Relackout

Live control

Drive channel faders, FLASH, MASTER and BLACKOUT in Live Control; run fixtures with the joystick and type tabs; stack scene layers on a panel.

Your fixtures are patched and a few Scenes are ready — now it’s time to go live. This guide walks you through Live Control’s raw DMX channel view (faders and FLASH), overall brightness with MASTER, instant blackout, fixture-based control in Fixture Control (joystick, type tabs), and how scene layers combine on a mixer panel.

Open Live Control

  1. Click the LIVE CONTROL card on the home screen.

    Live Control screen; default channel view, page label top left, 16 channel columns, MASTER and BLACKOUT on the right, top bar with full screen, layout selector, Clear, Visualizer and Record.

The top left shows which page you’re on: Channel 1–16 · Page 1 / 32. Use Previous and Next to flip pages. Each column has a channel number (like CH 001), its current value, a fader, and a FLASH button. MASTER and Blackout sit on the right. The top bar holds a full screen icon, a layout selector (default: Default (1–512)), Clear, the visualizer, and the Record tool.

Channel faders and FLASH

The channel numbers here are the DMX addresses in the universe. In the Patching and the address map guide, we patched Front 1 at address 1; its channels are dimmer, red, green, blue and white, in that order.

  1. Drag channel 1’s fader all the way up: dimmer hits 255. Drag channel 2’s fader up as well: Front 1 is glowing red.

    Page 1; CH 001 and CH 002 both read 255, faders at the top.

  2. Press and hold channel 5’s FLASH button.

    FLASH button held down on CH 005, value 255.

  3. Click Next.

    Channel 17–32, Page 2 / 32 shown, all values at 0.

  4. Click Previous.

    Back on page 1; CH 001 and CH 002 still at 255.

MASTER

  1. Drag the MASTER fader down to 50%.

    MASTER at 50%; CH 001 and CH 002 drop to around 128.

  2. Push MASTER back up to 100%.

    MASTER at 100%; CH 001 and CH 002 back to 255.

MASTER scales the entire output proportionally. Bring it down to fifty percent, and every value on stage drops to half; the channel readouts show the output, so they drop too, but your settings aren’t lost. Push MASTER back to one hundred percent, and everything returns — perfect for setting the overall brightness through the night.

BLACKOUT

  1. Click the Blackout button.

    BLACKOUT button lit solid red; MASTER still at 100%.

  2. Click Blackout again.

    BLACKOUT button back to its outline look; MASTER at 100%.

Unlike MASTER, Blackout kills everything instantly. Your values and MASTER stay where they are; press it again, and the lights come back exactly as they were. Use it in an emergency, during a set change, or right before a surprise.

Fixture Control and the joystick

If you’d rather not deal with channel numbers, use Fixture Control; its controls are grouped by fixture and by type.

  1. Click Back, then click the Fixture Control card on the home screen.

    Fixture Control screen; Patched devices list on the left with nothing selected; on the right, a hint asks you to select one or more devices.

  2. In the Patched devices list, check the Spot Left and Spot Right boxes.

    Both spots selected; the Intensity and Position sections open on the right.

  3. Click 100% in the Intensity box.

    Intensity fader at the top, value 255.

  4. In the Position (Pan / Tilt) box, click Joystick.

    The box switches to the joystick view; the knob sits in the bottom-left corner of a square area (pan and tilt at 0).

  5. Drag to the joystick area’s top-left corner, then to its bottom-right corner.

    Knob at the bottom-right corner; both spots move together.

  6. In the Patched devices list, click Select all.

    All 9 patches selected; a '3 different fixture types selected' warning and the Common plus 3 model tabs appear.

  7. In the Common tab’s Intensity box, click 50%.

    The Common intensity fader sits in the middle, around 50%.

  8. Click the yellow Clear button in the top bar — not the Clear button next to Select all, which only empties the device selection.

    The yellow CLEAR button in the top bar highlighted; the device selection and the type tabs stay as they were.

The top-bar Clear wipes every value you’ve set by hand, on all fixtures rather than only the selected ones. It also sets MASTER back to 100%, turns BLACKOUT off, and stops any running scene or cue. Your device selection stays as it is.

Scene layers and priority

The real power is in scene layers. You’ll see how a panel like this one gets built in the Mixer Designer guide.

  1. Click Back, then click the LIVE CONTROL card; pick Scene Layers from the layout selector at the top right.

    Scene Layers panel: 3 scene buttons, 3 scene faders below them, a panel MASTER fader on the right; nothing active.

  2. Click the Warm White scene button.

    Warm White button active; it came in on its own fade time.

  3. Drag the Blue Night scene fader to 70%.

    Blue Night fader around 70% and its button now lit; Warm White still active.

  4. Click the Red Pulse scene button. Scene buttons are toggles: Red Pulse stays on until you click it again.

    Three layers active together: Warm White on, Blue Night at 70%, Red Pulse on.

  5. Drag the panel MASTER fader down to 60%.

    Panel MASTER at 60%; scene buttons unchanged, output dimmed.

  6. Push the panel MASTER fader back up to 100%.

    Panel MASTER at 100%; output back to its previous level.

  7. Click Blackout in the top bar.

    The BLACKOUT button in the top bar lit solid red.

  8. Click Blackout again in the top bar.

    The top-bar BLACKOUT button back to its outline look.

The layers merge, and on any shared channel, the highest value wins. Here’s the order of priority: scenes and cues merge as layers; channel values you set by hand override them; MASTER dims everything proportionally; Blackout cuts everything. While a panel is open, the blackout button sits in the top bar.

Clear

  1. Click Clear in the top bar.

    CLEAR highlighted in the top bar; the scene faders drop to zero and the scene buttons fade out; the panel MASTER stays at 100%.

  2. Pick Default (1–512) from the layout selector.

    Back to the channel view; every value at 0.

What’s next

To sum up: you drove channels with faders and FLASH, set the overall brightness with MASTER, blacked out instantly with BLACKOUT and brought it back, ran fixtures by type, and stacked scenes as layers. Up next: Effect Wizard — building beat-locked effects.

Updated: October 8, 2026

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