Technical expertise counts

“We’re a great believer in luck. The harder we work, the more luck we have.” Although often attributed to Thomas Jefferson this could have just as easily coined by the team at MA Lighting. Their strong position in the market as the manufacturer of premier lighting consoles has not happened just by fluke or happy circumstance. Since 1983, when Michael Adenau founded MA Lighting, the company has been committed to ploughing as much time, effort, resources and expertise as it can muster into developing the very best in lighting control. Today, more than thirty years on, MA Lighting is undeniably the premier choice of control for lighting and video designers and operators throughout the entertainment sector.

The scalable grandMA2 with its sister product MA VPU (Video Processing Unit), are a lighting and media control system like no other, it provides seamless integration between lighting and video control and has become a byword for flexibility and dependability. Glyn O’Donoghue of MA Lighting International explains, “We don’t often shout about the success of the grandMA2 software but the relentless efforts of the team at MA Lighting has produced a product that is simply second to none. Over the last few years research and development has continued at an extraordinary pace and with the release of the new 3.0 software the grandMA2 continues to pull ahead.”

This latest software development, available as a free download (<link http: www.malighting.com en support-downloads software.html external-link-new-window external link in new>www.malighting.com/en/support-downloads/software.html), provides users with suite of integrated tools to control and visualise lighting and video. The MA VPU 3.0 software now offers a single SD output for free, streaming CITP 3D visualisation and seamless integration of unique features like auto backup, blind-mode and preview programming. Advanced grandMA2 features like Message Centre and built-in network stability tests are now incorporated, along with intelligent colour control and true 3D XYZ control with integrated support for external position tracking systems (PosiStageNet-Protocol).

How has MA Lighting secured its premier position in the market? Gerhard Krude is MA Lighting Technology’s managing director. “Although our very first development, a 12 channel analogue desk, took just a single week, the process of producing the grandMA2 represents at least 120 men years of work. In the grandMA2 series, our team here in Waldbüttelbrunn have created a complete package for the industry and now, with the release of the grandMA2 3.0 software, it provides a seamless, feature rich system that is truly stable and ready for use.”

“The fact that the grandMA2 series has become so popular is testament to the investment we make in research and development personnel. Both the hardware and software teams comprise an impressive number of highly skilled and qualified engineers; we have a number of Masters of Computer Science as well as some very experienced lighting industry specialists. We create a task force for each upcoming challenge to coordinate technical expertise, the perspective of experience, current user feedback as well as media response from the market.”