These are two quick-access panels: the effects and presets you need most, right at hand so you don’t have to hunt for them during a show. The panels appear automatically as soon as you mark at least one effect or preset as a favorite.
Favorite Effects
Quick launch of saved effect variants (waves, rainbow, strobe patterns, etc.).
- To add an effect here, first select the group it should play on above the fixture list (for example, “Beams”). Then in the “Effects” tab right-click the variant you want → “To favorites (Live)”. The selected group is remembered with the effect.
- In Live, click the effect button — it launches only on its own group, whatever is selected. A running effect is highlighted in amber; clicking again turns it off. The button stays lit while the effect is running, even if it was started from the “Effects” tab or by a playlist — clicking a lit button turns the effect off.
- To change the group, right-click the effect button in Live. In the menu pick “All fixtures”, a group by type or your own group; the same menu has “Remove from favorites”. “As selected” means the effect takes the fixtures selected at the moment you click. If the effect is playing at that moment, it moves to the new group right away.
On the button: the colored dot is the variant color, the name is the parent effect, and the small text next to it is the fixture group. ⚠ next to the group means the group was deleted or has no fixtures left: such an effect won’t start until you pick another group.
Favorite effects and their groups are saved with the project: open the project and they are there.
Favorite Presets
Presets from the Programmer — prepared head positions, color schemes, gobos and strobe.
- To add one, press the star ★ next to the preset on the “Presets” tab.
- In Live, clicking a preset applies it to the selected fixtures (or to all of them if nothing is selected).
The star color hints at the preset category: color, position, gobo or strobe.
A preset works ON TOP of the running show
This is the key difference from the “Presets” tab in the Programmer. During a performance a scene, a chase or a playlist is usually already running — and a preset pressed here still works:
* color, gobo, position and strobe change at once and hold on top of the show;
* brightness stays with the show — the scene, chase and faders keep controlling it, so the flicker and drive do not disappear. Even if the preset has brightness saved in it, Live does not apply it;
* the edit does not damage the scene or the chase: you only change what the room sees right now.
While such an edit is active, a tag for every applied preset and a “Clear all” button appear next to the block title. You can clear it like this:
* click a preset’s tag — only that preset is removed: its fixtures return exactly to the light they had before it, the other presets keep working;
* the “Clear all” button — all live edits go away and the show keeps playing;
* the Reset button (hold ~1 s) — clears it together with the other live overrides;
* in the Programmer the same edit shows as a blue “Presets: N fixtures” chip in the “Active” row — clicking the chip clears it too.
A new preset displaces an older one where it overrides it. Press “Red”, then “Blue” on the same fixtures — a single “Blue” tag remains, and removing it brings back the scene’s colour, not “Red”. If “Blue” covered only some of the fixtures, “Red” stays on the rest and its tag stays visible. Colour and strobe do not displace each other — they are two tags.
You can also press nothing: the next manual command releases the edit by itself. Recall a scene by button or leave Blind mode — all live edits are cleared. Move a fader or use the palette in the Programmer — only what you changed is cleared: a brightness fader keeps the preset colour, while picking a colour in the palette clears the preset colour and keeps its gobo. Cue changes inside a playlist do NOT clear the edit: the show runs on its own, and your edit has to survive it — that is the whole point.
