LUA Course by Aart

Automating MA systems

Automation is an important tool to optimize your work flow. No matter if you do opera, rock, television or corporate events, time is always short when you are at the set. Speed is therefore essential when it comes to live programming. Customized automation of common tasks can save lots of critical time while maintaining full control. In this 5 day on-line seminar you will learn how to use macros and plugins to optimize your work flow. The first day we will discuss the differences between macro´s and plugins. With practical examples we will learn when to use either of them. We will setup our Lua developing platform with a free external editor and some custom tools that will allow us rapid testing of our plugins.

Teacher Aart Verhoeven is a freelance designer, operator and plugin developer based in Spain. His work as busking operator at a large variety of music festivals pushed the need to speed up the work flow to the limit. A computer programming background made him develop macro’s and plugins to reach this goal. In this course he wants to share the fundamentals of macro and plugin programming with other operators.

Previous knowledge of computer programming is not required to follow this course. All necessary concepts will be explained. Working in a limited group of maximum 12 students there is enough time for personal questions. A medium level of MA operating skills however is expected in this course. You should be able to program a complete MA show from start and be familiar with MA concepts like patch, preset, attribute, sequence, executor and so on. Both MA2 and MA3 operators will be able to follow the course without problems, although most (written) material will be aimed on the MA3 operating system.

The course will be given entirely on onPC systems. The only thing you need to follow this course is a PC or MAC computer with MA3 software installed (the exercises can be done with MA2 software, but MA3 software is preferred), a good internet connexion and the necessary rights to install additional software. A second monitor (or computer) is recommended to follow the seminar on one screen and do the exercises on another. The course consists of 5 sessions , each session includes a break of 30 minutes.

If you have any questions, please contact aart.iluminacion@gmail.com