The OPPSK Disco Ball Combo fixtures are available from Amazon (ASIN B083LV2CKY) for less than USD $90. In addition to the disco ball, the fixture has two scanning lasers and four LED wash lights, but for scripted shows the lasers do not have sufficient controls to be useful, and the wash lights are easier to implement as independent fixtures. So Finale 3D‘s effect libraries ignore everything about this fixture except its disco ball.
Figure 1 – OPPSK Disco Ball Combo
The fixtures have a 15-channel DMX personality.
Table 1 – DMX personality choices
| DMX personality (“DMX Channel Mode”) | Supported in Finale 3D |
| 15CH | YES |
Instructions
To design a show for OPPSK fixtures, please follow the steps in DMX basic instructions and Light fixtures basic instructions. If you don’t already have a compatible firing system or controller capable exporting a DMX script, please refer to Supported firing systems and controllers (DMX) for the list of available hardware options.
Choosing the DMX channel ranges for fixtures
Each fixture requires multiple channels, so if you are putting multiple fixtures in the same DMX Universe, you need to set the Start Address on the fixture in the real world and the corresponding DMX Channel Base on the fixture in Finale 3D to a range of channels that doesn’t overlap with others. A DMX universe has channels 1-512. If you want to pack as many fixtures into the 512 channels of a DMX universe as you can, back-to-back ranges are the most efficient. Table 2 shows an example for 15-channel fixtures. Some DMX firing systems and controllers only support 50 or 100 channels, so you may not have all 512 channels to work with.
Table 2 – Example channel ranges for 15-channel fixtures in a DMX universe
| Fixture | DMX Channel Base | Channels Used |
| 1 | 1 | 1-15 |
| 2 | 16 | 16-30 |
| 3 | 31 | 31-45 |
| 4 | 46 | 46-60 |
| 5 | 61 | 61-75 |
| 6 | 76 | 76-90 |
| 7 | 91 | 91-105 |
| 8 | 106 | 106-120 |
| 9 | 121 | 121-135 |
| 10 | 136 | 136-150 |
| … | ||
| 34 | 496 | 505-512 |
Technical details
The following tables show the technical specifications of the fixtures, as tested by the Finale support team.
Table 3 – DMX channels for 15CH personality
| DMX Channel | Meaning |
| Channel 1 (DMX Channel Base + 0) | Ball dimmer |
| Channel 2 (DMX Channel Base + 1) | Ball strobe (0-8 = no strobe; 9-255 = slow to fast) |
| Channel 3 (DMX Channel Base + 2) | Ball red |
| Channel 4 (DMX Channel Base + 3) | Ball green |
| Channel 5 (DMX Channel Base + 4) | Ball blue |
| Channel 6 (DMX Channel Base + 5) | Ball rotation speed (0-10 = no rotation; 11-255 = slow to fast) |
| Channel 7 (DMX Channel Base + 6) | Wash dimmer |
| Channel 8 (DMX Channel Base + 7) | Wash strobe (0-8 = no strobe; 9-255 = slow to fast) |
| Channel 9 (DMX Channel Base + 8) | Wash red |
| Channel 10 (DMX Channel Base + 9) | Wash green |
| Channel 11 (DMX Channel Base + 10) | Wash blue |
| Channel 12 (DMX Channel Base + 11) | Wash yellow |
| Channel 13 (DMX Channel Base + 12) | Red laser (0-7 = OFF; 8-127 = ON; 128-255 = unknown) |
| Channel 14 (DMX Channel Base + 13) | Green laser (0-7 = OFF; 8-127 = ON; 128-255 = unknown) |
| Channel 15 (DMX Channel Base + 14) | Laser movement |
Table 4 – Example files and downloads
| Download link | Explanation |
| disco-manual.pdf | OPPSK Disco Ball Combo User Manual |