The Obsidian NX2 console is a product of the acquisition by Elation Lighting of the M-Series lighting control system from Martin Professional. Spun off as its own company, Obsidian, its NX2 lighting console brings cost-effective control with significant power to the lighting control market.
Overview
The NX2 is a self-contained control desk with a large touch-screen display and full playback/programming hardware control surface. It can control up to 64 universes of DMX, with four DMX outputs built into the console and two gigabit Ethernet ports available for ArtNet and sACN output to access the full capacity of the system.
Ten playback faders, eight user-configurable function keys, and a master cue playback section occupy the left side of the control surface. On the right, four encoder wheels, a numeric keypad, a small LCD touchscreen and a variety of programming-centric buttons provide access to common programming features. The LCD screen lets you select what parameter you want to work with via the encoder wheels as well as adjust effect parameters for the selected parameter.
In addition to the normal PC type connectors you’d find on the rear of the console, there is also four five-pin DMX output ports and two DisplayPort connectors which allow additional video displays to be attached. They can be either touch-screen displays or standard displays at up to 4K resolution.
On the right side of the console are an additional USB port; MIDI in, out and through; and SMPTE timecode in and out.
The touch-screen monitor is directly attached to the console and can fold down over the control surface for easy storage and transport. Four small encoder knobs are located on the right-side of the display which can be assigned to a specific parameter regardless of what fixture type is selected or what parameter group the four standard encoder wheels are currently assigned to. So, if the primary encoder wheels are in Gobo mode, you can still use the screen encoder knob assigned to intensity to adjust the brightness of the fixture without having to change the function of the main encoders or bring up some other window to access the intensity function.
Hardware impressions
The first impression of the console when unpacking it was that this is a solidly-build piece of equipment.
For all its features, the desk is actually fairly small. It’s about 21x12x5 inches (with the monitor folded down) and weighs in at 10 pounds. The buttons all feel rock-solid; the faders also feel secure although not quite as solid feeling as the buttons.
Operation
The NX2 runs Obsidian’s Onyx lighting control software, which is what runs on all of their control product line as well as being available as a software-only lighting control solution.
Onyx is designed to be highly configurable. The UI is designed as a set of Workspaces, and each Workspace can have numerous views assigned to them, accessible by a strip of software view buttons down the left side of the display. It comes with several pre-defined Workspaces. One is designed with views useful for programming; another is designed for playback; a third is designed for DJ use.
When evaluating a lighting console, I like to see how far I can get before I have to look at the documentation. With Onyx, I was able to get pretty far. Patching was reasonably straight-forward; one unusual thing was that I needed to load a fixture profile into my show before I could patch a fixture of that type. Most system I’ve used have the full library of fixtures available all the time for patching. But once I figured that out, patching went reasonably quick. The software gives enough hints that you can see the order in which you need to specify things such as fixture type, fixture number, and patch address.
Figuring out how to program was also pretty straight-forward; it uses a standard syntax that most consoles use of <fixture #> @ <intensity>. The encoder wheels can also be used to raise/lower intensity.
Like many consoles, there’s a concept of a “programmer” into which you temporarily set parameters of fixtures. Once you have a look you want to store, you record the contents of the programmer into a cuelist. Cuelists can serve multiple purposes: they can be a traditional cuelist, a submaster, a chase, a timecode-fired cuelist, an override cuelist, or an inhibitive cuelist. When recording to a new cuelist, you are prompted as to which you want to create.
The NX2/Onyx has many playback control options. The physical playback faders and buttons provide traditional handles to touch, with 500 banks available to program. One view emulates the M-Touch and M-Play console surfaces for those who like those (formerly) Martin controllers. There is also a virtual console view for those who prefer that sort of interface when you are using the software-only Onyx software. So, there is a way to access to your programming that would work for just about anybody, and more places to record cuelists than a church could ever use up for a service or event.
Cue timings can be easily set per fixture and per parameter in intricate ways. For example, it was easy to create one cue that moved my four moving lights to a specific location in .5 seconds; then fade up each fixture from left to right starting at one second in and delaying one second between each fixtures; and then having the color change to magenta from right to left starting at six seconds in and delaying one second between fixtures.
The NX2/Onyx does support a full range of preset and grouping functions. There is a nice feature where, if you change the parameters of a fixture in a cue where those parameters were set via a preset, the system asks if you want to break the preset relationship in that cue or update the preset to the new values. Love this. And, the programmer shows the preset name for those attributes instead of values, so that’s another reminder that a preset is in use. Very nice.
There is also a built-in effects engine that lets you apply effects to various parameters such as pan-tilt, color, etc.
Many churches use Ableton Live for click tracks and music loops, and some are also making use of MIDI timecode from Ableton to trigger lighting and video cues for tight production integration. While I wasn’t’ able to test this feature, our contacts at Obsidian assure us that the NX2 supports both the MIDI and SMTPE timecode interfaces.
Takeaway
As I’ve gotten used to how Onyx operates I’ve come to appreciate its flexibility and power. It is quick and easy to program and edit cues. The built-in effects engine works well and was easy to use, and the playback options are numerous to accommodate a variety of workflows. The ability to set up a variety of Workspaces means that you can present volunteers who only need to play back cues with a Workspace that would help them avoid getting into trouble. I’d be happy to use an Onyx-based system in any church or theater where I was asked to serve.
In evaluating the console, I only ran into a few issues. One was when I connected a non-touch-screen monitor to the NX2 to get some additional screen real estate. Because it isn’t a touch screen, I needed to connect a mouse to the NX2 as well to be able to configure workspaces on this screen. At some point, the touch part of the built-in touchscreen stopped working—I could only use the mouse. It would be nice if both the mouse and touchscreen were available at the same time.
At another point, the Highlight key stopped working as well. The highlight key is supposed to cause the selected fixture to go to a specific intensity, by default 100%.
The vast configurability of the system, while ultimately helpful, can make it a bit confusing to learn. It’s nice to be configurable, but that means that functions can be put anywhere. So if you allow your volunteers to configure it the way they want, it could be challenging for someone else to come in and take over if they are used to a different layout.
They also have taken the approach of having certain functions hidden in such a way that if you don’t know they are there and how to access them, you’ll never find them.
But these are all very minor nits. Especially once a church sets their console up in a way that works well for their service workflow, the Onyx/NX2 provides a massive amount of power and expandability. The MSRP of $8,500 for a full-featured console is quite reasonable for the number of available universes, along with the power and flexibility you get. And, you can experience all the functionality of the Onyx system by downloading a copy and using it for free for as long as you want before you decide to purchase the console.
