Step Effect Philosophy

what type of fixtures are your channels 1 thru 5? if they're regular tungsten they simply might be too slow to do what you told them to do.

and how did you start the effect? for a step based effect there are two ways:

[RecallFrom][Effect] 1 [Enter]

or

1 [Thru] 5 [Effect] 1 [Enter]

Channels 1 thru 5 are simple dimmer/tungsten. And, I saw them changing values as expected after selecting those channels (yellow) in the [Live] "Tombstone" display. I started with [Effect] [1] [Enter] and stopped with  [Live] {Fader Control} {Stop Effect} [Enter]

My real question is why do I enter the channel numbers in each step only to have to select the channels in live. Seems sort of redundant but I know there is a logic there if I can find it.  

Step-based effects are a bit of a holdover from the old Obsession/Expression systems, but they do provide some nice functionality (mostly because you can specify which channels do what actions in each step).  To quickly apply your effect to its channels, use Ueli's suggested syntax of [Recall From][Effect][1][Enter].  It may seem redundant, but it is necessary.  In live, the syntax [Effect][1][Enter] just selects the effect for editing its overrides (if it is currently running).

With absolute effects, you always need to specify a channel range.  You could rewrite your step-based effect as an absolute effect with almost the same output, and that could be applied to any channel range. (See below, and make sure you set the Trail to "Solo").  This way, you could apply it to channels 1 thru 1000 as easily as you apply it to channels 1 thru 5.

Step-based effects are a bit of a holdover from the old Obsession/Expression systems, but they do provide some nice functionality (mostly because you can specify which channels do what actions in each step).  To quickly apply your effect to its channels, use Ueli's suggested syntax of [Recall From][Effect][1][Enter].  It may seem redundant, but it is necessary.  In live, the syntax [Effect][1][Enter] just selects the effect for editing its overrides (if it is currently running).

With absolute effects, you always need to specify a channel range.  You could rewrite your step-based effect as an absolute effect with almost the same output, and that could be applied to any channel range. (See below, and make sure you set the Trail to "Solo").  This way, you could apply it to channels 1 thru 1000 as easily as you apply it to channels 1 thru 5.