Queensland’s Fifalite Effects Lighting has taken delivery of a brand new MA Lighting dot2 XL-F, a compact lighting console designed for small to medium sized productions up to 4,096 control channels. However, it retains the cleverness of the grandMA2 system, including the 3D visualizer.
Fifalite’s managing director David Pfeiffer has always leant towards a different brand of lighting console but he happened to be visiting the Brisbane Show Technology on a different matter, when Adam White showed him a brochure for the new dot2 console.
“I had always admired the MA brand in so much as everywhere I go, the grandMA seems to be the console of choice,” commented David. “I never thought I would own one as I run a fairly small business and they are quite expensive for me. Plus the type of shows that I do would not warrant having such a fancy console. However, the dot2 brochure got me interested and once I found out the price, I was hooked.”
Much of David’s business is cross hire so he was delighted to discover that the dot2 was designed for the novice operator. The easy to operate dot2 software provides onboard Help and Direct Hints to guide a new user to operate the console to its full potential.
“You don’t have to be a lighting expert to get a show up and running,” said David. “I knew that would suit my customers and to be honest, also me as I operate fairly irregularly these days! The inbuilt help menus are great and a very handy feature.”
David was particularly impressed by the weight of the console; at 9.1Kg it’s a big difference to his previous console that weighed 22Kg.
“As I’m getting older I worry about the weight of a lot of things!” he said. “Often I am working by myself and have to lug the console into gigs alone. Although it doesn’t weigh much, the dot2 XL-F feels very solid and well built.”
The dot2 XL-F is a dot2 core console with a dot2 F-wing built-in. Still with a small footprint it includes the full programming section, master playback section, 14 fader playbacks and 28 individual playback buttons. Three built in touch screens and support for one external touch screen ensure the dot2 XL-F has the flexible hardware required for almost any kind of show.
“The touch screens are really nice to use,” remarked David. “The dot2 XL-F has three screens but I can plug in an external screen which you can divide or keep whole. It means you can have a lot of information available to you on the different screens – in fact I can have seven pages open if I desire. I like that the screens can give you a visual representation of your fixture and what it is doing.”
The dot2 is what happens when you take the essence and operating system of a grandMA2 and turn it into something anyone can walk up to and use. The dot2 is designed to anticipate what you want to do and guide you to the correct screens automatically.
