I'm a sound guy, doing a lighting installation. Not uncommon for me to do, since that's part of our business. The thing that's different this time is I'm left to program everything due to having staff on leave. This is not going so well. 

Since I usually refuse to look at a DMX controller I was unaware of how absolutely ridiculous these things are (quick side note, your LC2412 v2 is rubbish, you guys are capable of much better than that and if you insist on building these things I suggest you provide a manual of some sort, not a quick start guide).

As a reference, the console I installed is a ChamSys QuickQ20. Here in Australia, the current RRP is $6,999.00 (if my price list is current).

It has 20 multi function faders, 10 playback faders and 1 master fader. It is capable of 2 universes of DMX - 1024 channels. This is not very impressive if you're an audio guy, since a "channel" of DMX is a single value between 1 and 255, it's not a like a channel of audio. There's no AD/DA conversions or any sort of decent processing power required for this - it's just a bloody number.

Here's what it doesn't have:

Absolutely no easy way to see what mode these multifuntion faders are in. It doesn't have a quick indication of which fader is which light - leaving you to refer to the screen.

But what if you aren't in the layout screen? Too bad. It has no motorised faders. A rubbish GUI. It's also got incredibly unreliable WiFi built in that leaves my computer warning me again and again that it's using an old standard and isn't secure.

How's the range? It's a good 3 metres.

Recording any sort of playback requires so many different touches and adjustments and if you can get it to actually do what you're telling it to, recording that seems to work maybe half the time. I'm also fairly impressed with the constant crashing this thing decides to do while sitting idle.

I've been dealing with various issues via their "bugtracker" (which is an excellent way of being transparent, I think your company would benefit greatly from doing the same - you need to improve customer service, we all know it. It's the biggest compaint with your company and I know of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales I would of made from selling your products if the customer had faith in after sales service and parts availablity).

Whilst having a look at the various issues people are having, there was a polite request from a user asking why he can't modify any colour values past RGB. He would like amber - but apparently this request of his was so crazy he got hammered by a ChamSys staff member saying he shouldn't expect such a thing from an "entry level console" - (another quick side note: come on guys. It's 2021. Why are you releasing RGB fixtures? At least throw a W on the end of it so it's capable of something).

Sending a fourth number to a light? Too hard apparently.

$6,999.00 isn't what I'd call entry level. This thing is absolute trash.

Now lets compare.

Behringer Wing - current RRP here in oz is $5,099.00. No need to grab your calculator, I've done the maths. It's $1,900.00 less.

Look at the amount of features you've packed into this thing. It's touchscreen is bigger and thousands of times better. It can actually do real processing work - not just send a number to a light. It's got motorised faders. How can they not put these things on a console half the size, with no processing power (that I can see anyway) and charge what they do??

Can somebody please explain why lighting consoles don't have a scribble strip???? I understand it may be difficult to display all the values of this incredible DMX language, but I can't even see what mode the faders are in. 

They talk about how easy it is, how you can quickly add "effects" to your lights. Are they actually effects? Because they aren't modifying a signal in any way other than defining it's numerical value. So, your lighitng console can make my lights rotate in a circle by sending them a pre-determined combination of numbers? Wow. But I can widen the circle if I want to? Not impressive.

Look here's the point - this needs to be fixed. As I said, please don't put us through anything like the LC2412 again, we give in. But clearly you guys are more than capable of designing and building something that is much, much better than this ChamSys thing.

So far, the WING hasn't really been a home run here yet - but I'm very picky and you impressed me. Plus, Covid etc...

Please copy what you did with the Wing. I know you're all about synths at the moment, but do the world a favour...

It doesn't even need to be anywhere near as powerful, I'm fairly sure Casio make a calculator that can do the work these DMX controllers do. Put it in the same chassis - it's all good.

I'm not sure if "30 years in the making" was an accurate statement on your behalf, but I do believe you'd be able to knock this one out in 30 days. 

DMX controllers in this price bracket are rubbish, that's the fact. The lighting world is well behind audio from what I can see, they'd be wise to take a look at our processing capabilities and workflow. Did you guys know the extra 2 pins on a DMX cable don't actually get used for anything? Gee whiz...

To the one light guy reading this - I'm aware that there are consoles that are extremely powerful, I own a hog full boar 4. I don't know how to turn it on, but I still got one... I'm talking about something sub 10k.

Now I'm like most sound he/she/her/him/was once/peoples, I don't particularly care for lampies. And you'll never convert the guys and girls using HOG and grandMA consoles, but you don't need to and it's pointless to try. 

Here's your target market:

The many house engineers around the world that are there to do sound but have to also operate lighting because the venue won't pay another person, and small to medium rental/production companies.

You guys have the knowledge, manufacturing facilities and capital to absolutely decimate every other console at that price point. Don't do it for the lighting guys, screw them. Do it for the sound guys that have been stuck with a console that is so counter-intuitive I'm actually a little impressed by for over a week.

If Uli won't spring for a console you can use for R&D purposes, let me know and I'll send one of these things your way.

I can only imagine nobody there has been made aware of this crisis, otherwise you'd of stopped making synths in every colour known to man and fixed it for us. Knock it back to red, silver and blue whilst we work this out. Whatever staff were looking after tangerine, grape, blueberry and lime can be reassigned to this project.

Just do your thing, I'll be on the lookout for a teaser video on youtube and I'll be expecting it within a week or two...

Cheers.