User Guide

2. Patching - Page 119
Pearl 2004 Manual v1 - 27th August 2004
The Pearl uses a “personality” system to control fixtures. There is a
personality file in the Pearl for most types of fixture, which tells it what
attributes are available and how to control them. If the Pearl does not
have the personality for your fixture, you can download a wide range of
personalities from the Avolites website onto floppy disk and load them
that way. If you use fixtures often you can add them to the internal
store. In the unlikely event that no personality exists for the fixture you
are using, Avolites will create one for you. You can also create the file
yourself if you have some programming abilities. See chapter 12 on
page 206 for details of how to find personalities.
Note: The Pearl holds all the personalities in an internal “cache” file. If
the console memory gets totally wiped you might need to
reload the file, how to do it is described on page 196. You can
also use a Personality Disk in the disk drive.
If you are using the internal personality cache, ensure there is no disk
in the disk drive.
1> Press Patch, then B [Choose a Fixture].
2> The Pearl will read the personality files, then display “Please select
an instrument”. A list of known fixtures will appear next to the
softkeys after a pause.
3> Use F [More] and G [Back] to go up and down the list and find the
correct fixture, then press the softkey next to the fixture to select
it.
4> The Pearl loads the fixture information. The display shows details
of the fixture.
5> The Pearl will ask “Use preset palettes?”. Press A [Yes]. This loads
a standard set of positions, colours and gobos into the Palette
pages which can be useful when programming. If you say No now,
you can’t load them later.
6> On the display, the Pearl shows the DMX address it is going to
patch at. You can change this using the numeric keypad. You can
also press E [Select a DMX line] to patch onto one of the other 3
DMX output lines.
7> Press an unused handle Swop button to patch the fixture. The
VDU screen will show the block of channels occupied by the
fixture. If you want to use a different fixture page, select the new
page first.
8> Repeat from Step 7 to patch more of this type of fixture.
9> Press A [Select another fixture] and repeat from Step 3 to patch a
different type of fixture.
• You can patch a range of fixtures by holding down the first and
last Swop buttons of the range, the same as for dimmers.
• Unlike dimmers, you cannot patch more than one fixture onto a
handle. If the handle is already used, the patch will fail. Use a
different handle or delete the fixture already on the handle if you
don’t want it any more.
• Some fixtures can only be patched at certain DMX addresses. This
is usually described in the fixture instruction manual. If this
information is included in the fixture personality, the Pearl will not
allow you to patch the fixture at an illegal address, and will offer