Product
Reviews Pro
Sound And Stage Lighting Magazine Originally
posted: Thursday, July 08, 2004
Leviton Axis Lighting
Controller
by Richard Cadena
One of the things I
look for in a lighting controller is how user-friendly it is,
and one of the measures of user-friendliness is how often I
have to consult the user manual. I’m one of those guys who
would rather burn a tank of gas looking for a destination
rather than stop and ask directions, and I would rather use a
manual as a coaster for my coffee mug than pick it up and read
it.
So when I was able to use the new Leviton Axis
Lighting Controller mostly without consulting the help menu,
it felt good. Though I do have 18 years of lighting experience
and I’ve been using computers since Michael Dell was in
grade school, I also witnessed a Westlake High School theatre
tech student figure out how to build a fixture profile for an
ETC Source Four Revolution in less than five minutes. That’s
what I call user-friendly.
The Leviton Axis Lighting
Controller is a PC-based automated lighting controller and a
USB-to-DMX interface. It installs very easily, and within a
few minutes I had the program up and running. The main screen
has a combination of menu commands, faders and buttons, and it
looks like a cross between a Windows application, a
conventional lighting desk and a DJ mixer.
The Axis
comes loaded with a fixture library that has many of the more
common fixtures and some that aren’t so common. I used it to
control an ETC Source Four Revolution and an Omniscan HQI 150
Plus. Neither was in the library, but I was able to build a
fixture profile for each in a very short time. The nice thing
about building profiles is that you can assign bitmaps to a
range of values for each parameter, so you can have, for
example, a graphic representation of a dot pattern gobo or a
tunnel gobo. There is a long list of bitmaps included and, of
course, you can always make your own. Once you configure all
the parameters the bitmaps are used in the built-in visualizer
to display projections and colors.
Once the fixture
profiles are done, you can assign the DMX channels using a
mapping window with a graphical display of the channel count.
As the fixtures are brought in, they are also laid out in a
Fixture Layout window that shows a graphical representation of
each fixture. To control them, you need only set the levels on
the faders. The trickiest part, which turned out not to be so
tricky once you know the trick, was realizing that the faders
across the top of the window only show 18 out of 1,026 at a
time. When you select a fixture through the menu commands, it
automatically moves to the proper faders associated with that
fixture. Alternatively, you can use the Channel Selector to
slide through the faders.
Programming a scene is
simple. You can grab a fixture through the menu and set the
faders to the proper setting. Because of the range of the
faders, it is sometimes difficult to manipulate them with
precision, especially using a laptop computer. Using a real
mouse works much better. There is also a graphical joystick
that gives you a representation of the beam position relative
to the pan and tilt extremes. It comes in very handy to
position the beam quickly. It’s actually easier than a real
joystick.
Once you have configured the scene, you
simply press the record button and it moves to the next step
in the sequence. I tried to find the upper limit to the number
of steps and I gave up at 1,000. To play back the sequence,
you press the play button. You can adjust the chase speed
while you are recording steps or you can adjust it during
playback on the fly using any one of three methods: the BPM
window, the timing window (adjusts the speed in fractions of a
second) or the FadeTime fader.
There are eight
sequences that can be recorded independently and played back
simultaneously. By mixing two or more sequences, you can come
up with an array of constantly changing looks. There is also a
DMX Pilot Wizard, which automates the task of programming
movements and parameter changes. It allows you to offset any
number of fixtures by a step so they can follow and chase.
Another type of effect generator, the Shape Generator, is a
very useful tool that allows you to plot preconfigured shapes
and apply them to any parameter. There are a handful of canned
shaped like circles and figure eights, and you can create your
own as well.
The Axis has many other great features
like a Follow Spot Mode, Fog Controller, Media Player and
Scheduler to schedule pre-programmed events using the day and
time. The visualizer is rudimentary compared to some
stand-alone visualizers, but it’s still very useful,
particularly in conjunction with the off-line editor. You can
program an entire show without ever connecting to any
hardware.
What the Axis doesn’t seem to have is split
timing to assign individual crossfades to different parameters
in the same scene. Nor does it have a theatre-style stack.
Then again, maybe if I read the manual... But as a club
controller or a controller for permanent installations, it has
a lot of depth in features and processing power. It seems to
be very stable and reliable, at least as far as I can tell
with a few days of playing with it.
The Leviton Axis
controller gives you many powerful features that can help you
significantly reduce the programming time for multiple moving
light fixtures. The Windows environment and the main screen
layout have a familiar feel, while the programming tools give
you a lot of shortcuts to work with.
With all the
emerging technology appearing every day, the last thing any of
us needs is to have to spend a lot of time reading user
manuals. That’s one of the things I like most about this
controller—you can dive right in and get around pretty well.
Leviton
718.229.4040
www.leviton.com |
