"Light up the sky with Standard fireworks". Well, it scans better than "light up your gig with the Pulsar Universal Interface". But you can, according to Ian Masterson, transform your performance with this simple black box...

You have to smile at Pulsar's sense of understatement. I mean, take this Universal Interface thing. Here is a device that can literally take your stage act - be it at a pub, club, hall or stadium - and reinvent it. It'll help you create a lightshow that not only complements your music, but which picks it up, shakes it thoroughly and sends it spiralling out at your audience. And how do Pulsar package it? In a bright pink and green case with loads of flickering LEDs and a badge that reads 'Instant Orgasmic Lightshow'? No. They put it in a black box with no front panel controls, a few simple LEDs and a smattering of DIP switches hidden around the back. Honestly, some people have no imagination.

If you've ever had the briefest of encounters with lighting technology, you'll know that it operates in a world of its own. Music has the MIDI data protocol, lighting has DMX. And, er, PMX. And analogue 10-volts. And mains, for that matter. All quite straightforward in their own ways, but not exactly designed to be mixed. Which isn't great if you're one of the countless musicians or programmers looking to create a lightshow that compliments your music - or, for that matter, which is capable of being programmed on the same sequencer controlling your sounds. Wouldn't it be great if you could 'play' lighting information on a keyboard, record it into a computer, edit it, quantise it and save it on disk the same way you can with a MIDI song file?

A couple of companies on the MIDI circuit (pun intended) have thrown their hats into the ring with various systems allowing MIDI-to-mains interfacing. These units work perfectly at a basic level, but are limited, for example, by the number of lamps you can chain off their mains outputs. To deal with the more professional lighting control protocols, be it straight analogue 10-volts for linking to dimmer packs, or digital DMX for more advanced control, you need to produce a unit that handles lighting information as well as it handles MIDI. In other words, an interface that will take in MIDI, DMX or PMX (Pulsar's proprietary version of DMX) data and translate it into analogue control voltages for linking directly to dimmer and switching packs, which in turn deal with the mains side of things. Enter the Universal Interface.

The simple design of the unit is, of course, both intentional and praiseworthy. For the purposes of this review I used the Universal Interface to control a bank of eight standard stage lanterns from Cubase on an ST, via one of Pulsar's own small dimming packs. This simply involved hooking a MIDI lead from the ST to the Interface's MIDI In (Pulsar also provide a MIDI Thru for chaining to further units), and one of the analogue outputs on the Interface to the dimming pack. A set of digital inputs and outputs for DMX/PMX are also provided, should you wish to control the Interface over that protocol instead.

In common with most of Pulsar's control equipment, the Interface takes its power from the 10-volt supply rail provided over the analogue lines by a dimmer pack. One of the LEDs indicates that everything is healthy in this area, while a further two indicate whether MIDI or digital information is being decoded (the unit automatically recognises which). The rear panel DIP switches are arranged in two banks; the first to select which of the 16 MIDI channels the Interface will respond to, and the second to select which groups of analogue channels over the six available outputs are to be controlled. For example, if you have six dimming packs connected, then you'll generally select all the channels to be controlled. There are also three further switches, the first of which runs a test sequence to ensure your dimmer packs are responding correctly. The remaining two allow you to select whether the brightness of your lamps is controlled by how hard you hit a key on your keyboard (MIDI velocity), and whether the lamps stay on as long as a key is depressed, or stay on until that key is pressed again (known as toggling).

Once everything is set up and ready to rock, you discover that playing a key on your MIDI keyboard causes the lamp 'connected' to that note (via the Interface) to - surprise, surprise - come on. From here on, what you do with your lighting rig is limited only by your imagination; you can do everything from programming simple chase sequences and flashes to complicated crossfades and animated displays. The analogue outputs can even be used to control strobes, multiple light effects, projectors and indeed anything else requiring mains and control feeds. Once you start exploring the options, you'll find it hard to leave your lighting rig alone.

And that about covers it. This is an invaluable unit for anyone wishing to put on a visual show of the more imaginative variety; with a whole bank of these, a stage of any size becomes your oyster. Add to this simplicity of operation and versatility, and you begin to realise that Pulsar have a lot to crow about with the Universal Interface. Not that they would, of course. But I will say this for them - if ever my stage rig gets shot down in a blaze of light, and my MIDI setup explodes in protest, this is one black box I'm taking with me when I abandon ship.

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