CueSync for ShowKontrol Users: Timecode and Cues From the Decks

What this page is

You searched for a way to run a show from Pioneer decks. This page describes CueSync only: what it does for that job, what it needs, and when it is the wrong tool. It makes no claims about any other product.

Reading the decks

CueSync joins your PRO DJ LINK network as another player and reads the position, BPM, phase and tempo master your CDJs already share. With a DJM on the network, a deck that is off air does not fire your beat cues. If the beats go quiet while a deck is playing, CueSync says so instead of firing nothing.

Close rekordbox on the show machine before a set, because it claims the network ports CueSync uses. Of the Pioneer units, only the CDJ-3000 has been through a hardware session, so test your own booth.

Timecode out, from every edition

Every edition generates timecode, and a DJ install sends the CDJ clock out as LTC, MTC, Art-Net Timecode and TCNet, at ten frame rates from 23.976 to 60. Each destination is addressed on its own.

In Theatre and Production, CueSync also chases an incoming clock: it reads CDJ position, MTC, LTC, TCNet and Art-Net timecode together, acts on the highest-priority live source, and labels the moment it is coasting through a dropout. Its own timecode output cannot take the input over from the real master. Using CDJ position as a chase source needs Production.

Cues, not only a clock

A clock tells a desk where the track is; something still has to decide what happens there. CueSync's cue engine does that itself:

• Cues that wait for the music. A cue can wait for a phrase change, an energy band, a fill or the DJ's hot cue press. Cues are checked in order, so the one you expect next goes at the top of the stack.
• Auto Pilot. It works out a fire plan when a track loads, shows every planned moment before it happens, and steps back when you take over.
• Commands in the desk's own language. A cue can fire a grandMA3 executor or run a macro, not only stamp a frame the desk has to be programmed against.

One cue can hold a console command, a media-server command, a MIDI message and an audio clip.

CueSync ships 15 output protocols — grandMA2 (Telnet), grandMA3 (TCP and UDP OSC), Avolites Titan, ETC Eos, ChamSys MagicQ, Resolume, disguise, VIOSO, Pixera, TouchDesigner, Unreal Engine 5, QLab (TCP and UDP), MIDI Show Control, Pangolin Beyond and Custom OSC — of which grandMA3, QLab, Resolume and Unreal Engine 5 (in-engine, on our own project) have been run against the real program or console, and the rest are built to each maker's published interface and have not yet been run against that equipment.

A scripted show as well

In Theatre and Production, the Show Editor lays a show's audio out as a running order of Parts with a lane for each department, Run Mode calls it from one screen, and Session Sync pushes the cue list into a grandMA3 sequence as a previewed merge. The sequence push has been run on a physical grandMA3 console.

What it needs

• A Mac with Apple Silicon and macOS 12 or later.
• The DJ or Production edition for the decks and Auto Pilot; Theatre or Production for chasing a clock.
• Something programmed to trigger: a console, a media server or show-control software.
• An account. Without a subscription you can run the demo show and tour the app in read-only mode. Building and saving your own shows, and connecting real outputs, need a subscription.

When CueSync is not the right fit

• You need it on Windows or on an Intel Mac. There is no Windows build, and CueSync does not run on an Intel Mac.
• You want the laptop to browse, load or start tracks on the players. CueSync reads the decks; it does not control them.
• All your desk needs is a clock, and its timeline is already programmed against every track. CueSync's timecode output covers that, and its cue engine would have nothing to do.
• Your booth runs Pioneer players other than the CDJ-3000, and you cannot test them before the show.

The short version of this page has the same facts, and sending timecode to a grandMA3 covers the desk side.