Cue Pads

What it's for — Cue Pads give you a grid of instant-trigger buttons, each bound to a cue. Use them to fire cues on demand during a live show — by clicking, pressing keyboard keys, or sending MIDI from a controller.

The screen, region by region

Bank rail (left edge, vertical) — A scrollable list of banks. Each bank is an independent grid of pads. Click a bank to switch to it. The rail auto-hides when only one bank exists; drag its edge to expand it. Right-click any bank for the bank management menu (rename, duplicate, resize, lock, set colour, delete).

Pad grid (main area) — The matrix of pads for the selected bank. Each pad shows its assigned cue name and colour. The pad lights up when it fires. Pads can also show warning badges:

• Circuit-breaker badge — the underlying protocol connection has tripped. The cue will not send output until the connection recovers.
• Stale-cue badge — the pad's cue reference is missing (cue was deleted). Reassign or remove the pad.

Bank selector strip (bottom of grid) — Numbered tabs for quickly switching banks without using the bank rail.

Common tasks

1. Trigger a pad — Click the pad with the mouse. Keyboard shortcuts: row 1 = 1–8, row 2 = Q–I, row 3 = A–K. MIDI: send a Note On on the configured channel — the pad fires on note-on and releases on note-off.
2. Set a pad's fire mode — Right-click the pad → Mode:
   • Activate — fires once on press; no hold behaviour. The default.
   • Toggle — first press fires; second press releases (use for held states like a strobe).
   • Flash — active while held; releases as soon as you let go (keyboard or MIDI). If the release event is lost, the pad auto-releases after 30 seconds so nothing stays stuck on.
   • Phrase Latch — holds until the next phrase boundary in the playing track, then hands back to Auto Pilot. Auto-releases after 60 seconds as a safety net.
   • Repeat — re-fires the pad's action on an interval while held, like a note-repeat button; stops on release (same 30-second lost-hold safety as Flash).
3. Assign a cue to a pad — Drag a cue from the Cues screen onto a pad, or right-click the pad → Assign Cue.
4. Create a new bank — Right-click any bank in the rail → Add Bank. Give it a name and set the grid size.
5. Rename a bank — Right-click the bank → Rename.
6. Duplicate a bank — Right-click the bank → Duplicate.
7. Resize a bank grid — Right-click the bank → Resize. Choose from the available grid dimensions.
8. Lock a bank — Right-click the bank → Lock. Locked banks cannot be edited accidentally during a show.
9. Colour-code a bank — Right-click the bank → Set Colour. Colour appears on the bank tab for quick identification.
10. Record a macro — Click REC on the macro recorder bar (hidden in Immersive mode). Tap pads to record the sequence, then press Stop. The macro plays back the sequence in order.

Tips & gotchas

• Circuit-breaker badges mean the connection is down. Output to that device is suspended until the connection recovers automatically. Check the CONNECT section (Devices screen) for the connection status.
• Stale-cue badges appear when a referenced cue is deleted. Right-click the pad and reassign or clear it to stop the warning.
• Keyboard coverage is limited to 4×8. If your grid is larger than 4 rows × 8 columns, pads beyond that range cannot be triggered from the keyboard. A hint banner appears at the top of the grid when keyboard coverage is incomplete.
• MIDI learn vs. MIDI grid. Individual pads learn MIDI notes from your controller; mapping an entire controller grid (a Launchpad or APC) to the pad layout is set up in Settings → MIDI & Sync → Grid Controller — see MIDI Grid Controllers.

Related

• Cues — The master cue stack pads fire from
• Looks & Scenes — Output presets you can bind to pad cues
• Devices — Check and fix connection issues behind circuit-breaker badges