The Programmer
Professional cue programming, a full effects engine, and complete show playback. No coding required.
The Programmer is your workspace for building custom lighting looks, cues, and complete show sequences. Select fixtures on a visual floorplan, dial in colors and intensities, apply beat-synced effects, and record everything to cue faders or cue stacks.
With professional Go/Back playback controls, multi-stack support, a reusable palette system, and live stage visualization, the Programmer gives you a full programming and playback environment inside DMXDesktop.
What You Can Do
Layout Your Fixtures
Create a logical floorplan which drives the entire Programmer. Select single fixtures, groups, or entire setups.
Setup Intensities
Control the brightness and intensity of your fixtures with precision.
Select Colors
Choose from the color picker or use one of the many built-in color effects.
Movement Effects
Got moving heads? No problem - set up positions easily or choose from built-in movement effects!
Beam Options
Customize your beam options including gobos, prisms, and more.
Advanced Channels
Setup advanced channels like Zoom, Focus, or Iris controls.
Record to Cue Faders
Hit record and save everything to a Cue Fader!
Create Cue Stacks
Activate multiple cues then assign them to a Cue Stack.
Chases & Theatrical Cues
Set up as a Chase or change to theatrical style with Fade-in/Fade-out timings.
Effects Engine
30+ beat-synced beam and color effects built right into the Programmer. Run color cycling with smooth crossfades, fire off chases and wave patterns, or layer up complex looks. Every effect locks to your BPM source for tight musical sync.
Color Cycling
2, 3, and 4-color cycling with RGB, CMY, and custom color pair modes. Smooth crossfade transitions between colors, beat-locked to your audio source.
Beam Effects
Chase, Wave, Pulse, Sequence, Meteor, Rainbow, Fairground, Twinkle, Wash, Switching, and Alternate patterns. Each with forward, reverse, and directional variants.
Beat Sync
Sync to BPM from audio analysis, OS2L, Ableton Link, or manual tap. Speed control from 16/1 down to 1/16 beat divisions with clock-driven phase alignment.
Intelligent Defaults
Each effect loads with sensible defaults for crossfade and spread. Color effects sync all fixtures; spatial effects like Chase and Wave spread across your rig. Fine-tune with per-effect speed, crossfade, and spread controls.
Movement Direction
Position effects like circles, figure-8s, and arcs include full direction and reversal controls for creative moving head programming.
Cue Stacks & Playback
A professional playback system for running your show. Track state across cues, automate transitions, pause mid-fade, and run multiple stacks at once.
Tracking Mode
Accumulated state across sequential cues with accurate backward recall. Merge fixtures into existing cues or remove them without re-recording.
Auto-Follow & Cue Chains
Set a follow time on any cue to trigger the next one automatically. Immediate follow or timed delays in milliseconds for choreographed sequences.
Halt / Pause Mid-Fade
Freeze a crossfade mid-transition and hold it right there. Full control over live timing during playback.
Go/Back Theatre Playback
Console-style Go, Back, and Stop buttons for traditional theatre cue calling. Space fires Go, Shift+Space fires Back. Faders auto-focus on raise.
Multi-Stack Playback
Run multiple cue stacks at the same time with inline Go/Stop controls per stack. Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9 for fast stack switching.
Cue Inspector & Preview
See inside any cue without restoring it. Review channel values, effects, and fixture assignments at a glance. Next-cue preview keeps you informed during playback.
Palettes & Stage Tools
Build your show around reusable color, position, and beam palettes. Monitor fixture output in real-time on your stage layout and connect MIDI hardware for physical fader control.
Palette System
Define reusable color, position, and beam palettes referenced by your cues. Update a palette and every cue that uses it follows automatically.
Ghost Fixtures
Fixtures with channel group remapping show individual control dots on the floorplan. Control sub-groups independently, like a moving head's main beam and its ring light.
Live Floorplan
Real-time fixture output color and intensity displayed on your stage layout. Full support for color wheel fixtures showing actual output, not just raw channel values.
Fixture Faders & Direct Color
Per-fixture intensity faders are created automatically when you patch. Tap any fixture to assign a color directly for fast setup.
MIDI Fader Control
Bind MIDI faders and encoders to Programmer Faders for hands-on hardware control of your cues and cue stacks.
How It Works
The Programmer gives you complete creative control:
- Select your fixtures from the visual floorplan layout
- Adjust parameters - intensity, color, position, beam, and advanced channels
- Apply effects from the built-in engine or set values manually
- Record to a cue fader, then combine cues into cue stacks
- Run your show with Go/Back controls, multi-stack playback, and palettes