Q Light Controller+

We were asked to light this show a while back. The operator had never run any lighting console before (work that one out) so we connected a laptop to the DMX line and created a very intuitive Virtual Console. The various "Looks" (Scenes) were placed in boxes with descriptions like "Main Room Lights", "Bathroom Lights" and even some audio and light chase functions neatly wrapped up as "Thunder & Lightning 1" "...2" and so on. The show opened with a press on the "Open" Show" button that turned on a door light and played back the Judges instructions. So rather then run a conventional cue list she merely pressed the appropriate panel when needed. Probably the easiest way to run a show by a novice there is.

In fact we popped in one night and heard "what's all the fuss about stage lighting? This is a piece of cake!" Oh well! But thankyou QLC+ this is the best bang for buck lighting program in the world. Keep up the good work.

What an excellent summary.

You've summed up the difference between the Pro and Am world in a few paragraphs.

Your operator was spot on with the comment.

A lighting show should be easy to operate.

Programming a good lighting show takes years and years (a little cunning and just the right amount of technology).


The best quote I ever heard (second hand via an AV hire company) from a very inexperienced lighting operator was...

"I've seen it done, it looks easy"

(No, the show didn't go the way anyone wanted it to AND No, the corporate client was not happy, importantly Yes, I had left the production company a few months prior to this)

I agree completely. I use QLC+ for a small community theatre and getting people to "run lights" used to be a chose because they had to know a the older lighting controller and how to make it switch between scenes.

Now that we use QLC+, I just program all of the scenes into the queue and then mark the spots where lighting changes happen in the script they follow. Now pretty much anyone can run the lights and we have a much more visually impressive show. The fact that QLC+ can trigger audio queues as well is icing on the cake.

I do a lot of shows at a venue with 3 different theaters, 30 seats, 66 seats and 125 seats.

The 30 seat had a home made lighting system, comprised to 4 house hold dimmers.

The 66 seat had a 2x12 Lite-On board, and every time you used it, another dimmer was broken.

The 125 seat had a 2x24 Lite-On board, with the same problem as the 66 seat.

I donated 2 4 channel dimmer packs and "forced" the Artistic Director to buy an Elation 2x8 board. I also replaced the 2x12 Lite-On with a 2x12 Elation. Someone donated an ETC Express 2x24 to replace the other Lite-On.

But, after using the 2x12 Lite-On and having to go through contortions to build my show, I searched for, and discovered QLC+, which I have been using every since. At one point last year, I had people using my laptops, with QLC+ and Enttec OpenDMX dongles, to run shows in all three theaters. I programmed all three shows, but I couldn't run any of them myself, because I was performing in one of them.

To date, I've probably taught more than 25 people how to run a show, set up in QLC+, and they all exclaim how "easy" it is.

Searched an existing thread to express my appreciation about this nice piece of software and stumbled over this strangely named thread but with cool stories, so i now decided to extend it.

Maybe i am not the only one, who just wants to have some fun in his(/her) leisure time and doesn't want to spend hundreds of <your currency here> on crazy expensive consoles or software solutions. Came down the road with sushi-ds and "cheap" versions of Daslight with pretty limited functionality.

Now i am here, with just spending a handful of <my currency> for an open DMX interface and after spending some time with the software i am: Able to control it with midi clock of Traktor, even control my Hues via DMX via Artnet (well, not a complete merit of QLC+, but a cool thing i found out), control via OSC (never heard of that before, but cool concept), and and and...

It takes some time to get used to the concepts of the software, but if you understood it, it is pretty cool!

So finally, thanks a ton, Massimo (and all other contributors)!

Oh well... stories enough. This one the non disclosure period ended so I can speak freely.

A big radio station was hired to entertain visitors in Nieuwpoort Belgium during the summer months.
A friend of mine got contacted via via - people know people - to create something that would enable more interaction with visitors.
The concept was that there was a telephone hanging outside and when someone would pick up the phone, got virtual in touch with the radio studio.
He got quotes over €2000 to fix this, but they never succeeded.
In the end, almost completely desperate, he called me to explain his problems.
QLC+ to the rescue. With a raspberry pi, I could make the physical connection between the phone-switch and the GPIO ports.
In 5h we built a complete solution from scratch and added some more gimmicks.
This was yet another reason to make another donation to Massimo.
When you picked up the phone, a recording of a famous DJ played, asking the person his name and where he / she came from. With strategical pauses in between the questions, so mimicking a 'live' connection.
After this, you were invited to join the party 4km further away and you got an earworm music sample to end.
It ran over 2 months outside, in the full sun without a single hiccup.

Thanks everyone for the appreciation posts and interesting projects!
Please remember that there is a donation button in the website homepage.
I use donations mostly to purchase hardware/software helpful to develop/test QLC+.
For example I need to buy a new mac mini to have the M1 processor to properly keep on supporting the macOS platform.
I waiting it to go below 700€

I'll also add my excitement at finding this solution.

Our local high school had their lighting board die, but they were planning a future overhaul so for this season they were left with no lighting solution and were going to just use house lights.

Picking up an Art-Net --> Ethernet node (could have been a USB cable, but I liked the ethernet and possible WiFi/etc connection) and a few cheap China $30 RGB fixtures to learn with.

One requirement was that it ran on a Mac laptop, so I looked at the "free" offerings there... I looked at MagicQ, and I can only imagine if you were used to one of their boards it might be magic, but with a mouse it was daunting. I watched a video of a guy programming a physical board and it made so much more sense, but not very well organized for just pure software operation in my (maybe misguided) opinion.

In the end, after finding QLC+, I am full of hope for all the ways it can easily handle the high school theater projects and could do so much more! I love reading the posts here about real-world situations and how it was used, it is eye opening as I am just getting into this field. I have done pro sound before and have ran lights but had never done the programming side...

The fact that technically it exceeds all requirements we would have, coupled with the fantastic ability to construct a virtual console laid out specifically for a given show, and the use of external hardware/software triggers/controls, is simply amazing.

QLC+ is a new friend and I am grateful for the hard work contributed by everyone to make it what it is, and am excited to see where it will go.