I feel like I’ve looked everywhere and can’t seem to find an answer but I’m currently running 5 lasers off 4 Helios Dacs, 2 of which are daisy chained.
Is it possible to add that 2nd laser into the visualizer somehow?
Ah, good question - and I totally get why that setup makes sense, especially if you’ve been daisy chaining for a while. That said, I don’t officially support daisy chaining in Liberation.
There are a few reasons:
- No independent control - chained lasers mirror the same signal, so you can’t zone or position them separately. That might be fine in some setups, but in certain venues, I’ve found it really helps (and is sometimes necessary) to have more control per laser.
- Creative limits - you lose a lot of potential when each projector isn’t treated as its own output. Liberation’s built to work really well with multiple outputs, with features like zone delay and per-zone mirroring that only work when each laser has its own DAC.
- More affordable DACs - daisy chaining made a lot more sense when DACs were expensive and software didn’t make multi-output easy. Now that DACs are more affordable (relatively), it’s become much more viable to give each laser its own DAC.
I know that might be frustrating, especially since daisy chaining is a legacy technique in the laser industry. But Liberation’s approach is all about giving you full control and creative flexibility through independent outputs.
(And just to be transparent - yes, the subscription does scale with the number of lasers you control. So adding a fifth laser would move you into the next tier, but ideally the extra creative freedom makes it worthwhile 
)
Let me know if I can help get things set up or if you have any other questions!
Seb
Ah okay, that makes total sense. I did find a weird way to zone them independently by using a loopback plug (while no one else was in the venue) but I can share more details if need be to prevent this from happening.
Well, good “excuse” to start switching over to Ether Dreams though!
In regards to number of lasers, I believe I’m on the Pro 8 tier (or at least that’s what I’ve been getting charged), which should allow for 8 lasers if I’m not mistaken. Can you confirm?
Thanks Seb!
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Yes pro tier lets you use 8 lasers and 8 dmx fixtures so no upgrade required! And yes once you start getting to this size it’s worth looking into internally installed network controllers (ie ether dream)