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C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N
14.
The Personality File System
If you can’t find the personality for the fixture you’re using, or you want
to know how to create a personality file, this section has the details.
14.1
Help, I can’t find a personality for my fixture
DORTRON’s has a large library of fixtures on the website at
http://www.DORTRON’sdownload.com/Personality%20Library/Default.a
sp which can be downloaded quickly onto floppy disk.
You can also use this page to request a personality for a fixture if one
doesn’t already exist, and to report problems with personalities.
If you frequently use a fixture which isn’t in the DLC-C003’s internal
fixture cache, you can build it into the cache so you don’t have to mess
with floppy disks. To do this you need to download the DORTRON’s
Cache Builder from http://www.DORTRON’sdownload.com. You then
need to load your new cache file as described on page 136.
14.2
Create
14.2.1
What is and how do I write or change a Personality file?
The personality file is an ASCII text format file containing information
on how the desk should patch each channel of an instrument.
Since the files are in ASCII text format you can easily modify them and
create new versions for your own use. When editing files you must
ensure your word processor is set to save in plain ASCII text format. If
you use Windows Write make sure that when you open the file you
select ‘no conversion’ and when you close the file you save it in the
‘text file’ format.
Before editing make a backup of the original, in case your edits do not
work.
The DLC-C003 normally stores the personality files in an internal cache
so that you don’t need to carry a personality disk around. The
personality cache is a special compressed file containing all the
personalities. You cannot currently add your own definitions to it, so
you will have to load your custom personalities from disk in the time-
honoured fashion.
14.2.2
Personality file naming conventions
There are four extensions used by personality files: .PER, .D2, .R96
and .R20.
DLC-C003 software will read any .PER file and any.R96 file, however
when .PER files are read a message will be presented to the user to
warn that an old personality file is being used and not every function of
the desk will work correctly. Typically this includes tracking, pre-loaded