asked for them to be taken into account in the designs.

Equipped with this frame conditions, it did indeed take some discussion before various drafts could be presented. In the end, the owners opted for a concept whose “eye-catcher” consists of a total of 40 LED bars distributed in three axes on the ceiling above the dance floor. With this targeted and dimensionally accurate alignment of the LED bars, a wide variety of geometric shapes can be created, and other varied contours created. The smaller and, in direct comparison to the old LED spots, sharper light points now also make it possible to literally make the ceiling sparkle or divide the dance floor. There are also 25 moving lights that continue the axes created by the LED bars. The functionalities and quantities are chosen so that the entire lighting equipment never has to be used. During the conversion, the ambient lighting for the tables in the dance floor area was also integrated into the DMX control system. In detail, the York 2k19 lighting concept includes the following equipment:

• 40 Eurolite LED PIX-12 QCL
• 6 Eurolite LED TMH-X7
• 7 Futurelight Color Mega Wave.i
• 12 Futurelight DMH-80
• 2 Eurolite LED PFE-120 3000K Profile
• 2 Eurolite LED PAR-64 RGB Audience Blinder
• 15 Eurolite PS-36 RGB
• 3 Eurolite LED ML-30 COB RGB 30W
• 2 Antari Z-390 Fazer

Directly in the project planning phase one point was certain from the outset: with the reconstruction of the light equipment DMXControl 3 will be installed in the York. A total of just over 2,800 DMX channels are now played out via Art-Net. This number of DMX channels was less of a challenge. More exciting became the point that DMXControl 3 can work with LED bars only conditionally at first sight, because the so-called multibeam support is not yet available. Due to workflow reasons and the limited space at the LJ's workstation, there was no option here to address the LED bars via another system that is better suited for controlling LED bars. The associated project already includes 480 devices for the LED bars alone, so that all pixels of the LED bars can be controlled individually via cuelists. In addition, there are numerous device groups to achieve the desired result with different effects.

The second challenge requires the operating concept itself. Due to the limited dimensions of the workstation, an operating concept had to be created which, in regular operation, only requires a touch screen, but in return harmoniously integrates the additional freedom gained with regard to the live manipulation of effects and the performance of the new input assignment. In the end, the speed and paramater masters were also used extensively.

A total of three different softdesks were created over time. One takes over the control of all three types of moving lights. The second is specifically designed for the LED bars and the third softdesk is used to change the ambient light and to call up special effects for the spot and wash moving heads, for example to illuminate the DJ desk in different colour and quantity configurations. This third softdesk is also where the hazers are set, and it possible to change the response of the moving lights in Softdesk 1. With these two show softdesks and the one control softdesk, the LJs can now create a varied light show even easier, even if the surface may look a bit more sophisticated in direct comparison to the old command box of DMXControl 2 due to the much larger number of faders. For the control is used:

• DMXControl 3.2 auf einem Windows-PC
• 2 Ulrich Radig 8-fach Art-Net-Nodes
• 2 FX5 USB-DMX-Interfaces (Backup)
• 1 Iiyama T2252MSC-B1 Touchscreen-Monitor
• 1 M-Audio Axiom 49 MIDI-Keyboard

Regarding DMX output, a total of ten DMX lines must be output via Art-Net when all the lighting equipment is addressed. The DMX lines in the ceiling are laid out and the configuration of the Art-Net-Nodes is chosen in such a way that even if one of the two Art-Net-Nodes fails, the majority of the devices can still be controlled. The second fallback level is provided by the two FX5 interfaces, which are now only used when absolutely necessary. The entire equipment for DMX output is located in an individually assembled rack.

But among the numerous changes, there is one constant in the York that has not been touched in that sense: the LED wall at the head of the club. This is still controlled via the second PC at the workstation of the LJ.

The new lighting concept has been available to this extent since the 16th November 2019 in operation. DMXControl 3.2 proved itself during the up to now possible opening days as extremely stable and despite the high number of DMX channels also further on as comparatively resource-saving. But as is not usual for projects of this size, the inauguration of the new lighting equipment was far from the end of the line. By numerous ideas which are already noted on different pieces of paper and by the continuous development of DMXControl 3 the project will continue to grow and develop for quite some time.

Your DMXControl-Team