4 Things I Wish I Knew Before Using ENTTEC D-Pro

There are a lot of PC based lighting consoles available. Some are great and others, not so much. But one of my favorites is ENTTEC’s D-Pro and the reason why is that is doesn’t over complicate anything. It’s an intermediate console that brings a level of simplicity to lighting.

If you have ENTTEC’s D-Pro or you’re considering getting it then I want to share with you 4 things I wish I knew before using it. These are tips that I discovered throughout the years that I wish I would have known to help make life a little easier when working with D-Pro.

Creating Groups

Located in the lower left panel of D-Pro you’ll see the device browser. When using the monitor live output function you can see what your lights are doing.

If you have a lot of lights it can be challenging to click shift and select them all. With this is when I discovered how to create groups for my lights. It’s just a quick and easy way to select the lights that you need.

To create a group just “Select” your lights while holding “Shift”, click “Save Group”, then name the group, and click “OK”.

Once you’ve created the new group you will be able to see it in the Library.

Highlight

Another great function I have found in D-Pro is highlight. I am able to use this function for lights that have intensity.

Located in the device browser you will see Highlight Mode. Just click “Highlight Mode” and “select” one of your lights. This will bring that light to full white mode allowing you to see where the light is on your stage.

This may seem like a simple function but can really save you time while setting up and running your show.

Snapshots

For this next tip, you’ll want to go to “Show Control” located on the top left of the program. Once you open up show control you will see the snapshots box located on the bottom of the screen.

Snapshots are basically an easy way to save any outputs as a cue. To save these snapshots just “Select” the outputs you want to save, then “Click” the snapshots box, name it, and click “Ok”. After saving the snapshot you can just click the snapshot and the cue will run.

Override Faders

The last on the list is override faders which is a newer function with D-Pro. Normally, in D-Pro you can just select cue and drag it over to a fader. But what if you want to get control over the Pan or Tilt function of your lights? With most consoles, you won’t be able to control any of the parameter functions with a fader. But now D-Pro has a way you can do this with the program.

One of the ways to do this is to create a new cue for tilt, pan, or whichever paramter, and add it to the library. When this cue is created you can assign that cue to a fader and then click the “COG” located on the bottom of the screen. When the screen pops up just click “Override” and click off.

Now when you bring the fader up and down you can see the control you have over the parameter.