Hey everyone! I’m Stanton—based in Chicago, full-time software engineer, and part-time lighting goblin currently getting my master’s in artificial intelligence. Back in November, a friend took me to see INZO live (my first EDM experience) and my world immediately inverted when I saw high-tech midair synesthetic photon art.
Well 25+ shows and two laser upgrades later, I’m deep in the lighting design spiral. I started with some basic smart lights, then dove into DMX with dreams of grandeur—got a Unity RAW 1.7, got hyped about those 32 channels… and immediately realized I was towing a Ferrari with a tricycle. It felt borderline criminal to keep such a powerful laser leashed to DMX. I need ILDA. I need real control. I need to liberate the damn light.
But the more I looked into software, the more I felt like I was trapped in a high-priced Windows 2001 time loop. Everything looked like it hadn’t been touched since the days of Winamp skins and dial-up. And then I found Liberation—Mac native, intuitive, elegant, actually fun to look at—and suddenly it felt like I wasn’t alone in this madness.
Right now I’m devouring every tutorial, poking through the demo project, and watching videos until my DAC arrives. I haven’t run a single real beam through the software yet but I already feel like this is home. I cannot wait to make some stupidly dramatic rainbow gradients and finally see what this baby can do.
Stoked to be here, stoked to learn from y’all, and stoked to finally be in a community where “safety goggles” and “termination points” sound sexy.
— Stanton