Build a desk profile from the fixture

A desk patches a fixture with a profile: what each channel does in each of its modes. Desks call it different things (see Three kinds of profile). When the manual’s channel table doesn’t match what the fixture does, the bench can tell you what the fixture says about itself, which is the part to trust. It doesn’t write the profile: there is no file for Eos, grandMA or any other desk, and no GDTF file. You copy what the bench reads into the desk’s own fixture editor. How much it can read depends on what the fixture reports.

When the manual seems wrong

Check the mode before rewriting a profile. Usually the manual is right about some mode, just not the one the fixture is in: a model sold in a short and a long version, a firmware update that changed the list of modes, or a desk patched in one mode while the fixture runs another. The report’s DMX configuration says which personality the fixture is in and how many channels it takes. If that is not the table you are reading, that is the fault (see Wrong colors: check the patch). Where the bench has the model’s GDTF file, it also says what a desk calls that mode (see Find a fixture’s desk mode), and a desk profile may already exist.

A fixture that reports its channels

Some fixtures report a slot table: a name, a kind and a starting level for every channel of the mode they are in. The report’s Channels list shows it. That is the fixture’s own map of the mode, and it wins over the manual.

• Every mode and its channel count: choose Fixture → Contribute Fixture Profile…. The sheet reads every personality the fixture offers. Cancel closes it having sent nothing.
• The channels of another mode: a fixture reports only the mode it is in. Switch it to another mode at its menu, or with rdmbench-cli set-personality 2 (the second mode in its list), and take the report again.

A slot table names a channel, but it doesn’t say where each color or gobo sits along it. For that, put the channel up and look (below).

A fixture that reports no channels

Many fixtures answer RDM without a slot table. The report still gives the mode and its channel count, so the desk’s profile can at least be the right width. Where the PID library has a profile for the model, its channel names come from the manual and show profile beside them in Send DMX. Otherwise every channel is just “Channel 1”, “Channel 2” and so on.

To map them, raise one channel at a time in Fixture → Send DMX… and write down what it does. Or run a channel walk: it puts each channel up in turn, and your note for each one is kept with the unit. Work in the mode the desk will use, and raise a dimmer first. On many fixtures, nothing shows until the master dimmer is up.

A fixture with no RDM

There is nothing to read. If the bench finds no fixture and the manual’s menu has no RDM setting, the fixture doesn’t support it (see When no fixture is found). Map it from the desk’s own faders, or from the bench with rdmbench-cli dmx 1=255, which puts a level on a DMX channel with no RDM at all.

Writing it into the desk

• Make the desk profile’s channel count match the fixture’s exactly. One too short leaves the last channel unpatched. One too long overlaps whatever is addressed next.
• Note the fixture’s firmware version beside the profile. A firmware update can change the modes and their channels, and the report says which firmware this unit runs.

From the command line

rdmbench-cli slots prints what each channel of the current mode does, and where that came from. rdmbench-cli export-profile lists every personality with its channel count. rdmbench-cli set-personality 2 switches to another mode. rdmbench-cli walk and rdmbench-cli dmx put channels up.