Elgato Stream Deck

What it's for — CueSync drives an Elgato Stream Deck directly over USB as a physical cue surface: the keys mirror your current CuePad bank with live names, colors, and run-state, and the bottom row gives you hardware GO, STOP, and bank switching. No Elgato software, no Companion, no plugins — plug in, flip one toggle, and the deck lights up with your show.

Turning it on

Stream Deck support is off by default — CueSync and the Elgato Stream Deck app can't share a deck (USB HID devices have one owner). To enable it:

1. If the Elgato Stream Deck app is installed, either quit it or (app version 7.1+) disable the specific deck under its Preferences → Devices.
2. In CueSync, open Settings → Stream Deck and switch on Enable Stream Deck.
3. With Auto-connect on (the default), the deck connects within a few seconds and every reconnect afterwards is automatic.

If a deck appears in the Devices card but won't connect, another app owns it — CueSync tells you exactly that in a notification rather than failing silently.

The key layout

Pad area (all rows except the bottom) — mirrors the current CuePad bank slot-by-slot. Each key shows the pad's name on its color, and tracks the pad live:

• Idle — dimmed pad color.
• Armed for downbeat — dim fill with a bright frame in the pad's color.
• Queued (quantize wait) — mid-bright with a thin white frame.
• Active — full pad color.
• Executing — full color with a thick white frame.
• Press missed — the key flashes dark red when a press didn't land (stale slot, or the license is in read-only mode), so you never wonder whether the deck heard you.

Bottom row (transport) — bank prev / bank label / bank next on the left, STOP and GO in the bottom-right corner. The GO key shows the name of the next cue in the stack, so you always know what you're about to fire. GO goes through the same safety gating as the on-screen and APC40 transport.

Layouts adapt per model: a 15-key MK.2 mirrors 10 pads, an XL mirrors 24, a Mini mirrors 3 (with GO but no STOP — panic stays on screen/keyboard where it can't be fat-fingered).

DJ vs Show transport

The GO and STOP keys drive different engines depending on your CueSync edition and what's loaded:

• CueSync DJ — GO and STOP always control the DJ cue stack, exactly as today.
• CueSync Theatre — GO and STOP always control the show timeline.
• CueSync Production (Full) — GO and STOP auto-follow your show. When you load a show with at least one manual or standby (GO) cue, the transport switches to Show mode; otherwise it drives the DJ cue stack.

In Show mode, the bottom-right keys are labeled SHOW GO and SHOW STOP so you know at a glance which engine you're driving. The GO key shows the next global cue's name with its countdown (e.g. Blackout · -0:04), and your GO confirmation mode (double-press, if you've set it in Run Mode) applies exactly as it does on screen.

Pads, bank keys, and the Stream Deck + master dial work identically in both modes.

PREV, BLACKOUT, and MASTER — Stream Deck XL

On decks wide enough to spare extra transport columns beyond bank-switching and STOP/GO — currently the Stream Deck XL (8 columns) — three more keys appear in the bottom row, mirroring workflows a lighting operator reaches for constantly:

• PREV — fires the previous cue, gated the same way as GO.
• BLACKOUT — toggles the same emergency blackout as the keyboard shortcut and menu bar. Press once to instantly darken every connected output (and pause AutoPilot); press again — from the deck, the keyboard, or the on-screen release button, they're all the same switch — to restore. This is distinct from STOP: BLACKOUT kills the outputs, STOP resets the cue stack. Neither one moves the master-intensity fader — that's what the MASTER key and dial 1 show and control, and it's the level your rig returns to when you release the blackout.
• MASTER — a read-only key showing current master intensity as a percentage, always in sync with the on-screen fader.

The 15-key MK.2 and Mini have no spare columns, so they keep their original bank-switch + STOP/GO row with none of the three extra keys.

Stream Deck +: dials and touchscreen

• Dial 1 — master intensity. One detent is ±2%; pressing the dial snaps intensity back to full.
• Dial 4 — blackout. Pressing the dial toggles blackout, identical to the BLACKOUT key. Turning it is a fine fade to black (±1% per detent) — a slower, more controlled ramp than dial 1's coarse jumps.
• Dials 2 and 3 are unmapped — there's no output routing behind a crossfade or per-cue intensity control yet, so these dials are left inert on purpose rather than bound to something that wouldn't do anything useful.
• Touchscreen shows a live status strip: BPM (from the current tempo master) on the left, MASTER % in the center (turns red while blacked out), and the NEXT cue name on the right — the same value shown on the GO key.
• Swipe the touchscreen to change bank. Drag right-to-left for the next bank, left-to-right for the previous one — the same two steps as the bank keys, without giving up a key. Taps are deliberately ignored: the strip sits directly under your hand as you reach for the dials, and a brushed finger must never move a level or fire a cue.

Stream Deck Neo

The Neo's two buttons below the screen are its bank switches — left for the previous bank, right for the next. That is what the hardware is labeled for, and it leaves the eight LCD keys to do their normal job (four cue pads on top, bank / STOP / GO along the bottom). The bank keys on the bottom row keep working too, so either one gets you there.

The Neo's secondary info screen is not driven yet.

Stream Deck Pedal

The middle pedal is GO; the side pedals are deliberately unmapped so a mis-stomp can never stop your show.

Settings reference

• Enable Stream Deck — master switch; also starts/stops USB scanning.
• Auto-connect — connect automatically whenever a deck is detected.
• Brightness — key backlight, applied immediately and re-applied on every reconnect.
• Devices — every detected deck with its serial; use Connect to pick one when several are attached.

Troubleshooting

• Deck stays on the Elgato logo — support is disabled, or the Elgato app owns the device (see Turning it on).
• "Stream Deck disconnected" notification — the USB link dropped; reconnecting the cable resumes automatically, and any held pads were released safely the moment the link died.
• Keys look stale — if key-image updates start failing while connected, CueSync raises a notification instead of letting you trust a frozen display. Reseat the USB cable.

Models CueSync speaks to: Stream Deck (original), Mini and Mini MK.2, V2/MK.2, XL, Neo (keys and both hardware bank buttons), Stream Deck + (keys, dials, and touchscreen), and Pedal. Each is built to Elgato's published HID interface and pinned to byte-exact packet fixtures; the real-hardware pass has not been run, so USB timing and firmware quirks are unproven. Plug yours in and check it before a show.

Stream Deck Studio is not supported yet. If you plug one in, CueSync names it in the Devices list and tells you it can't drive it, rather than leaving you wondering why nothing happened.