User Guide

Page 10 - 2. Patching
Pearl 2004 Manual v1 - 27th August 2004
While you are in
Patch mode, the
VDU screen shows a
DMX channel grid to
tell you which
channels you have
patched so far and
which are free.
Dimmers and
fixtures are
identified by
different letters,
dimmers are always
“a”.
You can also display the patch on the LCD screen by pressing View (on
the numeric keypad) then C [DMX patch] (shows which handle each
DMX channel is allocated to) or D [Fixture patch], which shows a list in
handle order.
2.3 Patching moving light fixtures
Moving light fixtures are controlled slightly differently to dimmers; a
dimmer only has one controllable attribute, intensity. But a moving
light fixture can have many attributes, such as pan, tilt, colour, gobo
etc. When you patch a fixture, you will see on the VDU screen that it
occupies a block of DMX channels rather than just one. However, the
principle is still the same.
The Pearl has personality files for most lighting fixtures in the known
universe, and these are stored internally in the console. If you want to
use a personality not available in the console, you can load it from a
personality disk, a wide range of which can be downloaded from the
Avolites website. See section 12 in the reference manual for details of
how to download personalities.
Note: To use the internal personality files, make sure there is no disk
in the disk drive.
Patching a fixture
Î Make sure there is no disk in the disk drive
Î Press Patch
Î Press B [Choose a fixture]
Î The display will show “Please select an instrument” on the top line.
Î A list of known fixtures will appear next to the softkeys after a
pause.
Î Use Softkeys F and G to go up and down the list and find the
correct fixture, then press the Softkey next to the fixture to select
it.
Î The Pearl will load the fixture information (this may take a few
seconds). The display shows information about the fixture.
Î The Pearl will ask “Use preset palettes?”.
Î Press A [Yes]. (This is explained later)
Î The Pearl will offer you the first free DMX address (on the top line
of the display). You can change this using the numeric keypad if
you want the fixture at a different address.