I have used Zero 88 desks a lot and this is one of my favourites. This Desk is perfect for Am-Dram groups, Studio type theatres, Conferences and for DJ's with a very large Lighting Set-up. Its older brother's (Leap, Bull and Mambo Frog) are perfect for larger events such as medium scale theatre, concerts and such like.

The Fat Frog can be used in two different ways, either presets only or from the memory stack. In Presets only (a way of running a board that is not normally used anymore but could be useful for very simple straight theatre with no movers) Crossfades a are easy as you can either pull the faders down together or use the frogs "Automatic Crossfade" feature which means you can input the Crossfade time you want to take place and it executes it automatically.

In Memory stack you can program states to a memory number that can be recalled later when in 'playback'. There are 999 memory's available on the fat frog but that is without inserted cues (i.e. 89.1, 89.2, 89.3 etc.) so effectively you could have a lot more.

There are 240 submasters available which are particularly useful for when you are busking an event or show.

While programming submasters and memories there are two different sorts of memory you can program; Chase or Scene. If you select scene then you just program one step, but if chase is selected you can add several steps and then adjust the modifiers like speed, direction, attack, n-shots (how many times the chase should play) and drive. If you have an audio input then you can set the chase to go in time to a beat as well.

The Fat Frog is full of quirky features like palettes, the effects generator and the FROG function.

Palettes allow you to store DMX values and give them names for each of the following attributes; Colour, Beamshape and Position. This means when you program you can easily recall these palettes. Secondly if you change a palette then all the memories referenced to that palette (i.e. any memory which when programmed was told to be like the palette) will change, that can be particularly helpful if the designer at the end of programming decides to change the colour scheme.

The inbuilt effect generator allows you to easily make movement effects for quick programming, these include figure of eights, eclipse, triangles and quads.

The Frog Function (Fixture Random Output Generator) does exactly what it says on the tin, it outputs random DMX values for colour, position and beamshape meaning that you can quickly produce lively chases.

The Zero 88 support is amazing and on their dedicated internet forum (www.frogsupport.com) you can chat to them and ask questions to 450 or so other members all with great experience with the desks.

My personal opinion is that this is one of the best desks on the market for small theatres etc. and it provides an amazing amount of features for the money.