CueSync for SoundSwitch Users: Setting Up a DJ Lighting Rig

What this page is

You searched for how to move a DJ lighting rig onto CueSync. This page describes setting up CueSync only. It makes no claims about any other product.

How CueSync runs a DJ night

A CueSync DJ night runs on one signal, the beat and structure of the music, and two engines that read it:

• The cue stack: cues you wrote, each with a trigger, such as a beat, a phrase change, an energy band or the DJ's hot cue press.
• Auto Pilot: a plan of moves CueSync builds for each track from its phrases when the track loads. It shows every planned moment before it happens and steps back when you take over.

Neither engine owns your fixtures. CueSync fires Looks, named stage states such as a console cue or a media clip, on the systems that hold the looks. Your work is a venue profile, a set of Looks and a few cues, not a script per track.

Step by step

1. Install and sign in. Download CueSync from the download page. 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. CueSync needs a Mac with Apple Silicon and macOS 12 or later; it does not run on an Intel Mac, and there is no Windows build.

2. Connect the beat. Pick one:

• Pioneer decks. Settings → DJ Hardware → Connect. CueSync joins PRO DJ LINK as another player. Close rekordbox on the show machine first, because it claims the same network ports. Of the Pioneer units, only the CDJ-3000 has been through a hardware session, so test your own booth.
• Your own files. View → Local Audio, then drag files in. CueSync analyses each file for beat grid, phrases, energy and key on your Mac.
• DJ software. Settings → DJ Hardware → OS2L, then accept beats from DJ software. VirtualDJ sends a beat grid directly; Serato or rekordbox need an OS2L bridge. This path drives beat cues and pad quantise only.

3. Add outputs. Network → Outputs → Add Output, one output per console or media server. For a grandMA3, add grandMA3 (UDP) at the desk's address, port 8000, with OSC input enabled on the desk.

4. Build Looks. Open the Palette (⌥⌘L) and build a Look for each state you want. A Look can be a console cue, a media clip, a QLab cue, or several at once, and every cue, pad and Auto Pilot moment that fires it follows if you point it somewhere else.

5. Write a few cues. Open Cues (⌘2), click +, and pick a trigger and an action that fires a Look. Start with one beat-driven cue. Cues are checked in order, so the one you expect next goes at the top of the stack.

6. Set up Auto Pilot. Open Auto Pilot (⌘5), pick a profile and play a test track. In the Profile Editor, raise the Significance Threshold or lower Chance to fire until it fires the moments you want, and no more.

7. Save the room. Settings → Venues → New Venue. Assign roles (the desk is Main Lighting, a media server is Video Server), then Test & Save and Activate. The next night in the same room starts from what worked.

8. Check before doors. Run Flight Check from Home; it lists every unresolved issue before you go live. With your own files queued, press Rehearse set on Local Audio: it plays the set's beats against the connected rig, sends nothing, and lists what would fire and on which beat.

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 need deck data from Serato, Traktor or Engine DJ. CueSync has no native integration with any of them; OS2L carries a beat and nothing more.
• You want software to light fixtures directly, with no console in the rig. CueSync is built first to trigger a programmed console; its own DMX output is Art-Net and sACN, so fixtures connect through a network node.
• Your fixtures hang off a USB DMX interface. CueSync has no USB DMX output.

What CueSync does for DJ lighting covers the same ground without the steps, and the mobile DJ setup guide walks a small rig from the start.