A visit with Matthias Hinrichs at Martin's Los Angeles office helped LD/Programmer Jason Dill focus in on the Martin M1 for its many solution-solving features in a powerful, compact package.
Dill needed no special training on the M1 but a brief run-through from Hinrichs. "Everything made sense. It's easy to get around," Dill says. "Programming lighting is just a matter of controlling DMX channels, so it's a matter of knowing what keys you need to push to get the console to do what you want. The M1's syntax is logical, as opposed to other consoles that take a computer-minded approach to operate them."
With the ever-changing lighting rig to consider, console flexibility was a factor. Says Dill. "We only carry six black lights and a lighting control package: the M1 and a Martin MaxModule Submaster. Everything else is provided locally every day and I have to make that work. It's a rock and roll show, so it's many par cans and 18 moving lights - or sometimes no moving lights - and sometimes it means working with whatever the house has in place.
"The console works well for me because of the situation I'm in with the different lighting rig every night," he continues. "Par cans are par cans but as far as moving lights are concerned, the M1 works well at copying the fixture information to new fixtures. So instead of rewriting my cues every day, I can just copy and update the cue palettes with gobo information, which changes from fixture to fixture. The console is great for that."
The Good Night to the Bad Guys tour continues until 19 December in North America.
(Jim Evans)
