Will HitLight work with your lights?

How do I know if my fixture is supported?

Search for it by manufacturer and model when you patch. HitLight ships a searchable library spanning the major fixture manufacturers, with real 3D models and gobos so the stage preview looks like your rig rather than a row of generic cans. If your exact model is there, you pick it, choose the DMX mode the fixture is actually set to, give it a universe and a start address, and you are patched.

The mode matters as much as the model. Most fixtures ship several DMX modes, and a profile is only correct if the mode in HitLight matches the mode selected on the light itself. A fixture patched in one mode and set to another on its own display will read the wrong channels for everything — it is the single most common reason a light does something unexpected.

Nothing about this needs hardware. You can search the library, patch a whole rig and watch it on the 3D stage with no interface attached, which is a considerably cheaper order to do things in than buying first.

What if my fixture is not in the library?

If your fixture is not in the library, point HitLight at the PDF that came with the light — or a photo of the DMX chart — and it drafts a working profile in seconds.

It reads the channel table out of the document: the channel order, the modes, what each channel does, and the value ranges that select a colour, a gobo or a macro. What comes back is a normal fixture profile you can inspect, edit by hand and patch like any other. Budget fixtures and rebadged imports are the usual reason to need this, and they are also the ones whose manuals are a single blurry page — a photo of the DMX chart on the back of the unit works as well as the PDF.

Why does a generated profile start as a draft?

Generated profiles stay marked as drafts. You test the channels on the real fixture and confirm them before they are used in a show — we would rather be slow than confidently wrong about your rig.

The reason is that a manual can be wrong about your specific unit. Manufacturers revise channel layouts between production runs without changing the model name, rebadged fixtures ship the original vendor's documentation, and printed channel tables contain typographical errors. A profile that is confidently wrong is worse than no profile at all, because it moves the wrong channel and you trust it while it does.

The same principle applies to the assistant. It works from the profile you patched and the values actually on the wire rather than inventing your fixture's channels, so a draft profile you have not confirmed stays a draft everywhere in the app.

How do I test a profile safely?

Confirm the fixture against its own display, then bring channels up one at a time at low values before you run anything. The whole test takes a few minutes per fixture and it is the difference between finding an addressing mistake in an empty room and finding it during a show.

1. 1

   Confirm the model and DMX mode on the physical unit

   Read the mode off the fixture's own menu, not off the box and not off your patch sheet. Then make the profile in HitLight match it.

2. 2

   Confirm the universe and start address on the fixture

   Walk to each light and read its address from its display. Trust the fixture over the paperwork — the paperwork is what you are testing.

3. 3

   Bring one channel up slowly

   Move a single channel at a low value and watch what happens. If the wrong thing responds, you have a mode or addressing mismatch rather than a broken light.

4. 4

   Leave the risky channels until last

   Shutter, strobe, motor reset, macro and anything labelled ignition or safety belongs at the end of the list, tested deliberately, with people clear of the fixture.

5. 5

   Test Blackout before anyone arrives

   Press it and watch the rig go dark. It is the one control you will need in a hurry, and using it is the only way to know it is wired correctly.

Automatic control is deliberately narrower than manual control while a profile is unproven. Auto Show never drives smoke, haze, fans, flame, pyro, lasers, strobes, blinders, UV or unverified effect channels — those channel types are removed from every automatic path in code, not by convention. Lighting safety covers the full exclusion list and the watchdog that latches output down if the app stops responding.

What is a fixture profile anyway?

A fixture profile is a description of what every DMX channel on a particular light does, so that software can address it by meaning rather than by number. It records which channel is the dimmer, which carries red, which drives pan, which selects a gobo, and which value ranges pick which colour — plus the fixture's DMX modes, because a light in one mode is effectively a different device from the same light in another.

Without a profile, lighting software is sending numbers into the dark and hoping. With one, you can ask for warm amber at half intensity and the software knows which bytes that means for your particular fixture. The rest of the vocabulary — universe, channel, address, patch, gobo — is defined on the DMX glossary.

Which fixtures are hardest to get right?

Multi-head bars, moving heads with unusual axes, and anything with a laser or pyrotechnic channel take the most care. HitLight models per-head colour and per-head movement, so an LED bar or a laser bar renders head by head on the 3D stage rather than as one flat block, but the physical axis conventions vary by fixture and are the thing worth checking against the real unit first.

• Bar-style fixtures often rotate around the bar rather than panning like a moving head, so "pan" on the chart is not always pan in the room.
• Fixtures with an arming channel — flame projectors above all — use different value windows to arm, and some disarm again above a threshold. Confirm the window against the official document before any live test.
• Rebadged fixtures frequently share a channel layout with a better-known model. If the drafted profile looks close but not exact, checking it against the original vendor's manual is usually quicker than starting again.

Last verified 1 August 2026.