The CHAUVET DJ GigBAR, a popular 5-in-1 lighting system, is without doubt the single most marmite DJ product of the 21st century. I have never seen a lighting effect cause so much controversy on social pages, like… ever, and I’ve been around a long old time.

According to a vocal section of commentators, those who buy them are “lazy”, whilst there is an equally loud opposition group of proud owners, who love the GigBAR for its speed of setup, ease of use, and range of effects.

Some are happy to just switch on the GigBAR and let it do its thing. Others want to tame it, to control it, perhaps with the foot pedal switch or even a handheld remote. And others still will prefer to connect to a DMX controller, configure the 30+ DMX channels, and finely tune the fades and movements.

If only there was a product that had the brain of the ILS enabled GigBAR Move, but in an easy-to-use controller. Imagine there was something you could buy that will connect to all this fancy ILS kit and allow you to assign pre-set shows and colours to buttons within seconds, without the need for any advanced programming knowledge.

Just imagine that for a minute. Now, you don’t have to imagine that world for a second longer, because the clever team at CHAUVET DJ have done exactly that with the all-new CHAUVET DJ ILS Command.

Essentially, the CHAUVET DJ ILS Command extracts the brain of the GigBAR Move + ILS and injects it into a reasonably small metal box fitted with a display, buttons and faders. The idea is that you can connect it wirelessly to the GigBAR Move ILS in order to control its movements effortlessly.

Don’t want the laser on? Press a button and it’s gone. Want a particular colour chase on the pars, no problem. Want to change the movement pattern of the moving heads? Press a few buttons and you’re there. You get the idea, right? It’s a piece of cake to use.

And if you have any other lighting from the ILS range, such as pars, bars, lasers, swarms or moving heads, then you can control all of that from the ILS Command too. You can now even control these lights independently of the GigBAR. It’s an absolute belter of a product, perfect for people who want better control over their lighting but for whom the world of DMX is way too confusing.

For the vast majority of mobile DJs, setting up all the available shows in your lounge or workshop (annoying the other half) was just never an option.
Setup is a breeze, and for the purpose of this review, I’ll explain how it works with a GigBAR. The ILS Command comes with D-Fi built in, so you just need to make sure the D-Fi channel matches the one on the GigBAR (or your choice of other ILS lighting). Then you put the GigBAR into slave mode – and that’s it! The GigBAR is now under control.

The unit is roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper, so it’s not massive. There are dedicated silicone buttons on the left-hand side, which correspond to the different features of ILS kit. For example, when you press the ‘moving head’ button you’ll have control of all your moving heads. You can change colours, gobos, the movement and speed.
There’s a button for pars, enabling control of preset colours, or you can access built-in macros. You can also control the laser, the strobe and any derby-style effects, such as the ones on the GigBAR or a Kinta, for example.

Pressing any button will change its colour, so you can instantly tell what is active or not. I found this to be a great visual aid.

Six presets sit directly below these buttons. You set up your lights exactly as you want; just press and hold, and that’s it, your program is saved. You can also change the name of the preset and even assign it a colour, so you can quickly identify your next effect during the evening party.
Next to the presets you’ll find nine colourful buttons, each of which relates to the colour of the effect selected. If you want red, you press red, you want green you choose green…you get the idea. It’s worth noting that you’re limited to these colours and you can’t change them, but for the most part, I don’t think you’d need to anyway.

Above these buttons is a small screen that you can quickly check to see the status of the ILS Command and what it’s doing. This includes the modes that different fixtures are in, which can be quite helpful. You also use this screen for accessing settings that you can change using the large rotary dials at the top of the unit.
Cycle through the options and press to adjust the values. Or use the dials to finely adjust the position of the moving heads – especially useful in ‘follow spot’ mode.

Below the dials are four faders. One adjusts the speed of the auto-mode, which is great if you want to shift from slower music during the early part of the evening to a more high-energy set later on. Next to that you have sound mode, where the fader helps you adjust the sensitivity of the microphone.

A third fader controls the speed of the strobe. Sometimes it can give quite a nice effect if the strobe isn’t actually strobing, especially if what you’re playing has a drop – this fader allows you to adjust your strobe from slow to fast easily.

The fourth fader is a master dimmer, so if you feel the output is too bright, you can easily adjust all your ILS kit to the exact output required.

And finally, the ILS Command includes three buttons that give you a blinder (all lights to white), an option to freeze whatever is happening, and an all-important blackout button (which will turn everything off when that last note of ‘New York New York’ comes out the speakers to signal the end of the party).

In terms of power, the unit is fitted with a USB-C power socket on the rear. In the box is a power brick – similar to a phone charger – together with a USB-A to USB-C connector.

The wire is quite short, so you’ll want to invest in something longer for use with power sockets that are further away.
But the good news is that you can power the ILS Command from a battery pack, or even the 5V USB port on a DJ controller. I was able to power the unit from my Pioneer DJ Opus, which I thought was pretty cool.

You’ll also notice a port you can use to feed an audio signal into the ILS Command, meaning it won’t rely on the external microphone when operating in sound-to-light mode. There’s also a USB-A socket, which you can use to update the unit’s firmware, and an XLR socket labelled ‘ILS Signal Out’, which I assume you can use to hardwire in any ILS kit that doesn’t have D-Fi built in or doesn't have a USB D-Fi.

There are a couple of other things I enjoyed about the CHAUVET DJ ILS Command. I like the fact you get a bag with it – other manufacturers really should take note and include bags with their kit. The ILS Command also has an onboard lockout feature, so if you need a toilet break, you won’t come back to find a drunk guest putting everyone into an epileptic state by fiddling with the strobe function!

If you’ve invested in the CHAUVET DJ ILS eco-system and have been patiently waiting for this to come along, then I do recommend you grab one, quick! There are loads of GigBAR Move + ILS users out there who will absolutely love the ILS Command and I expect it to become very popular indeed.

I don’t even own ILS equipment, but I still think this is a fabulous piece of kit. It’s easy to set up, easy to use, and that makes it a winner in my book.