New Pearl 2000 user and I'm CLUELESS!!!

[Jamtastic3]

Hi all.
I've just been given a Pearl 2000 and intend to use it at the venue I work in. Currently I'm using 2 Pulsar Masterpiece's which for over 5 years have successfully served their purpose.
Moving onto the Pearl though, I'm feeling absolutely clueless about it all since the MP's work with a completely different thought process!
I've managed to do my first three step par chase on the Pearl but I'm getting stuck at even the basics! I mean, what does a CONNECTED chase actually mean? Why does it have to be connected? What is happening when it's connecting.....?

Can anyone guide me to any tutorials or guides? At the moment I can't go down south for training so advice from the beginning would be great. I seem to already be stuck at the first few pages in the manual lol.
I've got 19 moving lights, 28 conventional pars and 12 LED pars to play with, so eventually, I'd like to create the kind of effects the Masterpiece's could create, as I found they had a very powerful and variable Chase Generator which I'm sure the Pearl has.

Cheers!

[niclights]

Connecting simply gives you control of the chase by wheels and other keys in the chase section (ie. stop/go/forward/back/bounce etc.)
Autoconnect (user setting, on by default), is therefore a very useful function since it automatically gives you immediate control of speed and xfade for the last chase fired. When more than one chase is running (or the wheels have been assigned to other functions), you can manually 'connect' the wheels by hitting [connect] and the blue key above relevant chase.

I think the Pearl is quite intuitive for most of its operation and you should be able to figure out most of the basics just through experimentation. A good way to learn is to choose a goal - ie. something you want to replicate from the Masterpiece and use the manual to help you in each specific task. Pay attention to the prompts in the LCD.
There is also great deal of information in this forum - some is very involved, but plenty for beginners too.

For fundamentals I would say it is crucial to understand HTP, LTP and the programmer.

When creating memories there are three record modes - 'by fixture', 'by channel' and 'by stage'.
-'stage' takes a snapshot of everything currently being output to stage. The programmer is ignored.
-'fixture' will include all attributes for any fixture that has a single attribute in the programmer.
-'channel' records only the information in the programmer.

Items in the programmer are denoted in the LCD screen with a "m" or "w" between the handle number and value.
For example "1mff" means handle one for the currently selected attribute is in the programmer, whereas "1-ff" is not.

'By fixture' is the default setting and is a quick way of storing a complete 'look' of a fixture without worrying too much about the programmer. But it is inexact. Most users will use 'by channel' giving precise control.