The Botex Scene Setter is a great budget DMX desk at about £180-220 in the UK. It has 25 sliders that can control the 24 DMX channels, the top row of the desk is primary just to control the first 12 DMX channels from channel 1 to channel 12.

The second row has two functions and this depends on what mode you have the desk in. If you want to control the 24 channels on their own using a slider for each you need to set it to “1-24 single” mode by using the 'master A' button above the home button. The desk can also be used to control just 12 channels, with seperate A and B fader banks.

The bottom sliders can be set to have programmes recorded to them, so you can store 12 programmes that can be controlled by the sliders (submasters) and as an added bonus the slider still controls the brightness of the lights, so to get the full out of the programme you may need to push this up to full when the programme is needed.

Programming the desk is easy, once you have got it into record you basically set the sliders to the positions you want and then hit 'REC' once and that step is saved.

The desk also has a security code to protect the programmes so they cannot be edited and of course this can be changed, for added peace of mind. The desk can also support a fog machine connected to its own socket, this also tells you if the machine is ready and you can release the fog at a press of a button.

I rate this very highly and after reading the starters guide through for the first time I can now do most things with it and have even started to match programmes to music using the midi and phono music inputs. I would recommend if you get this desk that you have a play with it before you start to do gigs, because you always learn more by actually doing something rather than reading the book.