In traditional lighting desks, grouping fixtures requires building rigid submasters or hardcoded group numbers. If a fixture is swapped out during a tour or re-rigged on a different truss, operators have to hunt down and update every cue and submaster individually.

Unilighter replaces rigid submasters with a dynamic, non-destructive Fixture Tags architecture. Any fixture can carry multiple semantic tags simultaneously, bridging setup addressing, live dashboard control, timeline choreography, and procedural node logic into one flexible system.

Assigned Tags in Device Patch

🏷️ Multi-Dimensional Tag Taxonomy

Because fixtures are not limited to a single group, lighting designers can tag rigs across multiple operational dimensions:

Tag Dimension Example Tags Primary Use Case
Physical Stage Zone #FrontStage, #BackTruss, #FloorLeft, #AudienceBalcony Positioning, focus walking, spatial wave choreography.
Optical Fixture Type #Beams, #Washes, #Strobes, #BlindBars Master dimmer control, synchronized strobe flashes.
Show Role / Cue Group #BandSpecials, #KeyLight, #CrowdBlinders, #Worklights Quick busking triggers, emergency worklight isolation.

To assign tags, navigate to Device Patch (/#/setup), click any fixture, and type tag names in the tag input field. Tags appear as colored chips next to fixture names throughout the entire console.

⚡ Where Tags Power the Console

1. Device Control Widgets (Tag Mode)

Switching a Device Control widget to Tag Mode allows a single card to control dozens of fixtures simultaneously:

  • Moving the Pan/Tilt XY pad steers the entire #Beams group in unison.
  • Selecting a color on the color wheel broadcasts normalized HSV values to all tagged wash fixtures, automatically handling mixed RGB and RGBW diode engines via the Color Engine. Indexed color-wheel presets and custom raw DMX wheel positions are also broadcast to every fixture in the tag.

2. Handling Inconsistent Values (Inconsistency Badge)

When multiple fixtures in a tag group have conflicting parameter values (for example, if some beams are pointed stage-left and others stage-right, or dimmers are at different levels):

  • Unilighter highlights the parameter with a yellow Inconsistency Badge displaying the number of conflicting fixtures.
  • Adjusting the fader or dial brings all fixtures smoothly into unison or trims them proportionally.

3. Procedural Automation in Node Graphs (DeviceNode)

DeviceNode in Tag Mode Setting Control Mode: Tag on a DeviceNode routes dynamic LFO wave generators, audio FFT kick pulses, or mathematical equations to an entire fixture array through a single node wire.

4. Sub-Emitter & Multi-Head Targeting

For pixel battons and ring-wash heads detailed in the Multi-Head Architecture Manual, tags address both global units and individual cells:

  • Target #PixelBars to set color across all heads.
  • Target #PixelBars.shared to adjust physical tilt without touching colors.
  • Target #PixelBars.h0 to isolate the leading edge pixel across all bars.

🎪 The Touring & Rig Swap Advantage

The true power of semantic tags becomes evident during live tour maintenance:

If a moving head fails during an afternoon soundcheck, a technician can replace it with a spare unit, patch it to an open DMX address on any universe, and simply assign the #Beams tag.

Because Unilighter's scenes, animations, dashboard widgets, and node graphs target #Beams rather than a hardcoded DMX channel number, the replacement light is instantly integrated into the entire show file—without reprogramming a single cue or animation track.

Read more in the Device Patch Manual and the Control Priorities & Layering Guide.