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May 2012

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by Jim Kumorek

I have the pleasure of reviewing a variety of equipment for Church Production Magazine (CPM)—probably the most fun category of product, for me, is lighting consoles. As a former software engineer, programming lighting sequences resonates with me. So I was excited to get a chance to play with the Martin M1 console and review it for CPM. For a console packed with as many features as the M1, we’ll only be able to touch on the highlights. 

Right out of the box, this solidly built, tour-worthy piece of equipment inspired confidence and conveyed a clear design capable of withstanding the abuse of the road. The M1 features a control surface with 47 playback controls in four groups, and four encoder wheels for manipulating fixture parameters such as intensity, pan/tilt, etc. Twelve programmable function keys allow you to customize the control surface for quick access to virtually anything you desire, and a keypad/trackball area provides the means for entering commands.

The console also includes a touch-screen LCD display for direct access to most functions by pressing directly on the screen itself. An additional monitor can be connected via the included DVI port on the back of the console, and a USB keyboard can also be added to simplify text entry. Numerous virtual “screens” are available to choose based on your needs, and each is fully configurable. Additional blank screens are also provided for the user to create customized views into the console’s operation. This is a very nice feature.

The M1 can support four universes of DMX directly, with up to 16 universes available as an add-on option. One thousand cue lists can be created, and can be run in parallel, enabling seriously complicated shows to be controlled through numerous short cue lists. Your iPhone can be used as a remote control for the console, as well, enabling easy remote focus control—no more jogging back to the console to bring up a different light at focus time.

With two of the playback control groups (one with 24 controls; the other with 10 controls) having 99 banks and 100 banks, respectively, the options for running simultaneous cues are pretty much endless. And if that isn’t enough, there’s also a set of playback buttons available via the touch-screen that provides even more options. Having this many cue lists and banks available would let you partition the console’s playback banks into “sections” for each of your lighting volunteers, giving them each their own space to play in without affecting the other volunteers.

So, what’s this system like to use?

I took the console over to the multipurpose room at Colonial Baptist Church in Cary, N.C., where they have a nice variety of lighting hardware to work with, from basic conventional fixtures, fixtures with color scrollers and moving mirrors, to LED lights and Coemar iSpot intelligent fixtures. Set up was straightforward. Reading the documentation via the built-in help system described patching well, and I was able to manually recreate the patch from the church’s existing console pretty quickly. To handle the Rosco iCue fixtures, the M1 has a generic pan/tilt fixture that can be used. With the M1, you treat the scroller and the dimmer as two separate fixtures, which is a little awkward. The same goes for using the Wybron Forerunner color scroller—you patch one fixture for the dimmer, and another for the scroller, and treat them as two different fixtures.

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Jim Kumorek is the owner of Spreading Flames Media, providing video/media production and writing services to the A/V/L, technology, architectural and hospitality industries. He has led audio, video and lighting teams in churches as both staff and a volunteer for over 10 years. He can be contacted at james@spreadingflamesmedia.com.