LD Palle Palmé Chooses Martin Maxxyz™ Lighting Console

One of Sweden’s most respected lighting designers, award-winning LD Palle Palmé, has changed lighting consoles, opting for Martin’s Maxxyz controller for Diggiloo, one of the best selling summer tours in Sweden this year.

Traveling to 18 different venues around Sweden, the show consists of eleven of the country’s most beloved artists performing everything from musicals, rock n' roll and sing-a-longs to disco and stand-up comedy in a three hour long show.

The show is accompanied by a lighting package of Martin MAC 250 Washes and MAC 300 wash lights chosen for their extremely bright output, compact size, good visual look on stage and high reliability, an especially important factor because of the tight schedule and long traveling distances between arenas.

Time for a change
Palle Palmé handled the lighting design and specified the Martin Maxxyz control system because of its fast programming abilities, superb effects generator and stability.

“I have been a Whole Hog 2 person now for at least 8 years and have done a huge amount of productions on this desk and I can say that I really mastered it to perfection - but in the last half year I have started to have problems with the desk,” Palle commented.

“Desk stations are not working, I’ve had problems with the touch screens, there have been processor crashes, too many channels made the desk too slow, etc. I have tried the Hog 3 on a couple of shows and have had some similar problems, and the backup and new software have been very slow. So I decided to change and learn a new console.

Good memories
“I tried a couple of other new consoles but soon found out that Maxxyz was the console that reminded me most of the Hog 2 and I learned it really fast. Almost 10 years ago I used a Martin CASE desk on a huge magic show in Sweden with around 60 MAC 500s and 600s and when I thought back to those days I remembered that this console was very reliable and had a fantastic effects engine. In those days, I had a programmer so I didn’t learn the desk that well. But nowadays, I program almost every show I do myself so I thought that Maxxyz should be the new desk for me.

“Besides reminding me of the Hog, the effects engine is much more effective! All the other things that I had on the Hog are also there so I can do what I could before but with a better result. The saving process is much safer as well. And the processor is much bigger among other things. I am really fast when I am programming so this was crucial for me - to have a desk that I could program fast.

Full perfection
“The Maxxyz worked to full perfection from day one! There were no problems whatsoever - and if I had a question, one phone call to one of the Martin guys and the question was answered. Martin Scandinavia was very helpful and gave me full backup and training.” Palle thanks Jonas Stenvinkel, Ralph Rydén, Johan Colmeus, and Patrik "Räkan" Svensson for their support. Also, Björn Stolt served as Maxxyz operator for the tour and reportedly had no problems with the Maxxyz. Starlight supplied the Martin fixtures for the Diggiloo tour with the Maxxyz supplied directly from Martin Scandinavia.

Palle is currently in production in Stockholm for the musical Sound of Music where he is also using a Maxxyz along with 24 MAC 700 Profiles and 10 of what he calls his new favorites, the MAC TW1. “I have never worked with a moving head that can produce colors like Lee 203, 202, 201 and also colors in between those!” he states. Supply for Sound of Music is by Starlight.