A channel is a set of 255 steps that are assigned to control attributes in each light.  This may be a color like red, green or blue, and intensity, strobe, pan/tilt or other attributes.

This is pretty incredible if you remember some old analog control systems where you had 1 pair of wires for each channel of the console!

I don’t miss those one bit!

Data is sent down this line via pulses of electricity from a lighting console, into your fixtures that are usually “daisy-chained” together.

This means that you plug the initial DMX cable into the first fixture, the “OUT” of the first fixture into the second fixture, etc, up to 32 fixtures maximum – more on that below.

DMX is not manufacturer specific.  DMX-controlled lights from any manufacturer can be controlled by any DMX console – even if that console is made by someone else. This is one of the biggest advantages of DMX and why it’s the standard that we use to control stage lighting today.