Pixel Wall

What it's for — CueSync drives an RGB pixel wall of its own, without a lighting desk: LED tape, tubes, a panel, or a rig over several controllers. In a DJ set its choreography drives it from the track's phrase and energy. In a theatre show a Pixel Wall action fires an authored look at a timecode, with a fade, a colour ramp by name, and a zone.

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Getting the wall lit

The Pixels settings card prints this path as a checklist until every step is done.

1. Pick the node. Choose the Protocol — Art-Net unicasts to one node IP (or a directed broadcast such as 2.255.255.255), sACN (E1.31) multicasts per universe so every controller subscribes to its own universes and needs no address at all. Under Art-Net press Scan for nodes: every node that answers ArtPoll is listed with the universes it outputs, and picking one fills the IP and, on a plain strip, the start universe. Scan for nodes also looks at controllers' own web pages, so a PixLite that never answers ArtPoll (one set to sACN, say) is listed too, named with its model and firmware; a node that answers both ways is one row. While a show is live the web look is skipped and the picker says so (scan with the show off, or type the IP), and on a very wide network it can run out of time and says that only part of the network was looked at. If nothing answers, type the IP from the node's own config page — some DIY nodes never answer. A scan that could only check this computer (an adapter given an address with no netmask) says so and names the cure: add the address again with its netmask. If the scan reports UDP 6454 is held, close the other Art-Net app (MA3 onPC, a visualiser).
2. Patch the wall. For one strip type Pixels (up to 4,420), the start universe and start channel, and the pixel type — RGB, GRB (what WS2812 and SK6812 bridges usually want), BGR, RGBW or GRBW. For a panel or a rig over several universes switch the Rig card to Plan and Add another run: a name (it becomes a zone), pixels per run, runs, one universe per run, the pixel type, where it hangs in metres, and serpentine for a zigzag-wired panel so odd rows run back the other way. A rig exported from Unreal imports under Import with its zones and coordinates. The address map under whichever you chose draws the patch in address order — universe boundaries, pixel numbers, each zone in its tint — with the totals on one line. While the wall is live, edits in the Plan wait behind Apply changes and Discard — applying restarts the wall, so nothing you type moves it halfway — and a plan the wall cannot take (a run pinned to a universe or channel out of range, say) is refused as typed with its reason, with Apply greyed until it can.
3. Turn output on. The switch at the top. Frames start the moment it is on; the status chip below it says what is actually happening.
4. See it light. Identify (in the Verify card) drives a rainbow comet with no music playing, so pixel order and coverage are visible. Narrow it to one universe or one zone to find which controller port is which on a big rig, or type a pixel number to find a dead run. It is the same Identify the designer's header and the EdgeBar PIX badge offer. The checklist remembers a wall an Identify was accepted on — it opens ticked on the next visit and after a restart — while another node, wire or patch is asked again.

Addressing. The start universe is the flat Art-Net port-address (Net × 256 + Subnet × 16 + Universe); a node set to Net 1 / Universe 3 is 259. Falcon, xLights, Madrix and WLED count universes from 1 on their sACN side, so their "Universe 1" is 0 here under Art-Net and 1 under sACN — the scan reads the node's own answer. sACN universes start at 1; a patch on universe 0 is refused with that sentence beside the switch.

A wall over several controllers. Once the patch spans more than one universe a Routing table appears: each node's IP and the universes it takes, the rest going to the default IP. Under sACN multicast no table is needed. A node that fails to open fails the whole wall and is named, so a half-lit wall never shows a green chip. If one controller of a wall over several stops taking frames, the notice and the chip name that controller; CueSync does not rebuild the whole wall for it, because that would blink the controllers that are fine, so fix the controller and press Retry now.

Bind interface. Pins which adapter the frames leave from. Auto is right on a single-network machine; pin it when the booth has Wi-Fi and a lighting NIC, because some nodes filter by source address. If the node IP is outside the pinned adapter's subnet the page says so. Under sACN, a wall sent straight to a node (a node address typed under Unicast to) binds the exact address you picked, not the first address of its adapter, so an adapter with more than one address sends from the one you chose. A wall pinned to an adapter or address that is not on this computer (unplugged, renumbered, removed) fails to connect and says so, rather than sending out of another card; if the pin is lost while the wall is running, it keeps streaming from the default adapter and says so (amber PIX?, ADAPTER LOST).

Frame rate and load. DMX caps at about 44 Hz, so "60 fps" discards a third of its frames at the node; the page states the packets per second the setting produces. On a multi-universe rig frames are synchronised, so a wipe across a universe boundary does not tear.

The status chip is the one place the app admits what the wall is doing:

Pixel output needs an active licence, whatever your edition. Without one the wall stays dark whatever the patch says — the chip says "licence", not "network".

One status everywhere. The EdgeBar PIX badge, the sidebar dot, the HUD, the designer, this chip and the Palette's Perform cluster read one status, in the same words. The EdgeBar badge shows one state at a time, the one that would ruin the show first:

A held look says who left it. The HUD, the tooltips and an audition refusal say whether a held look was armed during the show, during the local set or by hand (armed during the show · armed by hand when the layers differ), so a wall standing on a look at 2 a.m. says whose it is.

Copy wall report. At the foot of the Verify card (Settings → Pixels), Copy wall report copies a plain-text account of the wall for a support message — the status line, output switch, protocol and destination, patch, network load, routing, house dimmer, and what each node is doing — and nothing about who you are. The button reads Copied when it worked and Couldn't copy when it did not.

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Palette → Pixel Wall: the designer

In the Palette's Edit mode, the PIXEL WALL group of the sidebar opens the designer at Choreography, Ramps or Rig & output. View ▸ Pixel Wall goes straight there.

The wall itself, full size, with its index ruler, universe-wrap markers and zone bands, drawn from the frames actually being sent — so it is honest about the house dimmer, gamma and any universe that is not lit.

The header holds the preparing verbs: Rehearse (a preview — it never touches the wall) │ the checks, Identify and Solo ▾ │ Capture Look (authoring) │ the owner chip. A verb that cannot act right now stays in its place, greyed, and its tooltip says why. An Identify or a solo started here ends when you leave the page. The live verbs — Freeze and Release Wall — are where you run the show: the WALL group of the Palette's Perform band, Transport ▸ Palette, and the EdgeBar PIX badge.

The right-hand column, in the order you reach for it mid-show: Live (the output switch and the House dimmer — at about zero the wall reads DIMMED in amber, so a wall that is on but dark is never mistaken for one waiting on the music), then Ramps, then Venue & Rig (pixels, channels, frame rate, the address, and Open Settings → Pixels).

What travels with the show, and what stays with the room. The choreography, the style, and the Idle and Drop hit looks are part of the show: open it on another machine — the backup laptop, the next venue — and the wall plays the same score, Idle = Dark included. The ramps, the patch, the house dimmer and the strobe rule (Auto drop payoff) belong to this machine, because they are the room's: a show carries the NAME of a ramp and the venue decides its colours, and the venue decides whether the wall may strobe. The Ramps card says "Saved on this Mac, not in the show file." with a route to Settings → Advanced, where Export Settings carries them across.

A show saved by an older version, or a new show, carries no choreography of its own and plays this machine's. The first change you make on the Choreography card (or to Idle in Settings → Pixels) saves the whole score into the show — what was playing, plus your change — and from then on the show carries it. Those changes are on Edit ▸ Undo; undoing the first one puts the show back to playing this machine's. With no show open, changes are this machine's, and new shows start from them. The Choreography card says which of the three is the case.

Ramps. The Main ramp is what washes, chases and scrolls spread across the wall; the Accent ramp is the blinder colour for drops and hits. Six presets each, or Custom ramp… for up to six stops by hex. Named ramps are the venue's own — "amber", "steel", "warm white" — that a theatre cue asks for by name (below). The show carries the name; the venue decides the colour. Follow the track's key turns the Main ramp to the key the analysis reports, keeping its saturation and brightness; the Accent ramp stays a blinder.

Style. The choreography's style, under the Choreography heading: CueSync default (CueSync's standard choreography), Club Techno, Warm House, Festival EDM, Chill Lounge, Hip-hop Bounce, Theatre Neutral or Photosensitive Safe (built to stay at or under three flashes a second at normal tempos; rows you author are your own, and a strobe row is still held to your venue's drop-payoff rule). A style sits under the choreography: a row you author wins over the style, the style fills the rows you did not author, and the built-in looks fill what the style leaves out — so picking a style never discards a row you tuned. Colours stay the venue's until you press Use its colours, which takes the style's two ramps and its follow-the-key choice — never its strobe. If the style was designed around a different drop payoff from yours, a line under it says so and points at Settings → Pixels; the toast that confirms the colours has Undo. When the playing track's tempo and energy read as a different style, a line says so with a one-click switch.

What the wall hears. Beyond tempo and energy the choreography reads the track's bass, mid and high per beat (from the CDJ-3000's three-band waveform, or CueSync's own analysis), the countdown to the next drop, and the key. Three looks use them: Spectrum (three meters across the wall, one per band), Kick (a whole-wall pulse on each of the track's own kicks — the ones between the beats too, and none on a beat without one — as strong as the kick, with hat sparkle where the hats play; during a Theatre show run it follows the show track's kicks; on a track CueSync has not analysed itself, or with only the booth input, it pulses once a beat at the height of that beat's bass; a venue strobe cap holds it to the cap's rate; the audience's phones follow the same kicks, within their own flash limit, see Crowd) and Riser (a chase that accelerates into a drop and puts the whole wall at the top of the ramp on the final beat — with no drop known it is a plain chase). A source with no band split, such as a mono waveform, drives them at the energy level rather than dark. With the Festival EDM or Club Techno style, Auto also marks a track's biggest impacts (on a track CueSync has analysed itself, whose beat grid reads Solid) with a one-beat flash of the accent colour over its own look, never over a look a cue, a pad or an audition put on the wall; a venue strobe cap holds it like any other flash, and the audience's phones mark the same impacts (see Crowd).

Booth input (experimental). The booth input — switched on in Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Booth Input — drives the wall's bass, mid and high from the room when the loaded track has no band split of its own (or nothing is loaded), and its energy when the track has no energy reading of its own; a track that has its own keeps them, beat for beat. Pro DJ Link carries no audio, so this is the only way a CD, a guest laptop or a band moves the spectral looks; the beat itself still comes from a deck, a tap or the clock source you chose — which can be the room itself: choose The room (booth input) as the clock source and CueSync follows the beat it hears once it has locked onto a steady one (Settings ▸ Audio ▸ Booth Input shows the room's tempo and its Solid / Check / Guess word). Settings → Pixels ▸ Behaviour shows whether the input is capturing and the live levels; it never reads green for a device that is not open. A quiet room's hiss does not light the wall, and if the open input is delivering nothing but digital zero the status says so — on a Mac that is what a denied Microphone permission looks like (System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Microphone).

The track plan. When a track has phrase analysis, the wall plans it at load: one section per phrase, the first drop with the full payoff and later ones a lighter hold. The line under the style says what was planned ("7 sections · 2 drops"). A track with no phrase analysis has no plan and the wall follows the music as it arrives.

In silence. About two and a half seconds after the beat stops, the wall settles to its Idle look. When that Idle look is a pulse, downbeat, strobe, chase, bar chase or riser, it rests dark instead of standing on the frame it froze on, and the first beat back ends the rest. Washes, gradients, scrolls, the energy-following looks and a look a cue is holding are unchanged — a held look still stands through silence (see Release Wall and When the local set ends below). So an Idle row you authored as a pulse, strobe or chase leaves a dark wall in silence; nothing on screen says so yet. SPARKLE keeps running.

The beat the wall follows. A wall driven by OS2L, Ableton Link, tap tempo, Local Audio or the show's own clock follows those beats from the first one — no CDJ has to speak first — and a beat source that carries no analysis lights the wall above its idle wash, so starting the music does not dim it.

Rehearse. With a track loaded (otherwise it is greyed), Rehearse plays its plan on the stage at 16× — a four-minute track in about fifteen seconds — and 1× · 4× · 16× change the speed while it runs. It plays through the same choreography and style as the wall, beat by beat, separately from the wall: nothing reaches the node, the wall carries on with whatever it was doing, and it works with output off. The status line reads REHEARSING · output untouched with the bar and the row it is on, and the choreography's live marker follows the rehearsal. Edit a row while it plays and the change shows at once. Stop rehearsal, or leaving the screen, ends it. Capture Look is greyed and new auditions are withheld while it runs, because both act on the wall, which is not what the stage is showing. A track whose tempo nothing reported is counted at 120 BPM, and the status line says so.

The choreography. One row per phrase — Intro, Buildup, Drop, Breakdown, Outro, No structure — plus the Drop hit and Idle rows. Each row is a look: effect, brightness, speed in cycles per beat, width, floor, ramp, zone, aim, spread, fade in. The live row is marked, and a row you authored reads Custom while every other row reads Built-in (Clear override puts an authored row back to Built-in). Save as Look puts a row in the Palette as a fireable pixel look — on the bank you are on, numbered if the name is taken ("Drop look 2") — and its toast has Reveal in Palette. Undo choreography edit, beside Reset all, puts the choreography back one step. Phrases come from rekordbox / CDJ-3000 analysis or CueSync's own analysis — a deck with no structure lives on the "No structure" row. Audition on wall puts one row on the wall as a look of its own, and Stop audition hands back only that look — a look a cue or the Palette is holding on the same zone is never replaced by an audition: it is refused, and the message names what is holding the zone. When a cue's hold is the only thing in the way, the message carries Release & audition, which lets go of that one layer and runs the audition; any other refusal (a blackout, Identify, Freeze, a zone the rig lacks) stays a plain refusal, because releasing would not help.

Auto drop payoff (in Settings → Pixels ▸ Behaviour) decides what the choreography may do at a drop or hot-cue hit: the built-in strobe (two flashes a beat — above the 3 flashes/s photosensitivity guidance at club tempos), one flash per beat, or no strobe. A new setup starts on one flash per beat, which stays at or under 3 flashes a second below 180 BPM. A setup saved by an earlier version keeps the choice it was saved with — including the two-flash strobe — so open the dropdown and check it; CueSync does not change it for you. The two-flash strobe is one tap away, and a choice you make is saved. This is the only flash control on the wall: CueSync does not cap flash rate globally, and the raw DMX strobe and blinder channels of conventional fixtures are not rate-limited by CueSync at all (see Safety and responsibility). A venue can cap the pixel wall's Strobe look with a strobe cap (Venue Profiles). The Auto drop payoff governs the Drop hit row's Auto look everywhere that row is used — its preview, Audition on wall and Save as Look — and it holds a style's own strobes to the same rule (under no strobe the kick look also loses its hat twinkle, and a sparkle changes no more than three times a second) — and a row you authored too, because that row travels with the show and this setting stays with the room: a strobe row written where strobe is fine plays as a pulse (or one flash a beat) where the venue says otherwise, and the row reads "strobe held to this venue's rule". A Drop hit row you authored, or a style with a drop hit of its own, plays instead of the built-in hit; Settings then says which is in effect. The Idle row there is the same look as the designer's Idle row, and says when a style's idle is the one in effect.

Live verbs. Release Wall hands the wall back to its choreography, clearing every look a cue or the Palette put on it; tap once to arm, again to confirm. It and Identify are also on the EdgeBar PIX badge. Capture Look saves whatever the wall is rendering now — the choreography's choice, a cue's, an audition's — as a pixel look in the Palette, on the bank you are on, with Reveal in Palette on its toast. Solo ▾ (on the wall page, a check) holds every zone but one dark, over whatever is rendering, so one zone's look can be judged on a rig where five move at once.

Panic darkens the wall first, before it reaches any lighting desk, so one slow console never leaves the wall strobing; if that step fails the message says the LED wall may still be lit and points to the wall's own Blackout. The Command Palette's Deactivate All Outputs holds the wall dark as well, until Activate All Outputs, on a hold of its own: Deactivate All, then Panic, then Release leaves the wall dark, and Activate All during a Panic does not light it under the emergency. While a show is running, Deactivate All Outputs asks first, and a lit wall is enough to make it ask even when no other output is connected; the question says the lit wall goes dark too.

Freeze holds the frame the wall is showing — frames keep going out, so the node never drops to its failsafe — until Unfreeze. It is what you reach for when a track goes somewhere unplanned. While frozen the choreography is paused, and a pixel cue that fires is refused with a message saying the wall is frozen (it does not wait and land later); releasing a cue still works, and so does the house dimmer. Freeze works when the wall is live, not blacked out and not identifying (otherwise it is greyed, with the reason on hover); Identify still outranks it and hands the frozen frame back when it ends. The owner chip reads FROZEN in amber and the EdgeBar badge reads PIX F. Panic Freeze holds the wall too, alongside everything else it holds; that freeze is released only by Resume on the Panic control, and the status line says so.

After a set or a show. A look a cue or a pad puts on the wall stays there until something lets go of it; the wall has no end-of-run notion of its own. After a show's Stop, the venue's house state is what hands the wall back (add a Pixel release to it — Venue Profiles). After a Local Audio set, Settings → Pixels → Behaviour → When the local set ends (off by default) does it: when the set is stopped or its last track runs out, the looks armed while the set played — cues and pads — are released and the wall shows the Idle look.

A wall that recovers says so. When a node comes back after the wall had stopped retrying, the wall retries and its fault card comes down; a mended outage takes the red frames are not being sent card down with it. Panic and quitting CueSync darken a wall whose send is stuck without waiting for it. An Auto row aimed at a zone the rig lacks is skipped (the wall keeps the look before it) and an audition aimed at one is refused by name, instead of blanking the wall.

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Cues: the Pixel Wall action

A Pixel Wall action in a cue (or a pixel look in the Palette) drives the wall from the show. Its fields:

The wall holds one look per zone, cumulatively: a bed for the whole rig under a zoned accent. A zoned release hands back that zone; a plain release hands back everything. A span cue's derived Off is bed-only, so a bed ending does not kill the tubes a minute early.

Timecode shows. During a Theatre show run the wall's beat is the show track's own beat grid, shifted onto the show timeline, with the track's phrase and energy — so a STROBE at TC 01:02:03 lands at that position, and a goto or locate restores the wall as it restores a desk, handing back any zone the landing does not hold. Two pixel cues at one timecode on the same zone are flagged by conflict detection. A track change or a panic releases a directly-fired look like any other output.

Paperwork. The cue sheet prints the whole look — "Pixels STROBE ×2/beat 80 % amber · tubes · from centre · spread 1.5 s · fade 2 s".

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Troubleshooting