PLASA 2012: MA Lighting highlights onPC tools

21 September 2012

UK - PLASA 2012 saw MA Lighting premiere the MA onPC fader wing, the MA 4Port Node and the MA 8Port Node as well as the presentation of the MA onPC command wing after its introduction to the market at this year's Prolight+Sound. A further premiere was the presence of MA Lighting on the booth of its new UK distributor, Ambersphere Solutions.

Michael Althaus, MA Lighting's managing director reports, "PLASA 2012 will be remembered as the point when MA Lighting introduced its sophisticated new range of 'onPC' solutions and totally switched its whole networking portfolio to 1Gbit. With the MA 8Port Node and MA 4Port Node, the higher speed has become possible which gives our MA System an additional performance increase. The MA onPC command wing, MA onPC fader wing, MA 8Port Node onPC and MA 4Port Node onPC form our new 'onPC' solutions. All of these were developed to give MA users even more mobility and flexibility and to allow new users a decent start into the MA world."

With the MA onPC fader wing, MA Lighting meets the requests for a mobile control solution that supplies real faders and executors in connection with the free-of-charge grandMA2 onPC software and a solution that offers 2,048 parameters via its four built-in DMX-ports or via Ethernet. To connect the MA onPC fader wing with the computer running the grandMA2 onPC software just a USB cable is needed.

The MA 8Port Node and MA 4Port Node set an additional benchmark in MA Lighting's networking product range as they feature the 1Gbit capability. They allow the conversion of Ethernet data into DMX or vice versa and fit perfectly into the MA system and its MA-Net2 protocol which is based on this high speed to ensure maximum performance. Different fittings are available for all kind of applications and installations.

Both models are also available as 'onPC' versions providing an additional 2,048 parameters. Using this set up, MA's onPC Nodes turn your computer running grandMA2 onPC into a powerful show controller with up to 4,096 parameters and also a handy backup solution. For sure an MA 8Port Node onPC and MA 4Port Node onPC can be combined with either an MA onPC command wing or an MA onPC fader wing for parameter expansion.

(Jim Evans)