What is DMX?
DMX is a language used by light boards to talk to fixtures. Multiple DMX devices connected together would be called a lighting network.
A DMX signal is sent through the network telling each device what it should do.
A very simple form of this would be your light board and your dimmer rack. A signal goes through the cable, goes to each dimmer and says,
“What’s your address?”
“Address number 5 eh? I have 50% here.”
“Address number 7 huh? You should be at 100%, full.”
“Address number 3? I have 0%. You’re off the hook. Don’t do anything.”
Start to include intelligent fixtures and it gets a little bit trickier.
“What’s your address?”
“Oh, well I’m address number 11, and I also need 12 and 13.”
“Great, well then you need 50%, 0%, and 100%.”
Then she takes these values, sets Red to 50, Green to 0, and Blue to 100 and we get this pretty pink light.
Is it more complicated than this? Certainly. But wasn’t this more entertaining?