The “Smoke” button turns on the fog machine right from the console — with a single press, without reaching for its separate remote or timer. Fog in the air is what makes the fixtures’ beams visible “in volume”: without haze, a beam fixture’s ray is almost invisible, but with it the beams draw crisp columns of light in the air.
How to use it:
- Press “Smoke” — the fog machine turns on full. The button lights up blue.
- Press it again — the fog turns off and the fixture returns to its original state.
The program finds the machine’s output channel on its own, whatever its profile calls it (“Fog”, “Smoke”, “Haze”, “Pump” or simply the overall intensity) — this requires no setup from you. If the machine also has a separate “unit on” switch (MDG ATMe, MDG theONE and Stairville SF-1500 are built that way), the button raises it too: without it the unit stays silent at any output level. Releasing the button puts everything back.
Auto mode: the machine pulses on its own
If you need fog regularly through the evening, turn on the auto burst — no need to press the button by hand.
- Right-click the “Smoke” button — a small settings panel opens.
- Press “Auto: off” to enable the mode.
- Set “Burst, s” — how many seconds the machine releases fog, and “Pause, s” — how long it stays quiet between bursts. The defaults are 3 seconds of burst and 25 seconds of pause.
While auto mode runs, a small dot glows on the “Smoke” button — so you can see the cycle is going even during a pause. A normal press still works on top of the cycle: you can fire a burst manually at the right moment. The settings are remembered, while the mode itself always starts off the next time you launch the program — so a show never opens with an unexpected burst.
