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 the Auto brain choreographs 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.

Experimental. The Art-Net and sACN output paths are not hardware-verified. Prove them against your own node before you plan a show around them — the Pixels settings card says so too, at the top.

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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. If nothing answers, type the IP from the node's own config page — some DIY nodes never answer. 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.
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. Run test drives a rainbow comet with no music playing, so pixel order and coverage are visible. Narrow it to one universe to find which controller port is which on a big rig, or type a pixel number to find a dead run.

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 — half a wall with a green chip is the fault this exists to remove.

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.

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 paced across the period and followed by an ArtSync, 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 is gated on your licence being able to operate, not on your edition. In Read-Only the wall stays dark and opens no socket whatever the patch says — the chip says "licence", not "network".

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Looks → Pixels: the designer

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.

Ramps. The Colour 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 Colour ramp to the key the analysis reports, keeping its saturation and brightness; the Accent ramp stays a blinder.

Style. The Auto brain's style, above the score: CueSync default (the brain as it always was), Club Techno, Warm House, Festival EDM, Chill Lounge, Hip-hop Bounce, Theatre Neutral or Photosensitive Safe (nothing above three flashes a second, ever). A style sits under the score: a row you author always wins, 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. 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 Auto brain 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 the height of that beat's bass, with hat sparkle) and Riser (a chase that accelerates over the last sixteen beats before 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.

Live audio input (experimental). Settings → Pixels can capture the booth line-in and drive the wall's bass, mid and high from the room, and its energy when no track is loaded. 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 free-running clock. The status line says whether the input opened and shows the live levels; it never reads green for a device that is not open.

The track plan. When a track has phrase analysis, the wall plans it at load: one section per phrase, the drop's look chosen from a seed the track itself supplies, the first drop with the full payoff and later ones a lighter hold. So the same track lights the same way on every play, and 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.

The score. One row per phrase (intro, build-up, drop, breakdown, outro, no structure), plus the Drop hit and When no music plays 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. Save as Look puts a row on the Scenes board as a fireable Look; Undo score edit puts the score 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.

Auto drop payoff (in Settings → Pixels) decides what the brain 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. Each row's hint states its flash rate against that threshold.

Live verbs. Identify and Release to Auto are the same controls the EdgeBar PIX badge offers. Capture look saves whatever the wall is rendering now — Auto's choice, a cue's, an audition's — as a Look on the Scenes board. Solo… 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.

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Cues: the Pixel Wall action

A Pixel Wall action in a cue (or a Pixels Look on the Scenes board) 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 Show Controller 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 is a strobe, identical every run, and a goto restores the wall exactly as it restores a desk. Two pixel cues at one timecode on the same zone are flagged by conflict detection. A directly-fired look is in the active-output ledger, so a track change or a panic releases it 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