Here at Learn Stage Lighting, we do a LOT with ONYX.  In fact, it's our top pick for a professional lighting console, and we don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

But - if you are used to working with other hardware lighting consoles, you may find yourself at the end of your first time running ONYX, and wonder "how in the world do I shut this thing down?"

And that's a great question - because if you've used other professional-grade hardware consoles, then you know there is usually somewhere in the software that you need to press after saving your file to engage the shutdown procedure so that your showfile doesn't explode...or something.

How to Shut Down an ONYX Stage Lighting Console

Get ready for this....can you handle it?  The procedure for shutting down a hardware-based ONYX console like the NX1, NX2, NX4, or anything in the future is.....

....turn off the power.

That's it.  As crazy as it sounds, there's no special shutdown button, there's no having to even save your showfile if you don't want to - just cut power, and you're done!

This approach has another awesome advantage too: if you lose power unexpectedly during programming of a show, you're still okay.  As long as it wasn't a power surge or brownout (which could damage the internal electronics), just start it back up, reload your show, and you're good to go.

Why Don't You Have to Do Shut Down an ONYX Console within the Software?

One of the cool things about ONYX and the way that it was designed in the original software is that it saves every change you make to the active showfile, as you make it.

This means that you technically don't even have to save your showfiles - in fact, when you hit "Save" (With/without content), ONYX is actually creating a backup of the active showfile.  You should still do this (both on site, off site, in the cloud, etc!), but if a power outage hits (or someone accidentally kills your power), you're still good to go, and you haven't lost anything.

How cool is that?