ChamSys QuickQ 20+ DMX lighting controller

General

Picture a small venue with a handful of moving heads, a few LED pars and a volunteer who is doing the lighting tonight. That is exactly the situation the ChamSys QuickQ series was built for: affordable lighting desks that do not ask you to take a course before anything lights up. The QuickQ 20+ is the model in the series that reaches a little further. It takes you step by step through setting up, programming and playing back a show, with prompts along the way explaining what you are doing. It also picked up the title of Best AV Solution for Non-Technical Users, and the starting point is simple: you can begin without a manual on your lap.

Operating it like a smartphone

The first thing you notice is the 11.6 inch multi-touch screen. You swipe, pinch and zoom on it just as you would on a phone, and fixtures sit on the homescreen exactly as they hang in the venue. Want that one fixture at the side a shade deeper red? Tap it, pick a colour, done. Below the screen sit twenty multifunctional fixture faders and ten master playback faders with bump buttons, so during the show you work with your hands instead of through menus. Cues and chases are built up with fade times, tap-to-time and sound-to-light, and dragged into the order you want.

Patching fixtures and room to grow

Connection runs through two 5-pin DMX outputs with RDM support, so RDM-compatible fixtures are recognised and patched automatically, which saves you a lot of addressing work in the venue's rig. Directly you control two universes; over Art-Net or sACN that becomes four, while the two network ports keep lighting and control data separated. The built-in wifi pairs with the free QuickQ app using a single QR code, turning a tablet into a second screen as you walk through the venue. At home you can program in advance with the free Designer software for Mac and Windows, and if you move up to MagicQ later, your show files simply carry over.