How to Automate DJ Lighting with grandMA3 (2026 Guide)

Why Automate DJ Lighting?

If you've ever tried to manually chase the beat on a grandMA3 during a six-hour DJ set, you know the problem: it's exhausting, inconsistent, and pulls your focus from the creative side of lighting design.

CueSync solves this by reading the beat and phrase structure from your Pioneer decks (or your own tracks in Local Audio) in real time and driving your grandMA3 over OSC — its production-ready command path. (Direct Art-Net or sACN DMX-over-IP output is an alternative.) The result is beat-reactive lighting with beat-aligned timing that runs hands-free — or with as much manual override as you want.

What You Need

• CueSync DJ Edition (macOS)
• grandMA3 console or onPC
• Network connection between your CueSync machine and the grandMA3
• A beat source — Pioneer CDJs/XDJs on the same network (PRO DJ LINK), or your own tracks in Local Audio

Step 1: Add Your grandMA3 as an Output

On the console, open Menu → In & Out → OSC, turn on Enable Input and Receive Command, leave Prefix empty and note the port (8000). In CueSync, open Network → Outputs (⌘9), click Add Output and add your grandMA3:

• Protocol: grandMA3 (UDP), the default for a new output, marked UDP OSC (recommended)
• Host / IP Address: Your grandMA3's IP
• Port: 8000 (it fills in automatically and must match the desk)

Click Test Connection, then watch the desk's Command Line History: every command CueSync sends appears there as it lands. Art-Net and sACN DMX-over-IP output is a separate, optional output in the same dialog, for sending DMX levels to a node, with unlimited universes on every edition.

Step 2: Build Cues That Fire Your Executors

Open Cues (⌘2), press +, pick a trigger and add an action. For each action, choose Add Action, pick your grandMA3 output, then choose grandMA3, grandMA3 Sequence cue or grandMA3 Sequence level:

• Beat → Executor 1: a Beat trigger fires your main look on the downbeat of every Nth bar
• Energy Level → Executor 2: a brighter look fires when the track's energy enters the band you set
• Phrase Change (drop) → Macro 1: your drop macro fires when the track enters a DROP phrase
• Phrase Change → Executor 3: change scenes when a new phrase type begins (8-bar or 16-bar)

Each cue picks its trigger — the beat in the bar and a bar interval for Beat, a phrase type for Phrase Change — and a Beat cue has its own offset in milliseconds for fixture pre-roll. The Sends: line above the action shows the exact command line the desk will receive.

Step 3: Enable AutoPilot

AutoPilot is CueSync's hands-free mode. It fires from a profile, a plan of moves CueSync builds for each track from its phrases, alongside the cues you wrote:

1. Open Auto Pilot (⌘5) and click Enable Auto Pilot. Built-in profiles are read-only, so duplicate one in the Profile Editor and, under Moment Intents, point Set Console Look at your desk's cue numbers (by default Set Console Look #N goes to cue N on executor 1, page 1)
2. Start playing on your Pioneer decks (PRO DJ LINK), or play a track in Local Audio
3. Watch your grandMA3 respond to the music in real time

AutoPilot works from the track's beat, phrase structure, energy and drops simultaneously. You can override any cue at any time using CuePad.

Step 4: Save a Venue Profile

Save your outputs as a venue profile so you can reload them next time. Open Settings → Venues, click New Venue (or use the setup wizard's Confirm Devices, Assign Roles and Test & Save steps) and name it after the venue. A venue profile holds the room's outputs, device roles, intent mappings and output policy.

Next time you play this venue, activate the profile (or accept the "Recognized venue" prompt) and you start from the saved setup.

Pro Tips

• Use Pioneer DJ Link for the most accurate beat phase data — CueSync reads BPM, beat position, and track metadata directly from CDJ/XDJ hardware
• Let each cue fire once — a cue fires once and the stack then moves on, so a macro trigger never rapid-fires; for repeating behaviour in intense sections, use AutoPilot's phrase fallbacks and fills
• Layer scenes — use CuePad to fire one-shot effects over your AutoPilot base layer
• Save per-artist profiles for recurring events with multiple DJs

Ready to Try It?

Download CueSync free and run the demo show and tour the app in read-only mode. Subscribe to the DJ Edition when you're ready to go live with your grandMA3 rig. Need to sync visuals too? See how to sync Resolume to your set.