Time was when the only light show the mobile DJ could get in the back of his transit was a set of traffic lights in a chipboard box. But as DJ mixers and PAs have contracted, so professional light systems have folded into flight cases and come within the budget of the semi-pro or DJ collective. Nineties jock Ian Masterson branches out from vinyl-scratching to gobo-matching with the Robocolor Mobile Lighting System from Martin

In the lighting and visuals world, most products tend to be based around similar, empirical theories. Homogeneity between manufacturers is the norm; after all, there are only so many ways in which light can be coloured, directed and controlled.

The bulbs, lenses, mirrors, gels and cylindrical cases that appear in one manufacturer's unit are likely to appear in several others' - albeit in slightly different permutations. So when looking for ingenuity and innovation, you have to look beyond the fundamentals, to the execution of the details.

In the case of Martin Professional's RoboColor Mobile system, such details have transformed an essentially simple, straightforward product into one of the most attractive small lighting packages this particular reviewer has seen to date.

Lest such fulsome praise appear premature, some hard facts: Firstly, the RoboColor Mobile system does not pretend to be the solution to all your club and gig lighting needs. This is a small, essentially self-contained product for the DJ or musician who needs colour effects on their set quickly and cost-effectively. Secondly, the system doesn't try to cram as much whizz-bang technology into as cheap a box as possible. And finally, while the system has undeniable strength in facilitating further expansion and serious external control, it will be perfectly happy operating on its own, straight out of the box.

You shouldn't have to buy four of the things just to get the minimum balanced illumination. (Of course, should you actually buy four of the things, you'd be more than well-equipped...) So just what is the RoboColor Mobile, and why all the excitement over it?

The basics

The RoboColor Mobile system is actually a hybrid of existing Martin technology: Take four individual RoboColor heads, hook them up to basic controller circuitry, package the result in a rather nifty small flightcase, and you have a completely integrated, portable lighting system for the performer on the move.

The RoboColor unit, as an individual item, has proved to be rather successful for Martin. Each basic head comprises a 250W ENH lamp and 4 dichroic colour-changing system with shutter, which gives you a spotlight that projects red, blue, green, yellow or white light (and blacks out) according to external control or internal preset patterns. Needless to say, the preset patterns respond to music in the standalone RoboColor; in the Mobile system, the four heads are internally synchronised to work in 'overall' sequences. These sequences can be run to an internal trigger, music or from an external controller.

The 'wheel' of dichroic colours which rotates inside the RoboColor unit in front of the light beam, is governed by a high-resolution stepper motor. This allows the colours to be changed at high or low speeds. At the lowest, the effect of one colour merging into the adjacent colour - known as 'scrolling' - is achieved. And a damn attractive, not to mention useful, effect it is too. You've probably seen those blue beams that slowly graduate into white on Top of the Pops during the latest ballad or ambient track; much the same thing can be achieved with the RoboColor head.

In addition, the RoboColor offers a basic 'strobe' effect (where the shutter opens and closes quickly over the beam of light), and manually adjustable focus, so you can ensure the beams of light are as sharp as possible. All in all, significantly more flexible than your average bank of rusty PAR 64 cans hanging from a club ceiling.

Interestingly, a selection of eight internal gobos - metal cut-outs that can be placed in the beam to project shapes - is also included. Unlike Martin's Roboscans, however, these gobos cannot be selected electronically, which is something of a disappointment. Instead, you have to open the casing of each head (via four knurled screws on the back) and manually rotate the gobo wheel to select your desired projection shape. Since the various shapes - stars, circles and broken line patterns - weren't actually illustrated in the supplied manual, I had to open the casing to find out what they were. Room for improvement here, I suggest. However, considering the low price of the RoboColors, I hardly think remote selection of this (typically over-used) effect is a major loss anyway. The novelty of pink squiggles dancing across the stage quickly wears off...

"The Robocolour offers a basic strobe effect, and manually-adjustable focus, so you can ensure the beams of light are as sharp as possible."

Total control

Normally, four individual RoboColor heads are connected to a standalone controller/interface that coordinates their movements. In the Mobile, as I mentioned above, this controller has been built into the flightcase that houses the four heads.

All you need to do on arrival at a gig is lift the top off the flight case, slot the Mobile unit onto a suitable tripod stand, plug the supplied mains lead into a convenient 13amp mains socket, and switch on. Left like this, the Mobile will happily run through the colours of all four heads at speeds and in styles dictated by the various internal programs.

Just which sequence of programs is run can be chosen through a bank of rather inaccessible DIP switches: you can run two basic demos, a random sequence, a 'chase' or a colour sync program (where all the lamps operate the same colours at the same time) either to the internal clock, or from an external music input. Incidentally, no connection to your music source is required - the Mobile system has an internal mic to pick up the beat.

Should you wish to get more adventurous with your lighting programming, or need to link multiple Mobile units together and control them remotely, access to the internal workings is provided in the form of RS 485 serial links on standard XLR sockets - one in, one out. This means you can chain Mobile units in series, with the first acting as the master controller and the rest mimicking, or you can link them all to a central control module, such as the rather handy 2501.

Note that the RS 485 protocol means the Mobile system can't be hooked directly to a DMX-based control system; for this purpose, an extra interface is required. If you're looking to link the Martin units to a much wider variety of lighting technology, then such an interface is the way forward - however, most Mobile users will probably remain content with the features found on Martin's directly-compatible controllers.

Martin supplied me with the 2501, their most basic controller, for the purposes of this review, although it's worth pointing out that more sophisticated devices (such as the larger 2308 or 2032 units) offer much more in terms of user programming and multichannel control.

Remote RoboZapping

Basically, the 2501 acts as a non-programmable remote control for the selection of the internal Mobile effects and sequences. It can also handle a variety of other Martin lighting projectors, such as the massively popular RoboScan series, or the RoboZaps, and will doubtless crop up on these pages again.

Whack this small 19" rackmounting device in beside your effects or synth rack, and you'll be presented with nine microswitch keys that govern the Mobile's basic functions. Pressing the keys marked 'White', 'Red', 'Green' and so on does what you'd expect, and calls up the chosen colour on all four RoboColor heads at once. Holding down 'Standalone' and pressing the 'Color' key instructs the Mobile unit to begin cycling through its internal sequences to your music source; pressing it again results in the same pattern run to the internal clock instead.

"There are precious few other lighting packages that offer such a combination of construction quality, portability, integration, flexibilty and expansion for such a decent price."

But the real bonus of purchasing a 2501 lies in the extra programs it contains for the Mobile system, which are accessed simply by holding down "Program' and 'Color'. Four different programs are available (none of which sync to music, unfortunately, since the 2501 isn't that sort of controller), and repeatedly pressing this combination of buttons cycles through the various options.

Similarly, by pressing the 'Strobe' key a number of times, you can choose between three different strobe speeds - something which the standalone Mobile doesn't offer. Just think of the results that could be achieved with a fully programmable DMX controller connected to a multiple mobile system: colour, scroll speed, strobing and blackout controllable on each unit by the user and stored for instant recall to suit your set. Addictive, innit?

So the technology is all there - dichroic colour scrolling, strobe simulation, sound animation, external control et al. I'm pleased to report that the construction side of things more than meets the mark as well. The individual RoboColor units, as with most things Martin, are manufactured in robust, heat-dissipating black enclosures with secure screws and stable mountings. The flightcase which encloses them is similarly solid - no tacky leather-effect chipboard or brittle plastic mouldings here.

Of course, this substantial construction does add something to weight (the whole package clocks in at around 21kg), but it's by no means unmanageable. Just make sure your supporting tripods are well anchored before letting the swelling masses of your audience anywhere near them...

Shafts of gold

In use, the Mobile system lives up to every realistic expectation. Each RoboColor beam is piercingly bright, and while not substituting for the visual magic of scan technology, or the essential washes of Parcans, quickly establishes itself as a vital component in any lightshow. Angled effectively across a stage, rather than directly onto it, they can quickly and efficiently fill a smoke-saturated atmosphere with pulsing, evolving shafts of coloured and white light.

And that's exactly why this reviewer is prepared to recommend the RoboColor Mobile system so wholeheartedly. Quite simply, there are precious few other lighting packages on the market that offer such an attractive combination of construction quality, portability, integration, flexibility and expansion for such a decent price. Moreover, Martin have executed this in such a way that any compromises are massively outweighed by the appeal of the whole system.

In major league lighting, the RoboColor Mobile might be seen as small fry; after all, colour scrollers aren't that new, it doesn't interface directly with DMX, you can't select the gobos electronically, and without an external controller its true potential can't be exploited. But since most of us don't deal with the major lighting league anyway, for our purposes the Mobile system seems pretty much flawless.

The Robocolor Mobile's real ingenuity is in offering professional lighting effects in a giggable, affordable box. Rather than pretending to be the be-all-and-end-all of projection systems, it offers a sensible solution to practical lighting problems for 99% of the DJ and performance population - and no-one can fault that.

The essentials...

Price inc VAT: £699 inc. VAT

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