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We’ve talked before about how the grandMA console series deals with parameters, channels and universes differently than any other console. Adding the grandMA2 series to the family expands this capability, so we felt that this was a topic we should revisit. Recently, Michael Adenau of MA Lighting wrote a piece explaining how the calculation works and we are presenting that information here in two parts. Part 2 will be available here in one week.

The grandMA and grandMA2 have a very flexible method for dealing with parameter and universe limitations. Essentially, these consoles see a pretty distinct difference between a “parameter” and a “DMX channel.” At the same time, the DMX universe limitation in the patch is not coupled to the parameter limit.

A parameter is something like ‘PAN’ or ‘COLOR1′ or ‘GOBO2′.

On a grandMA1, a parameter can be 8-bit (for 256 steps of resolution) or 16-bit (65,536 steps of resolution), depending on the resolution. 8-bit means it uses 1 DMX-channel; if it is 16-bit, it uses 2 DMX channels.

Most lights use two DMX channels (16-bit) each for Pan, Tilt, etc. Most dimmer racks only use one DMX-channel (8 bit) per dimmer.

A grandMA1 full-size can process 2048 parameters without any additional equipment. Because the internal CPU calculation of a grandMA1 is always 16-bit, we count parameters in grandMA, not channels. So in an extreme scenario, we could patch 2048 16-bit parameters. This would actually require 4096 DMX channels to output. More realistically, Patching something like a Clay Paky Alpha Beam 1500 requires 27 DMX channels of output, but since Pan, Tilt, and Dimmer are all 16-bit, it only counts at 24 parameters, leaving enough extra headroom in the parameter limitation to add one more RGB LED. On the surface, it may seem strange for the console to calculate 8-bit parameters at 16-bit, but it actually requires less internal conversion between resolutions and is therefore easier on the CPU and network.

As with all things, the grandMA2 ups the ante when it comes to parameter processing and limitations. Without any additional equipment, the full-size console can process 8192 parameters. On top of that, the grandMA2 software adds support for 24-bit parameters, using three DMX channels for the output of a parameter (for 16,777,216 steps of resolution). Admittedly, there are scant few instruments that currently take advantage of 24-bit parameter resolution, but it’s very possible we’ll see more in the future.

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