Figure 1: The Clarity LX family. LSC Clarity LX 1: The Clarity LX family. Figure 2: Control area....

74 • February 2016 • Lighting&Sound America

TECHNICAL FOCUS: PRODUCT IN DEPTH

Is it just me who has noticed thatAustralians tend to do things different-ly? I think perhaps it’s a facet of dis-tance; certainly in the olden days thatdistance meant it was often easier forthem to puzzle problems out on theirown, then engineer their own solu-tions, than to go to the trouble andexpense of shipping in products fromthe rest of the world. Even in this“always connected” world, I thinksome part of that still holds true.

Case in point: LSC, the Melbourne-based lighting manufacturer of lightingproducts from dimmers to data distri-bution to a range of consoles, andOpenClear, creators of lighting soft-ware. Five years or so ago, LSCbucked the trend of big, expensiveconsoles by launching a software-based lighting package called Clarity,backed up by a series of USB-con-nected wings for those who wantedmore immediate, hands-on controlthan a QWERTY-keyboard or mousecould provide. In the time since, anumber of the players in the “big” con-

sole world, notably MA and ETC, havemoved in this direction, makingwing/software versions of their leadingconsoles and touting their versatilityand tourability. LSC has tacked theopposite way: The Clarity software andClarity wings are still available (thesoftware now called Desktop Clarity),but the company has also taken thesoftware and created a range of great,big, real lighting consoles to wraparound it: the Clarity LX family.

In a world that already has MA,ETC, Hog, Avo, and others, this feelslike an awfully brave thing to do. But,given the expense of designing and

building real hardware, it’s a decisionLSC couldn’t have made lightly.Certainly the Clarity LX has a physicalresemblance to its rivals—but maybethat Australian “think different” mental-ity will bring differences in both soft-ware and hardware to make themstand out from the crowd.

Hardware Clarity LX is available in three sizes:the big LX900, medium-sized LX600,and baby LX300 (Figure 1). Commonto all is the right-hand “control” area ofthe console, featuring, on the lowersection, a backlit numeric keypad plustwo separate, smaller function key-pads; four rotary encoders that canalso be push-clicked with a series ofbuttons above and below them; a levelwheel and then what might be termeda “soft keypad” (which LSC calls the“command center”—a set of buttonsarranged around a small LCD display(Figure 2). The display provides thebutton labels and so the ability to bothadjust those labels according to con-

LSC Clarity LXBy Rob Halliday

Figure 1: The Clarity LX family.

Figure 2: Control area.

Copyright Lighting&Sound America February 2016 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html

www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • February 2016 • 75

text, and (through three “shift” keysbeneath the display) to provide quickaccess to more functions. Above, onthe upper section, is a 10.4" 800 x 600touch screen which LSC called the“encoder wheel touch screen,” sur-rounded by a series of regularlyspaced buttons (Figure 3).

There’s some different thinking onshow here already, particularly in thebalance of real keys to multi-functionsoft keys. Real keys around theencoders (these buttons are round,clearly signaling their relationship tothose encoders) give immediateaccess to functions such asprev/next, fan, spread, home, knock-out, and fine, the last being either atemporary or permanent overridedepending on whether pressed andheld or tapped to lock-on; all includeindicator lights to show when they’rein operation. Conversely, some seem-ingly critical functions—record, forone—are on command center keys.The logic seems to be that whenyou’re directly manipulating the lightsyou want to stay “heads up,” lookingat the stage, rather than having tolook down to find functions on atouch screen, whereas when you’rerecording, you’ll already be lookingdown to check where to record.

This actually works pretty well, par-ticularly since the text labeling thosesoftkeys is big enough to read in ahurry, and sometimes provide usefulextra information (what “undo” isactually about to undo, or which cuelist you’re about to record to). Thefunctions on these keys are mostlycustomizable, but record can’t bemoved so your muscle memory can

learn its position. Two other notewor-thy things here: The first is the reallyhigh-quality feel of the encoders andwheel; they have a softness to theirsurfaces that makes them comfortableto the touch, the encoders’ heightmakes gripping to turn easier thanwith other consoles (Figure 4), and allalso offer a precise smoothness with-out any sense of wobble or the slopthat sometimes makes wheels, in par-ticular, change value slightly when youlift your hand off them. I do miss the

color-changing trackball of the Claritywing, though! The second is the keysthemselves, which are quite flat, but,because of their size and spacing—fractionally but noticeably bigger thanon other consoles—are easy to workon quickly and accurately, and alsoquiet in operation.

The big differences between con-soles happen to the left of and abovethis area. LX600 and 900 have a pivot-ing top panel housing four more setsof ten softkeys—LSC calls these“action buttons”—around small (120 x140 pixel) color touch screens, theneither one (LX600) or two (LX900) 17"1280 x 1024 touch screens (Figure 5).The LX300 is clearly the baby brotherhere, its top panel at a fixed angle andhousing 15 sets of playback buttons

above small playback touch screens.On the lower panel, the bigger con-soles have motorized faders with full-height LED indicator strips that changecolor to show what mode each faderis in (15 on the LX600, 30 on theLX900), while the LX300 has 15 non-motorized faders (Figure 6). The faderscan be paged, and you can split eachbank into two separately paged sec-tions or lock individual faders out ofpaging. If you need more physicalfaders, you can add the existingClarity USB fader wings. To theextreme left, the bigger consoles havemaster go/back buttons plus a grandmaster; they also have a keyboard(complete, unusually, with numerickeypad and trackpad) hidden away ina drawer.

Common interfaces across the con-soles are 4 five-pin XLR DMX portsthat also support RDM, MIDIin/out/thru connectors, stereo audioin/out connectors (3.5mm jack on theLX300, balanced XLR3 on the biggerones; as we’ll see, these have moreuses than on many other lighting con-soles), and twin gigabit Ethernet con-nectors capable of supplying eitherArt-Net or sACN. LX900 adds a further

Figure 3: Encoder wheel touch screen.

Figure 4: Encoders.

Figure 5: LX600 touch screen.

Figure 6: Fader color coding.



two real DMX outputs and two DMXinputs. LX300 has a single DVI-D outconnector for an external monitor,while the bigger consoles each offerdual DVI-D outputs. USB ports arescattered all over the place, includinginside the keyboard drawer.

The standard DMX output capacityvaries by console: 4,096 slots on theLX300, 8,192 on the LX600, 64,000 onthe LX900. The processor is the sameon all three consoles, though, so all

can be upgraded to 64,000 slots. Allnow use fast, rugged SSD storage.

While budget will lead some to theLX300, and the very biggest liveshows might demand the extra fadersand capacity of the LX900, I suspectthat for most people the LX600 willprovide the best balance of featuresand price. Reflecting this, it was anLX600 that we had for testing (runningsoftware version 2.3.5)—and certainlyit felt like a good “office” to be workingin. Though the different-sized screenslend a slight wonkiness to its appear-ance, the smaller control screenmeans you’re not lifting your hands sohigh to get to the top of it. It does feellike the programming area is quite along way to the right—the master go isa bit of a stretch—but the real buttonswith their little displays are great. And,a silly, but important, detail: a comfort-able armrest!

Inside, it’s a PC, of course, runningLinux, though this is all thoroughly hid-den from you. Useful is the ability tomaintain multiple versions of theClarity software on the console, sothat if something goes awry with anew version, it’s quick to switch backto using an earlier one.

Software Of course, good hardware is reallynothing without good software to bringit to life. Here, I’d imagine the chal-lenge for both LSC and for the soft-ware’s author, Nick Denville (one of theearly Hog 2 software team beforegoing on to create the remarkable timeline-based Jands Vista; the“OpenClear” you see referenced inClarity is Nick’s company) was takingsoftware originally designed to beoperated largely using a cursor andadapting it to suit both touch screensand the “real” hardware of a lightingconsole.

The hardware incorporates detailsto help with this. As well as the but-tons around the control screen, whichgive a physical connection to on-screen buttons, there are two morekeys, at top right and left, which act asmouse right-click keys; holding eitherof these, then touching the screengives access to the right-click func-tions in the software-only Clarity.

That works surprisingly well. Wherethe transition does fail slightly are themoments when it feels like the soft-ware is getting between you and thelighting, usually when an open dia-logue box prevents you from doing

FIgure 7: Patch.

Figure 8: Fixture information.

Figure 9: Universal controller.

Figure 10: Clone.

Figure 11: Programmer.

Figure 12: Two programmers.


something else. It doesn’t happen often but, when it does,that and the screen targets that sometimes feel a bit smallfor fat fingers, rather than a small cursor, are reminders ofthe console’s origins.

The advantage of that history should be in the years ofreal user feedback the software has already had: We firstlooked at it in this magazine almost six years ago (see LSAFebruary 2010), and the fundamentals haven’t changedmuch since then, so it’s worth taking a look at that review,too: http://plasa.me/duc6r. (To access this, you may beasked to fill out a short form.)

Starting a new show takes you first to the patch, its easeof use a good lead-in to Clarity: Pick a fixture type and dragit into the patch (Figure 7). The fixture library is fromCarallon, as on many other consoles, but Clarity shows a lotof useful information (including DMX mapping, notes, andknown issues) that other consoles don’t (Figure 8). There isa separate tool included to make your own fixtures shouldyou need to.

Two things—“clone from” in patch, then a display called“universal controller”—provide an insight to the way Clarityworks. Universal controller tries to present you with a con-trol view that is independent of the way a light actuallyworks—so you always adjust a parameter called “index”and another called “rotate” regardless of how a particularlight actually maps those functions internally (Figure 9).What Clarity ultimately stores into cues, though, are theDMX values required by the light. That’s fine until you haveto change to a different fixture type on tour; the old DMXvalues will make no sense to the new fixture. So Clarity’sclone function will do an intelligent translation, figuring outwhat the old DMX values actually did and using the appro-priate DMX values to achieve that in the new fixturethroughout the show (Figure 10). The same process is usedif you copy information from one fixture and paste it toanother (through the real copy and paste keys!). Doing thistranslation once, rather than constantly, means that theprocessor isn’t working to do this when it’s also under loadrunning a busy show, no doubt helping its ability to dealwith 64,000 parameters without requiring expensive externalprocessors.

Driving the console, there are two fundamentals toremember. One: You edit fixtures through a programmer(Figure 11)—with the twist that there are actually two inde-pendent programmers you can switch freely between(Figure 12), with the useful ability to release intensity first—i.e. lights fade out neatly before moving back to their previ-ous position, and with a further twist of settings that makethe programmer behave in a slightly different way preferredby those working in television, where the programmer levelsare still mastered by a cue’s playback fader. Two: This is atheart a tracking console, trying to store only “changedvalue” instructions into cues, and so allowing unchangedlevels to track through cues. It does have options for modi-

fying this behavior, for example by allowing cues to playback out of sequence affecting only the channels they havestored values for, but the language LSC uses for this mode(cue only) is so problematic that the manual has to issuestern warnings about being aware of the difference betweena cue only record and a cue only cue.

You can interact with the programmer in a variety ofways. The console will make default groups for each fixturetype, there’s also a sidebar that offers tabs for each fixturetype and, within each, options for grouping and what LSCcall buddying without having to make more groups (Figure13). A “ctrl” pop-up lets you get at the fixture’s reset func-tions—this and right-clicking on a parameter to access use-ful options are an interesting halfway house between a com-mand line console and a fully GUI console, and they workwell with those right-click hardware buttons (Figure 14).

The command line has really nice touches, such as dis-playing a group’s name when you type its number (Figure15). If you’re graphically inclined, you’ll want the “rig” view, amagic sheet-type layout with icons for both lights andgroups that can be arranged as you like. Multiple layouts areavailable; the icons pack in a lot of information, giving aquick overview of what a light is doing (Figure 16), and youcan import images as a background to the rig (Figure 17).

Figure 13: Fixture group lists. Figure 14: Parameterright click.

Figure 15: Group name in command line.

Figure 16: Icons.


More detailed information is avail-able in a variety of forms; the mostinteresting part of the Clarity interfacewas, and remains, how it evolvessome of the pioneering work Vista didin terms of presenting informationabout groups of lights rather than just

multiple sets of lights. Set a group oflights to 100% and you’ll just see“100%” in the middle of the list of tenlights. Set the group at a range of lev-els from 10%—70% and you’ll see“10...70” plus little bar graphs showingwhich light is at which level (Figure 18).

If you don’t care about the detail, youcan compress the group down to justone line with the level range showing(Figure 19). It’s clever even if it can endup sometimes being confusing (if chan

Figure 17: Rig view.

FIgure 18: Levels within a group.

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Figure 19: Group levels.


1 is at FL and chan 10 is at 0, you’ll still see “0...100” ratherthan the “100...0” that might be more helpful, for example);there is also a more traditional channel level screen, if youwant to go back to that.

Those bar graphs provide a very intuitive way of editingtimes and delays, particularly when trying to range themacross sets of channels: Switch to the timing view, thenstretch or compress a block of channels to change theoverall time, or skew it to offset delays (Figure 20). You canright-click and type precise times if you need to, but it’sincredibly easy both to set and, later, see the pattern of afade on-screen; accessing fade curves is equally easy, if youneed to. Or you can just set an overall cue time, including,now, a separate down time and delay.

Where things can get a little confusing is in the similar-looking, but slightly different, ways the console can presentinformation—for example, in the “universal” view (where yousee the same attributes for every light—“gobo rotate” and“gobo index,” for example) versus the “programmer” view,where you see the actual attributes in the light. Generally, Ifound myself wishing that Clarity did a better job of filteringout information not relevant at any moment: In universalview, seeing “gobo” on a VL5 (even if it’s crossed out) justmakes me pause to wonder why it’s there—whether I’vemis-selected something, though LSC argues that this makesthe display more consistent across fixture types.

Figure 20: Timing.

Figure 21: Palettes.



As usual, parameter data can bestored into referenced palettes, Claritydividing these into position, color,beam, and dynamic categories (Figure21), the last for storing combinationsof modulator waveforms (Figure 22).You can store a mixture of parametertypes into a palette; Clarity will splitthem out into separate palettes ineach category with the same name.Clarity then has a separate palettetype called a “freeset,” intended forstoring how you want something tolook rather than how that look isachieved for a particular light. Claritythen uses its fixture intelligence totranslate that look to data for a partic-ular light. An example of this is thatClarity’s built-in Lee, Gam, and Roscocolor libraries are actually presentedas freesets (Figure 23). Freesets caninclude ranges of data that can beapplied across differently sized sets oflights, to create rainbows or fans, butfreesets are not then referenced fromcues. Presets and freesets areamongst the many things that can beassigned to the action buttons fordirect access; a “favorites” tab also

Figure 22: Dynamics.

Figure 23: Freeset color library.

FIgure 24: Recording new cue list.

Figure 25: Update.

Figure 26: Cue list folders.

Figure 27: Metronome.

FIgure 28: Performance window.


lets you gather commonly usedpalettes together.

Look made, “record” will store itinto a cue list on a playback, withoptions for naming it, applying timing,deciding what actually gets recordedincluding intensity/position/color/beamfiltering (another area that could dowith better filtering: Position shouldn’tbe shown if there’s no position data tobe filtered), and with the nice touchthat when you first record into a newcue list, the settings for that cue listare also shown so they can be adjust-ed there and then (Figure 24). I did findmyself constantly wanting to just com-plete a record by pressing the con-sole’s enter key rather than having touse the “record” softkey. Changethings later and there’s an updatecommand, though one button actuallyleads to two possible versions ofupdate and the whole update com-mand feels like it would require toomuch consideration in that heat-of-the-tech, next-cue-approachingmoment where you just want toupdate and go (Figure 25). A nicetouch are the extra fields available oncues with friendly real-world names,“notes” and “script;” other nice touch-es are the ability to organize cue listsinto folders (Figure 26), and a dragholding area—a place to temporarilydump cues as you’re scrolling arounda cue list to find a new place for them.

Real-world names and functionscan be found elsewhere in the con-sole, particularly in the area of chases,where you can tie chase timing to a“metronome” and define a time signa-ture, so that you can adjust the timingof running chases altogether as theband speed up or slow down (Figure27). Clarity also has two other fantastictools for dealing with busked shows.The first, the “performance” window, isa grid of playbacks into which you candump one or many cue lists, thenoverride the cue lists’ behavior (chase,rate, limited range of cues, parameterfiltering) on a playback-by-playbackbasis without messing up the originalcue list (Figure 28). The second is the

ability to build up a long command linewith multiple selections, actions, andcomplex timing, then trigger it all inone go—you could create a fly-out liveusing this alone. Beyond lights, Clarityoffers powerful tools for dealing witharrays of lights using what is in effect abuilt-in mini-media server that can runstill images or movie files across gridsof pixels via its matrix control; eachimage setup you create is stored as aPixelSource, with each PixelSource

appearing in the programmer grouplist as another fixture that can befaded in or out or have its parametersaltered cue-by-cue, just like any otherlight (Figure 29). A range of transitionsare also available to help you movefrom look to look.

Dealing with external media serversis also well-handled, Clarity not shyingaway from supporting the openCITP/MSEX protocol as well as theHippotizer HMAP protocol plus HTTP

Figure 29: Matrix-800.

Figure 30: Media thumbnails.



for Catalyst and Mbox, and usingthem to pull media thumbnails fromthe media server for easy file selectionon the console. These remain cachedfor use even if the media server is thendisconnected. This is a much, muchmore elegant way of working thanmanually defining presets for all ofyour media (Figure 30).

And talking of media, Clarity sup-ports another media type: sound. Justas it can import images and video foruse in its matrix system, it can importaudio files in most common formats.One use for this is that the audio canbe played and its waveform displayedon screen when working in the timecode/time line editor, letting you pre-cisely align events to moments in theaudio (Figure 31). More fun is that

Clarity can play back audio files oncue; one can either be treated as anaudio fixture with volume andplay/pause/stop controls, or a cue cantrigger a clip directly (Figure 32). Thefirst approach means Clarity can hap-pily provide audio as well as lightingplayback to productions (its balancedXLR outputs even making it soundengineer-friendly). For the second,LSC has a great story: an LD recordinghis spot calling and having the rightcalls played back by the relevant cues.The bigger consoles include speakersand headphone sockets, so you canhear the audio even without beingconnected to a sound system.

Media files added for video orsound can be collected together withthe show file for transfer from console

to console; Clarity calls this “export-ing” a show rather than just saving it.The console also provides quite com-prehensive tools for merging data fromone show file into another, includingthe ability to merge data into palettesthat have matching names; this issomething I’ve longed for on otherconsoles. In part, though, Clarityneeds this kind of show-merge powerto make up for the fact that it doesn’thave the networked-together, multipleusers on multiple consoles collaborat-ing on a common show file that itsmain rivals all have now. Sure, noteveryone uses that functionality—buthaving it turns out to be unexpectedlyuseful on all kinds of occasions, and Isuspect it will be missed on Clarity;however good the merge is, you stillneed to find time to do it, then checkit. Clarity can network to another con-sole or to the software version to use itas a tracking backup; it can also listento the OSC show control protocol onthe network, giving you other externalcontrol options.

Like any high-end console thesedays, Clarity’s functionality goes wideand deep, and while the principles areoften familiar from other consoles, thenames and, particularly, button loca-tions aren’t. To help you figure thingsout, the user manual is accessiblewithin the console. Taking advantageof Clarity’s audio and video playback,there are also onboard training videos,hosted by a pop-up help version ofLSC’s Richie Mickan (Figure 33).

Summary Clever and fun though Clarity LX is,there’s an obvious question hanging inthe air: Why buy one of these ratherthan one of the “standards,” which inthe UK are, arguably, the grandMA2for big live shows and events, andETC’s Eos for big theatrical shows(though each often crosses into theother’s territory). To be clear: Clarity isan immensely capable console morethan happy to play in this league; forthe most part, each can do what theothers do; where one has some

FIgure 31: Time line.

Figure 32: Audio playback.


unique feature, the others parry withanother, and all now offer the soft-ware-plus-wings approach to supple-ment the big consoles.

But . . . on a purely practical side,with Clarity you do get a lot of consolefor your money. No-one pays list price,but it provides a useful yardstick: an8192 output LX600 is about £22,000($32,000) in the UK, the grandMA2Light about £5,000 ($7,250) more for4,096 parameters. Both can ultimatelydrive more than 60,000 parameters,but doing this on the MA2 requires theexternal NPU processors.

At the top end, an LX900, with64,000 outputs enabled, is £31,000($45,000), an MA2 Full Size about£7,000 ($10,150) more and an Eos Tiabout the same as the LSC but with amuch lower default output count.

Of course, console choice rarely(never?) comes down to money alone:It’s about preference, capability and, ofcourse, knowing how to work it—notjust the programmer, but others who

have to deal with the console on ashow. The rival consoles have theadvantage of masses of people withthat knowledge; those armies are per-haps the biggest challenge facing LSCin getting more people to embrace theClarity LX consoles.

But people who use it, clearly likeit—it’s gained a lot of show credits,particularly in television, where theyseem to like the “channel controller”

alternative version of the programmer.The hardware feels solid, comfortable.Plus, as ever, the software is free todownload and try (with new configura-tion options to make it emulate thelayout of the various consoles, includ-ing on-screen representations of theircontrol surfaces)—and if you don’t trynew things, you might never knowwhat you’re missing from that Aussie“do things different” mindset.

Figure 33: Pop-up Richie.

Figure 1: The Clarity LX family. LSC Clarity LX 1: The Clarity LX family. Figure 2: Control area....

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