ADJ Airstream Link Manual
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ADJ Airstream Link Manual

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Summary of Contents for ADJ Airstream Link

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    Contents Overview ....................5 What’s New ....................5 Connecting to the Link Controller ..............6 Link Controller Top Panel ................8 App Navigation .................... 9 Fixtures View .................... 11 Patching Fixtures ................. 12 Fixture Not In Library ................14 Fixture Identification ................14 Fixture Editor ..................
  • Page 3 Edit the Button List ................38 Scene Files ..................39 Solo Button and Scene Playback ............40 Clear Button ..................40 Effects in Scenes .................. 40 Sub Masters View ..................41 Small Rotary ..................43 Effects View ....................44 Pan/Tilt Effect Editor .................. 46 Editor Controls ..................
  • Page 4 Waveforms ..................64 Basic Chase ..................66 Link Controller ..................67 Save Basic Effect.................. 68 Load Basic Effect .................. 68 Shows View ....................69 Edit a Show ..................69 Save Show ..................72 Edit a Saved Show ................74 Shows List ................... 74 Show Playback ..................

  • Page 5: Overview

    Overview This manual describes all of the features of the Airstream Link app. You may want to consider downloading this manual into your IPad for easy reference while using the app. Airstream Link is a lighting control app designed to work alongside the ADJ Link controller.

  • Page 6: Connecting To The Link Controller

    Connecting to the Link Controller The Link controller connects to your IPad using either its private Wi-Fi network or the USB connector on the back. When the Link controller is turned on, it will create a local Wi-Fi network that you can join using the Wi-Fi settings on your IPad.
  • Page 7 settings section in the app. 5GHz is the default band and is faster and usually less congested but 2.4GHz usually has longer range and is better at going through walls but is also typically more congested when other networks are in the area. The Link will try to find the least congested Wi-Fi channel for either band when it powers on.

  • Page 8: Link Controller Top Panel

    Link Controller Top Panel This illustration shows all of the control sections on the top panel of the Link controller. When connected to the Link app each section can control various functions running in the app depending on the current view that is displayed in the app.

  • Page 9: App Navigation

    App Navigation The app uses a tab bar at the bottom of the screen that’s always visible. The tabs divide the app into five major sections of workflow. You can move from tab to tab from anywhere within the app by touching a tab icon at the bottom of your screen or by pressing one of the six screen selection buttons on the Link.
  • Page 10 This illustration shows the menu list that appears when you tap the pull-down menu button from the fixtures view. As an alternative way to access the drop-down menus, you can also press down on wheel 1 and then turn the wheel to select the menu item. Press down on the wheel again to go to the selected view.

  • Page 11: Fixtures View

    Fixtures View The fixtures view is where you select fixtures for programming and where you can configure your fixture layout. The first view you will see is a field of 32 fixture selection buttons. If you are running the app for the first time, your field will be filled with empty buttons.

  • Page 12: Patching Fixtures

    that use a sequence of fixtures. Tap the “Clear” button at the top of the view or on the Link to unselect all fixtures on all pages. In the upper right of the view there are blue up and down arrow buttons for changing matrix pages as well as page buttons on the Link.
  • Page 13 The fixture library is divided into sections that can be expanded or collapsed by tapping the arrow to the left of each section title. At the top is a search bar where you can enter a name or partial name to get a filtered list of every fixture in the library that contains the search word.

  • Page 14: Fixture Not In Library

    Fixture Not In Library If your fixture is not in the library you will have to make the fixture profile using the editor. Start by assigning any fixture from the library to one of the buttons. Try to choose one that is similar to the one you plan to use. The “Generic” section contains some basic fixture types.

  • Page 15: Fixture Editor

    The following is an example of a fixture taken from the ADJ library that was modified by adding a custom button image. Any fixture from the library can be modified to make it a custom fixture profile.
  • Page 16 Fixture Name: When saving a custom profile, this will be the file name of your custom profile when you save it. Button Image: Tapping this row will show the photo picker where you can choose a picture from your photo library to use as the fixture’s button. Screen shots from the web page of your light usually look the best.
  • Page 17 Number of Channels: This sets the total number of DMX512 channels used by the fixture. When you scroll down the fixture editor you will see listed every channel by name as in the example below. To edit an individual channel tap the channel’s row to show the channel editor.
  • Page 18 Channel Editor: When you tap a channel row, the channel editor will appear allowing you to edit a list of traits for that particular channel as shown in the next example. Channel Name: This is the name that will be displayed above the channel fader and used to identify the channel for certain features and effects.

  • Page 19: Edit The Fixture Button Order

    Invert Channel Output: This will invert the channel’s output. Use this to adjust things like pan and tilt to match your stage setup. Scale Output by Master Fader: This will cause the channel to be scaled by the master fader and by the scene sub masters. This will normally only be used on the dimmer channel(s).

  • Page 20: Settings

    Settings Tap the pull-down menu button from the fixtures view then tap “Settings” and you will see a table of various global settings used to customize the app. Each setting is described in the following paragraphs. Archive Archives let you backup your memory in an archive folder. Things like fixture assignments, settings, scenes, effects and shows are backed up in the archive.

  • Page 21: Program Lock

    Program Lock This will allow you to lock out all programming features of the app. When lock is turned on, only the Scenes, Shows and Unlock tabs will be visible and the menu pulldowns in the Scenes and Shows view will be turned off. From the Link controller you will only be able to call the Scenes, Subs and Shows views.

  • Page 22: Network Settings

    Network Settings The Link controller’s Wi-Fi settings can be changed here. The controller creates its own local network so that you can connect your IPad wirelessly. If the IPad is connected over USB, it will bypass any Wi-Fi connection. Important Note: any changes made to the network settings will require the Link controller to be reset before they will take effect.

  • Page 23: Snapshots

    Snapshots You can save up to 8 static scenes in the Link controller’s memory that will allow it to work in a stand-alone mode without the use of an IPad. These scenes are snapshots of the current output of all four DMX512 universes. To save a new snapshot, first set all lights to a static scene without running an effect.

  • Page 24: Matrix Editor

    Matrix Editor Tap the pull-down menu button from the fixtures view then tap “Matrix” to view the matrix editor as shown below. This editor is used to create LED matrices using fixtures from your patch list. You can use any combination of fixtures as long as the fixtures have RGB components that can be arranged in a grid pattern.
  • Page 25 In the example above a 4 X 4 matrix has been created using individual RGBA LEDs from an Elation Cuepix blinder. In this example the fixture was patched as 16 separate RGBA LEDs rather than one large fixture simply for convenience. If it had been patched as one large fixture you would only need to assign it to the first box and the rest of the pixels would have been filled in automatically.

  • Page 26: Selecting A Matrix

    Selecting a Matrix Matrices that have been saved can then be selected and included in the color effects. Tap the matrix button at the top of the fixtures view to show a list of matrices. Tap any matrix in the list to select or deselect it. A check will appear next to any matrix that is selected as shown in the example below.

  • Page 27: Channels View

    Channels View The channels view is used for viewing and setting channel levels for selected fixtures. This view requires that you first select one or more fixtures. The channel levels you see on this view will match those of the most recently selected fixture. The fixture’s name will appear at the top just above the pan/tilt control.

  • Page 28: Link Buttons

    All four sections will control every selected fixture where possible. If all selected fixtures are of the same type, they will all follow any changes as you make adjustments. If mixed types of fixtures are selected, the channel faders will only work on fixtures of the type displayed.
  • Page 29 To adjust a channel level, simply move one of the eight faders on the Link or touch the fader knob on the screen and drag. You will notice the DMX level will be displayed just above the fader image on the screen. When the channel value is shown in green, it indicates that the channel is now included in the current scene.

  • Page 30: Wheel Group

    Wheel Group The wheel group is displayed to the right of the channel faders on the screen. This shows the functions that are currently assigned to the four large wheels on the Link controller. Notice in the example below the wheels are currently controlling pan and tilt for all selected fixtures.

  • Page 31: Color Picker

    You can also edit and save your own custom wheel groups. Tap any of the four wheel sections on the screen to show a text editor where you can enter a new function name for a wheel. Pick a function name that exactly matches the channel name on a fixture.

  • Page 32: Pan/Tilt Control

    library to pick a photo. There are many types of color picker images available on the internet or you can use the camera on your IPad to take a picture of colors you would like to copy. The screenshot below shows an example of a color picker that was downloaded from the internet.

  • Page 33: Save Button

    “Clear All” to clear every channel. Press the clear button on the Link to show the pop-up then press a second time to clear all channels. Important Note: When you move a channel slider, that channel is automatically marked for inclusion in a scene. Its level number will be shown in green to show that it’s included.

  • Page 34: Scenes View

    Scenes View Scenes are how you save the channel settings you have programmed. Scenes are stored in the IPad memory as a collection of fixtures with selected channels set to a static value. Scenes can also include any running effects. You can save a fade-in time with a scene as well as a separate fade-out time.

  • Page 35: Create A Scene

    using the fade out time that was saved with the scene. To change pages use the page up or down buttons in the upper right of the screen or use the page buttons on the Link. As you can see in the example some buttons have images while some show a solid color.
  • Page 36 The scene button list will appear similar to the example below. Each row represents a scene button assignment or an empty unused button. At the left is the image or color assigned to the scene button followed by the button number followed by the button label.
  • Page 37 After selecting a row in the list the scene button editor will appear as shown in the following example. Each section of the scene button editor is explained in the following paragraphs. Scene File Name: You can enter a new file name or use the default name. Typically a long descriptive name should be entered here.

  • Page 38: Edit A Saved Scene

    The maximum fade time is 99 minutes. The minimum is .1 second. Tap the “Sec.” button or “Min.” button to enter seconds or minutes. Tap “Done” to complete. Fade-out time is entered in the same manner. Momentary Flash: Turning this on will allow a scene button to act as a momentary style flash button.

  • Page 39: Scene Files

    Important Note: If you delete a scene button you are only deleting the button assignment and not the actual scene file the button is using. Scene Files Scenes are stored in their own “Scenes” folder in the app’s documents. The folder can be backed up in an archive or copied using Mac Finder or the IOS files app and a cloud service.

  • Page 40: Solo Button And Scene Playback

    Solo Button and Scene Playback At the top of the scenes view and on the Link controller is a button labeled “Solo”. “Solo” will be displayed in red when turned on and gray when off. When solo is turned on only one scene at a time can be recalled. Any other scenes that are running will be replaced by the new scene.

  • Page 41: Sub Masters View

    Sub Masters View Scenes can be recalled in two ways. Either by using the scene buttons as described in the previous chapter or by using the scene sub masters. You can select between the buttons view or sub masters view by tapping the mode button at the top of the scenes view as shown in the examples below or by selecting the view from the Subs button on the Link.
  • Page 42 As with the channels view, the first 8 faders are highlighted showing that they correspond to the 8 faders on the Link controller. The two buttons above each fader also correspond to the two buttons above each fader on the Link. You can swipe over the view to shift the faders left or right in order to align the Link’s faders with a different set of 8 faders on the view.

  • Page 43: Small Rotary

    channels, for example “dimmer” or in some cases channels like “RGB” when there is no dimmer channel on the fixture. When a sub master starts a scene, either by pressing one of the sub master buttons or by moving the sub master fader from 0, the scene will snap all non-intensity channels to their saved values instantly.

  • Page 44: Effects View

    Effects View The effects view shows a button field of the effects that you have saved. As with the scenes view you have 99 pages of 32 buttons. The example below shows four rows of effects with each row containing different types of effects. In this example the top row contains pan and tilt movement effects, the second row contains color effects, the third row contains flash effects and the bottom row contains basic wave form effects.
  • Page 45 To get to the effects editors, use the pulldown menu in the upper left of the effects view as shown below. There are five items in the menu. The Pan/Tilt effects editor, the Color effects editor, the Flash effects editor, the Basic effects editor and the list of button assignments.

  • Page 46: Pan/Tilt Effect Editor

    Pan/Tilt Effect Editor This editor is used to create pan and tilt movement effects. Before starting you must first select some fixtures from the fixtures view that have pan and tilt channels. The order that you select the fixtures is important as this will affect how the phase and fan parameters work.

  • Page 47: Editor Controls

    Editor Controls The editor has eight preset shape buttons just below the draw area plus some assorted function buttons below those for drawing and playback. You can select from one of the eight preset shapes or you can draw your own shape. Once you have a shape in the editor you can move it around, resize it or rotate it even while the effect is running.

  • Page 48: Link Controller

    Fwd/Rev Button: This button controls the direction that the beams will follow along the path. This will only affect a closed path that is looping. An open path that is bouncing will automatically change direction at the endpoints. Play/Stop Button: This is used to end drawing mode and to run the effect. For shapes that are finished, you can start and stop the animation.

  • Page 49: Save The Pan/Tilt Effect

    Save the Pan/Tilt Effect Tapping the “Save” button at the top of the effects editor screen or on the Link will show the button assignment list similar to the next example. To save the effect to one of the buttons, tap a button row on the screen. Scroll down to reach the higher page numbers.

  • Page 50: Load Pan/Tilt Effect

    After selecting a button location to save a new effect, the button editor will appear similar to the example below. In this example a circle shape effect was created. The default button image will show the shape on a gray background. You also have the option of choosing an image from your photo library.

  • Page 51: Color Effect Editor

    Color Effect Editor This editor is used to create color effects on fixtures that have RGB color mixing channels. The editor will appear similar to the example below. Before starting you must first select fixtures or matrices from the fixtures view that will be included in the effect.

  • Page 52: Setting The Hue Range

    There are six preset color effects available plus the ability to record your own color chases. The large color picker control in the center is used for selecting RGB colors when recording color chases and also for confining the range of some of the hue based effects.

  • Page 53: Phase Control

    Phase Control With phase added to an effect, the sample bar will display the phase offset for all pixels within the selected fixtures. In the example below there are twelve pixels active. The order of phase from left to right will be the order that the fixtures are selected or the order of control channels within a fixture that has multiple pixels, e.g.
  • Page 54 In the next example, the hue gamut effect is running on the same 4 X 4 matrix with the hue confined to the range shown on the color picker and the phase set so that each colomn in the matrix is slightly out of phase. Note: When several matrices are selected, the largest dimensions of any matrix will be used in the sample display and any matix that is smaller than the sample will essentially be placed in the center and follow those colors.

  • Page 55: Color Effect Presets

    Color Effect Presets Hue Gamut Effect: The color will gradually change hue across the entire gamut unless you confine the hues by using the control tabs in the color picker. Speed is displayed in hrs:min:sec. This is the time it takes to run the entire gamut.

  • Page 56: Recording Color Chases

    Audio RGB Effect: This effect uses audio from the IPad mic input to filter high, mid and low frequencies to assign them to control red, green or blue intensity giving you a range of colors based on the audio content. Audio gain is adjusted from the master pop-up as explained in the Master Fader chapter.

  • Page 57: Save Color Effect

    Wide/Inside: “Wide” spreads phasing across all selected fixtures and pixels. It essentially treats all selected fixtures as one large linear fixture whereas “Inside” confines phasing within each fixture. This is only useful with fixtures that have multiple RGB pixels like LED bars. The effect will essentially try to run “inside” each of the selected fixtures.

  • Page 58: Load Color Effect

    the speed of the effect that way. This will only work for stepped type effects that run at beats per minute. Press “Save” to complete the process. Load Color Effect You can load a previously saved color effect into the editor. Tap the “Load” button at the top of the screen then select from the list of effects buttons.

  • Page 59: Flash Effect Editor

    Flash Effect Editor The flash effects editor is used to create various types of flash chases. It will work with fixtures that have dimmer channels. The effect looks for the channel within a fixture that has the “dimmer” label. The effect will then flash the fixture on or off using that channel.

  • Page 60: Flash Effect Presets

    Flash Effect Presets The following describes the six preset flash effects. In addition to these presets you can record your own custom flash chases. This preset will flash each selected fixture one at a time in the order that the fixtures were selected. This preset will flash the fixtures from the center outward based on the order of selection.

  • Page 61: Empty Steps

    Empty Steps In some cases you may want to have empty steps in your recorded chase to achieve the look of an old style flash chase. This will give you the type of chase that has a brief pause in between flashes. When recording, skip a step by tapping “>”...

  • Page 62: Save Flash Effect

    Save Flash Effect To save the effect, use the same method as described in the previous sections for the Pan/Tilt and Color effects. Tap the “Save” button at the top of the editor screen or on the Link. This will present the buttons list. Select a button location to save the effect by tapping a row on the screen or button on the Link.

  • Page 63: Basic Effect Editor

    Basic Effect Editor The basic effect editor provides a versatile way to build effects using any channel. It’s essentially two types of effects in one. You can assign standard waveforms to individual channels and you can also record a stepped chase using any combination of channels.

  • Page 64: Waveforms

    random ramp wave and will set the fade as a percentage of the time between steps. Phase offset is the phase lag between fixtures shown in degrees from 0° to 180°. For example, setting phase to 10° will make each fixture lag the previously selected one by that amount.
  • Page 65 You can have as many or as few channels running waves as desired. To see the waveform run, tap the play button in the lower right of the screen. You will need to have some fixtures connected to actually see any phase offset you have added. When using random waves the effect will pick random values within the bounds of the blue stripe.

  • Page 66: Basic Chase

    Basic Chase You can record multi-step chases using this feature. To do this tap the “record” button in the lower left of the editor. It will turn red to indicate that you are recording as shown in the example below. Select and move channel faders in the scrollable view to add those channels to the first step.

  • Page 67: Link Controller

    each step you add. Use the clear button to remove the contents of the current step or the entire chase. One tap clears the step and the next tap will clear all of the steps. Tap the record or the play buttons to end recording. While recording, monitor the lower right display to keep track of how many steps there are and which step you are editing.

  • Page 68: Save Basic Effect

    Save Basic Effect To save the effect, use the same method as described in the previous sections for the other effects editors. Tap the “Save” button at the top of the editor screen or on the Link. This will present the buttons list. Select a button location to save the effect by tapping the button row on the screen or button on the Link.

  • Page 69: Shows View

    Shows View Shows are scene lists that run on a timer and play automatically. With the show editor you can arrange a list of scenes and assign a hold time to each scene in the list. Typically a show will run in a continuous loop but doesn’t necessarily have to. The shows view is a button array as shown in the example below.
  • Page 70 After you select “Edit” you will see the following screen with two empty show steps set to default hold times. A show must contain at least two steps. Each row in the table represents a step in the show. To add additional steps, tap the last row “+”...
  • Page 71 After selecting a scene, tap the hold time and enter a time using the pop-up keypad as in the example below. Tap the “Min.” or “Secs.” button to enter hold times in minutes or seconds. Tap “Done” when finished. You can tap the “Edit” button in the upper right of the screen to delete or re- arrange the steps using the standard IOS list editor.

  • Page 72: Save Show

    Save Show Tap the “Save” button at the top of the show editor when you are finished editing and the list of show button assignments will appear. Choose the button where you want to save the show by tapping a row on the screen or by using the Link’s buttons.
  • Page 73 To select a linked show, tap the “Linked Show” button and then scroll through the list of saved shows and select one. You can use this feature to link a set of shows together in a chain. Set the last show in the chain to link back to the first if you want to make a continuous loop.

  • Page 74: Edit A Saved Show

    Edit a Saved Show From the show editor, tap the “Load” button at the top of the screen. This will present the list of saved shows. You can select a show to edit from this list. Shows List The shows list is a table of show button assignments. The list can be edited to re- arrange the button order or to delete buttons.

  • Page 75: Master Pop-Up

    Master Pop-up The example below shows the Master pop-up. Most views will have access to this by tapping the master button at the top left of the screen. This pop-up contains a number of global controls, each explained in the following paragraphs. You can also call pop-up this by pressing on wheel 4 on the Link controller.

  • Page 76: Black Button

    Black Button This button works along with the master fader (on the screen) to achieve a blackout by pulling the screen fader to 0. Tap and hold the button briefly to get a 3 second fadeout. Tap and release quickly to get an instant blackout. Tap the button again to return the master to its previous position.

  • Page 77: Ios Files App

    IOS Files App The files app gives you easy access to files on your IPad as well as any cloud service you use. If for example you have some custom fixture profiles on the original Airstream app that you would like to use on this app, it’s easy to copy and paste them from one app’s documents to another’s.
  • Page 78 After selecting “On My IPad” in locations, you will see the apps that support file sharing as in the example below. Note: An app will need to have some files saved before it will show up here. Select Airstream Link to view all of its folders as shown in the following example.
  • Page 79 To back everything up using ICloud, tap “Select” and then “Select All”. At the bottom of the screen tap “More” and then “Copy” as shown in the example below.
  • Page 80 This method can be used to copy your Airstream Link files from an old device to a new device. Use the methods described in the previous paragraphs to copy all of the Airstream Link files you have backed up on ICloud to the new Airstream Link documents folder.

  • Page 81: Mac Finder

    The screenshot below is an example of the file sharing display in Finder connected to an IPad with the Airstream Link app installed. Notice that the IPad is selected in the left pane and Files are selected in the right pane top bar.
  • Page 82 The example below shows a Finder window on a Mac with the contents of the Profiles folder open showing 6 custom profiles. You can use Finder to back up your folders on your Mac or to load new files into your IPad.

  • Page 83: Idle Timer And Background State

    Idle Timer and Background State This app will temporarily disable the idle timer on your IPad to prevent the app from going into the background automatically. It ignores the screen timeout you have set in the IPad display settings. This insures that the screen won’t go dark while using this app.

  • Page 84: Standalone Mode

    Standalone Mode The Link controller is capable of running in a simple standalone mode where it doesn’t need to be connected to an IPad. Eight static scenes can be assigned to matrix buttons 1-8 where they will be stored in the Link’s memory for recall when running in standalone mode.

  • Page 85: Revision History

    Revision History First release. Fix bugs. Add fixtures to library. Add home position feature for moving fixtures. Add manual “Go” and “Back” for shows. Utilize the page and matrix buttons when saving scenes, effects and shows. Add “clear” function by pressing in wheels. Add press-in functions to small rotaries.

  • Page 86: Manufacturer's Limited Warranty

    The sole responsibility of ADJ Products, LLC under this warranty shall be limited to the repair of the product, or replacement thereof, including parts, at the sole discretion of ADJ Products, LLC. All products covered by this warranty were manufactured after August 15, 2012, and bear identifying marks to that effect.
  • Page 87 Note: 2 Year Warranty only applies to purchases within the United States. • StarTec Series = 1 Year Limited Warranty (excluding batteries which have a 180-day limited warranty). • ADJ DMX Controllers = 2 Year (730 Days) Limited Warranty...

  • Page 88: Contacts

    Contacts Information and specifications in this document are subject to change without notice. ADJ Products and KMX Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this manual. ADJ Products 6122 S Eastern Ave.

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