Work Pro debuts LightShark at LDI 2017
- Details
The LightShark range comprises the LS-Core and the LS-1 console, both developed and designed entirely within Work Pro's lighting division. The LS-1 “brings together the best features from the world of innovative software-only lighting control and marries them to an intuitive, ergonomic assignable hardware control surface”. The LS-Core omits the LS-1’s hardware control surface, but offers exactly the same lighting control software, processing power, and smartphone/tablet-based software control interface.
Alongside all of the features users expect from a modern, fully featured lighting control system (including detailed control of colour and gobo options via palettes, comprehensive grouping options, CueList operation with up to 1200 Cues and Lists, customisable automation via an elegant, easy-to-use graphics-based Executor window, and special effects such as fanning), LightShark offers intuitive control over a total of eight 512-channel DMX Universes, plus built-in support for an ever-growing library of lighting Fixtures. A Fixtures editor is also built into the console for those that wish to modify or customise Fixture control templates.
“The LS-1 console was designed to fill what we perceived to be a significant gap in the lighting control market,” explains Work Pro’s chief sales officer Juan Jose Vila. “At the top end, you have traditional hardware lighting consoles costing many thousands of Euros - even the smallest of these still retail for at least 1500 Euros. At the opposite end of the market, there are many software-only control systems or apps, some with innovative automation and control features which are very popular with lighting professionals.
“These are available for maybe just a few hundred Euros at most - but you have to have a computer and DMX interfacing hardware to complete the system, plus a hardware controller if you prefer not to work with a mouse. Such a setup is less of an elegant system, more a collection of loosely related hardware, and it’s not very portable or hard-wearing when it comes to rigorous use at live events or in theatres. We thought we could do better, partly inspired by some of the excellent software user interfaces that have been developed for consoles in the pro audio market recently.
“What we wanted was to design a lighting control system that would combine the versatility of the software solutions with the ergonomics, built-in interfacing, and physical usability of a hardware console - but to keep the price as close to 1000 Euros as possible.” The LightShark range comprises two independent products, the LS-Core and the LS-1 console
(Jim Evans)
