A New Face
The fixture is roughly the same size as a MAC 301, but the similarities stop there. The face of the fixture bears no resemblance to any other fixture ever built. Through the use of two separate LED sources in the fixture, they can combine separate colors for a wide variety of effects. On the face of the fixture are 19 individual cells that provide the beam of light coming out of the fixture. Gone are the undesirable individual red, green and blue LED diodes one sees with most LED fixtures. Each multicolor cell consists of 4 Osram Ostar high-powered emitters. This means there are four individual RGB and White diodes that combine their colors internally to shine just one color out of each cell. The same channel controls all cells. With all RGBW colors at full, the output totals 3850 lumens — pretty impressive for a small fixture.
Eye Candy
Each of these cells has their own reflector and are mounted in spheres. The spheres themselves are held in place by a round piece of hard plastic that resembles a Fresnel lens. If you look at the front of the fixture, it appears to be a Fresnel lens that has bubbled over in a supernatural way. The way the story goes is that the folks at Martin viewed the fixture in this state and thought to themselves that it would look cool if they could add some additional LED components to light just the Fresnel-shaped part of the lens that holds the spheres in place. This would make the whole face of the fixture appear as one color, similar to the old MAC 600 wash light. So they took some RGB LEDs and mounted them behind the lens. This worked great, as now the light beam appeared as one full rounded beam emitting from the fixture, as opposed to 19 spheres joining together. The LEDs behind the Fresnel glass are strictly eye candy that illuminates the glass. I noticed they had virtually no effect on the actual light beam coming out of the fixture. This added light to the lens is referred to as the “Aura,” as opposed to the “Beam.”
Serendipity
When programming moving lights, I often find that some of my mistakes or unplanned cues end up being the best-looking scenes in a show. Perhaps something similar happened here when they built this fixture. I imagine that the original concept was for the aura to augment the beam and fill out the face of the fixture. But somewhere along the way, an engineer realized that if they added a few extra DMX channels, the operator could control the beam and the aura separately. Once that was achieved, the programmer could come up with endless possibilities.
With the beam turned off, one could just view the face of the fixture (aura) in red, and then, on cue, turn a blue beam on, creating the sight of a blue beam of light emitting from a red lens. You get the picture. Reverse the colors and put them in a two-step chase, and you have a dazzling effect. Eye candy with a decent-powered light beam. Both the aura and the beam have individual strobe channels as well. Imagine a blue-lensed light spitting out a random white strobe, or vice-versa. The programming opportunities with this fixture are endless, so to start the process, the Martin team has included about 30 built-in macro effects to achieve eye candy as well as dramatic rock ‘n’ roll effects. My faves are the various shutter effects, ranging from pulses to random strobe bursts.
The Gear
On to the meat and potatoes. The base is identical to the tiny MAC 101. The 16-bit pan and tilt mechanisms are the same as well, so this baby moves from point A to B in unreal speed. I’m talking less than a second to pan 540 degrees. These lightweight 12 lb. fixtures have a hole for a single clamp and can stand up by themselves on their own base. I thought for sure the fast pan speed would knock the fixtures off their base, but I was proven wrong. There is a separate channel on the fixture to control movement speed. I notice the now-standard PowerCon connectors are utilized for AC input. Separate in-and-out connectors along with 5-pin XLR for control let users daisy-chain the fixtures. Each light has a self-sensing power supply that can run on any power between 100V-240V. At 110V, I could daisy chain seven of these fixtures together on a single 20 amp circuit. The MAC Aura also has a fan for cooling along with the typical LCD screen for addressing the fixture and setting modes.
Zoom
The lens can zoom the beam from 11° to 55°. It takes .8 of a second to go from zero to full. Seems a little slow to me. But the effects are dazzling as the face of the light changes drastically when one zooms in. The spheres now resemble tadpoles of light with a little eye floating in each sphere. This may turn some people off, but I find it cool. I’m looking at a tightly-zoomed beam of light on a wall 40 feet from the fixture. The diameter of the beam is a mere 10 feet wide at this distance. But what’s blowing me away is that the edge of the beam is pretty crisp. I am staring at an almost hard-edged beam coming out of an LED wash light. Never seen anything like this.
Color Mixing
Time to check on some color mixing. The white LEDs alone emit a brilliant, 6500° white light. I mix in the RGB with it and I notice a slight change in color temperature, but it’s still real white, no pink hue. Next I add the aura in blue. No change to the beam, but the effect is sexy. Next I turn on the blue channel alone. OMG. The blue light is a deep rich midnight blue. Not your regular blue like every other product. I add a tad of white light to turn the beam cyan. I can color-mix a beautiful lavender by adding a hint of red. Most LED products can’t mix a good Lav.
I notice a separate channel for CTO. This smart light can mix its own levels of color correction, varying from 2,500° to 10,000° K. Beautiful skin tones are achieved. I can now use an LED light as a key light on any film shoot without worry. There is a separate channel that allows the user to tie the color of the beam to the aura. In other words, if you wish to have the beam running a color chase, the aura will keep up with it. Users can offset the aura by degrees so it is a slightly different shade of the beam color, or 180° from it. There are also 33 pre-made colors that are referenced to the Lee gel library. The fixture has a mode that allows for a variable speed color wheel effect.
This fixture may not be for everyone, but it is destined to become a major player in the entertainment biz.
Martin MAC Aura
Pros: Dual action colors. One of a kind fixture. Dazzling effects, fast pan, very affordable. Rugged construction.
Cons: Some clients may not like the strange lens shape. Slow zoom.
How Much: Projected MSRP, single fixture in a road case, $5,995
