It’s super bright, has a hard edge and is super fat. No, we’re not talking about an overweight, cranky Einstein but the new Martin MACIII which was regally unveiled to the industry this month along with the new MA Lighting grandMA2.
Soren Storm took to the stage of So You Think You Can Dance to present the MACIII to a crowd of impressed lighting professionals. The MAC III Profile™ is the first luminaire in Martin’s third generation of MAC moving heads. It features an all new design both inside and out for greater performance and includes new 1500 watt lamp technology, a long list of innovative features and advances in control, handling, service and more.
“I think the MACIII will be perfect for television use,” said Ian Anderson. “It’s a very good multifunction unit.”
“The MACIII is a superb unit with superior optics and output, fast and quite operation, with precision control,” noted Scott Allan.
Chris Shackleton, managing director of Eclipse Lighting & Sound commented that the MACIII appears to be a very powerful fixture, not only in its output but also in the features contained both from a user and serviceability point of view.
“I think one of greatest features, yet one of the simplest, is the ability to address the fixture from its flight case as well knowing whether the lamp has had an error or if it is right to load in a truck,” he added.
“One of the definitive features of the MACIII is its extremely wide and fast zoom,” said Adrian Rytir, Eclipse lighting technician. “No other fixture on the market has a capability close to this and it will certainly allow LD’s to create some interesting effects now and into the future.”
”I’ve just used two MACIII’s on the We Will Rock You tour in the UK and they are awesome units,” reported Richard Pacholski. “They have bright, sharp images that cut through anything else in the rig.”
The general consensus on the night was that the MACIII delivered a refreshingly unique fat beam, a dramatic zoom, amazing brightness, great strobing and real red.
“MAC III is yet again a fantastic product from Martin,” commented Jeff Morgan of Lots of Watts. “Great ideas from a service point of view, with two modules in the head, the ability to use existing stock of gobos from the 2000 series, quick fit lamp, USB updates, jog wheel LCD user screen, and battery powered to have the ability to address in the case without powering up the lamp – fantastic! The head speed matches other MAC fixtures and the zoom ability is very impressive with zoom and focus tracking. This is a light with ideas from designers, technicians, end users and some very clever people from Martin, it has something for everyone.”
Recently awarded the Lighting Console of the Year title by Live Design magazine, the grandMA2 encompasses an entire new series of consoles, simply dubbed grandMA2 and including full-size, light, and ultra-light versions, as well as a network processing unit (NPU), replay unit, and fader wing.
“How do you make a great product even better?” asked one judge. “Sex up its industrial design, and update its hardware. Solid-state drive, multi-touch interface, conductive faders, and higher resolution encoders take an industry standard desk into the future and make techno-fetishists drool.”
At the launch event Vince Haddad ran through the main features of the grandMA2.
“The grandMA2 is a very good development of the original grandMA,” said Ian Anderson. “Everything that users have been asking for seems to have been addressed.”
“The grandMA2 looks very nice and compact,” concurred Michael Burton. “I haven’t had a really good go on it as yet but from what features Vince showed me in five minutes it looks really good. I like the fact that it looks a lot lighter in appearance and the improvements that I did see looked pretty good.”
“I must say I haven’t had an in depth look at the grandMA2 yet but it seems to build on its older brother’s rock solid reputation in entertainment world,” said Richard Pacholski.
”The grandMA2 is again, another massive development in controllability,” commented Scott Allan. “The design and user-friendliness is practical and intuitive, something that we have come to love from MA.”
”It’s a console that has just added to what was already fantastic control surface,” remarked Jeff Morgan. “The capability of the I/O’s of the grandMA2 and fact it can be worked into a network of classic series consoles, makes it almost ageless for the next 10 -15 years. Well thought out software and new look user interface with clean hi vis touch screens. And there’s more fader capability with the available wing boards. I can’t wait to get my hands onto the new grandMA!”
The evening also saw Francesco Calvi discuss and show his lighting for So You Think You Can Dance in his usual laconic style. The evening ended with many heading into town for drinks and nibbles at the Civic Hotel.
www.showtech.com.au
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