Automating Avolites Titan Playbacks from the Music
Titan takes commands directly over its Web API: playbacks, cues, levels and macros, no middleware. What to map, and what belongs to the operator.
CueSync TeamShow Control Engineers
Where Titan Actually Lives
Titan shows up disproportionately on corporate and touring work — rooms where the same content runs several times, the crew changes between cities, and the schedule is the thing most likely to break.
That context matters, because it changes what automation is for. On a club show automation buys spectacle. On a keynote that runs four times in a day, it buys consistency: the fourth run should look exactly like the first, and the reason it usually does not is that no human is perfectly repeatable after eight hours in a windowless room.
The Control Surface
Titan exposes a Web API (HTTP, port 4430) that CueSync talks to directly — no middleware between the music and the desk. Three things are worth mapping:
Playbacks and cues. Fire a playback, step a cue. The console owns the look; the trigger decides the instant.
Levels. A playback fired at a set level, a fixture's intensity, or the Grand Master, applied when a trigger fires.
Macros. The one people underuse. If a moment requires the operator to do three things in quick succession, that is a macro — and firing the macro from a trigger is far more reliable than hoping the sequence is performed correctly at the end of a long day.
The absence of middleware is not a minor point on touring work. Every additional box is something to pack, power, patch, and explain to a venue crew who did not build the rig and will only be in that room with you once.
What to Automate, and What Not To
The instinct is to automate the spectacular moments. On corporate work the better instinct is the opposite: automate the repetitive, keep the variable manual.
| Automate | Keep manual |
|---|---|
| The look for each agenda segment | A speaker running long |
| Walk-on and walk-off states | A demo that fails and needs covering |
| Anything that repeats across runs | A schedule change announced in the room |
| Multi-step sequences under time pressure (macros) | Anything requiring judgement about the room |
The point is not that automation is better than the operator. It is that the operator's attention is a finite resource, and spending it on the parts that never change means it is unavailable for the parts that do.
Beat Phase Where It Applies
On music-driven segments — an awards show, a product reveal, a DJ at the after-party — cue timing matters in the same way it does on a club show. CueSync locks to beat phase rather than tempo alone, whether the track comes off a Pioneer deck or plays from a file in Local Audio, so a cue mapped to a downbeat lands on the downbeat.
On the talking-head portions of a corporate day, none of this is relevant, and pretending otherwise is how automation gets a bad reputation in a sector that mostly needs reliability.
Setup
- Enable the Web API on Titan and note the IP; the port is 4430 by default.
- In CueSync: Network → Outputs → Add Output → Lighting → Avolites Titan, with the console's IP and port 4430, then Test Connection.
- On Cues, give each segment change a trigger and Add Action → your Avolites output → Avolites: fire a playback by its Titan ID or Playback Name, and run multi-step moments with a Macro ID.
- Add a Level % (with a Titan ID or Playback Name) or Grand Master % action for one or two faders on music-driven segments.
- Save the outputs as a venue profile (Settings → Venues) — on touring work this is the part that pays back, because the next room is a recall rather than a rebuild.
- Validate on Titan Mobile, Titan Go or the PC Suite before load-in. The Web API is the same.
Built for: Avolites Sapphire Touch, Quartz, Tiger Touch II, Diamond 9, Titan Mobile, Titan Go, Titan PC Suite. CueSync's Titan output drives each of them through Avolites' Titan Web API.
What Stays With the Desk
Every playback fired here was programmed by someone on the desk. Automation decides when, not what — and because Titan is receiving ordinary playback commands rather than being controlled at a lower level, the operator keeps full control at the desk.
On corporate work in particular, keep manual override live and visible. The schedule changes more often than the show file does.
Further Reading
- How to Trigger ETC Eos Cues from the Music — the same pattern on Eos
- Music-Triggered Playbacks on ChamSys MagicQ — MagicQ, including the PC/Mac version
- Where Should Your Show's Timecode Come From? — for timeline-driven corporate work
- Avolites Titan Integration — protocols, compatibility, setup
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Titan's Web API accepts playback and cue firing, levels, and macro triggers directly — Titan has no native OSC and does not need it, because CueSync talks to the Web API over plain HTTP — so nothing sits between the music and the desk. This matters on touring and corporate work specifically, because every additional box in the chain is another thing to pack, power, patch and explain to a venue crew who did not build the rig — and another thing that can fail in a room you will only be in once.
Keep Reading
How to Trigger ETC Eos Cues from the Music
Eos speaks OSC out of the box. The exact command surface, why the Go key is not a cue fire, and how to drive the desk from music without an operator.
ReadMusic-Triggered Playbacks on ChamSys MagicQ
MagicQ's OSC surface takes playback activation and fader levels with no console-side scripting. What to send, and where the free PC version fits.
ReadWhere Should Your Show's Timecode Come From?
Reaper, QLab, the console's internal clock, or the live performance itself: four architectures, how to choose, and where a hardware generator fits.
Read