Virtual Channels

Depending on the device type you specify for a channel, the Light-O-Rama Visualizer listens for commands based on a "key'.  For example, if a channel of a fixture specifies that it is LOR hardware, then the network, unit, and circuit are all required.  When the Visualizer receives a command from the Sequence Editor or the Show Player, it will match that command with that channel if the device type, network, unit, and circuit all match.  In this case, it helps to think of the Visualizer as a physical light controller: When you physically wire your devices to your controllers, those controllers do not care what color lights you hooked up, nor what you named the channel in the Sequence Editor.

However, the Visualizer has another type of channel, called the virtual channel.  If you don't specify a device type, then the Sequence Editor will send, and the Visualizer will attempt to match, the channel's name.  For example, this could be used to create a "beat channel", flashing with the beat of a song, that isn't actually hooked up to any real string of lights on any controller, but which can be viewed in the Visualizer.

You can utilize this functionality by creating the channel in the Sequence Editor as having no device type, and in the Visualizer wire the channel using an identical name and no device type.

Note: The Visualizer will not simulate virtual channels from a compressed sequence.