Canberra-based Eclipse Lighting & Sound has been steadily growing its’ lighting inventory and spreading its’ wings far beyond the ACT, and an important part of that growth has been a bevy of MA Lighting consoles.
It all started with a grandMA1 ultra-light in 2007 which was soon joined by a NSP and today there is also a grandMA2 light, MA onPC fader wing, and a MA onPC command wing. The MA platform has proved so popular at Eclipse, several of managing director Chris Neal’s staff have purchased their own MA gear: Liam Ashton and Andrew Snell both own their own MA onPC command wings, James Duqemin owns a MA onPC command wing as well as a MA onPC fader wing. Two more staff purchased consoles: Phil Goodwin purchased a grandMA2 light and Adrian Rytir, much to everyones jealousy, owns a grandMA2 full size console.
“I purchased the grandMA1 ultra-light years ago because I needed a console with a high channel count, or what was considered a high channel count then, and with the MA NSP I could get even more,” explained Chris Neal. “It proved to be a really good, stable platform and at the time we were purchasing quite a few LED fixtures so it was great for pixel mapping. The more I used it, the more I liked it. In fact I completely fell in love with the platform as it’s so easy and so usable. Plus the small size is great, you can simply carry it in, plug it in and get up and running quickly.”
Moving forward a few years and it was patently obvious that some grandMA2 control was required for Eclipse, and so a MA2 onPC programming wing was purchased that impressed everyone.
“It had a lot of powerful new features especially the move in black feature which is great for us as we do a lot of musicals,” commented Chris. “The effects engine is a lot more powerful too and allows us to control a lot more parametres such as when to start and stop, what fades and what snaps. That opened up a lot more possibilities in our programming as the grandMA1 only allowed us to do global fades.”
With the amount of channel and universe counts required steadily increasing, Chris then purchased a grandMA2 light, and a second programming wing and an onPC fader wing to keep up with industry demand. He further comments that he loves the flexibility of his MA range of control and he has no intention of looking at any other replacement product.
“Every operator who has worked for me has set them up in their own way and operated them in their own fashion,” added Chris. “One person’s programming on one console is almost always absolutely different to someone elses. Having the one platform across everybody is really beneficial because everybody learns their own things when they’re out doing shows, and then brings it back to a common knowledge pool. It really builds the strength of everybodies operating skills.
“I still think grandMA1 is a fantastic product but grandMA2 offers a whole lot more flexibility …… and it’s a sexy black colour!”
