Your first show
The quickest way to learn is to play with the demo show: a small club rig with a stage, LED bars and a panel, beams, and room lights on a second universe. Its tracks and twelve scenes use every feature in the app.
1. Open it and keep a copy
The demo is read-only: you can play and edit it live, but nothing is saved. Open the show menu in the header and choose Save copy as, and give it a name. The copy is yours to change and keeps the current tempo, faders and playing clips.
2. Play
You are in Perform. Click the ▶ next to a scene's name, such as Intro, and the clips in that row start on the next bar. Launch another scene and the look changes. Click a single clip's ▶ to change just one track. See Launching clips and scenes.
3. Set the tempo
Click the tempo card in the header and use Tap a few times in time with some music, or switch Source to Follow audio if you have an input. See Tempo and audio. No music handy? Start the headless engine with --audio-test-signal 126 for a built-in beat.
4. Mix
Drag a track's fader, press M to mute it or S to solo it, and pull the Master down. Change a track's blend mode, the menu that says Normal, and listen with your eyes. See Faders, mute and solo and Blend modes.
5. Change a look
Unlock editing with the lock in the header (⌘L). Click a clip's name to select it and look at its lanes in the inspector. Click a formula, change a number, or drag it, and the lights follow. Press ⌘Z to undo it. See Clips and lanes and Moving with the music.
Try Presets… (⌘P) in an empty slot: use ↑ ↓ to see each preset play on the stage, and Enter to keep one. See Presets.
6. Make it yours
Switch to the Setup layout to see how the rig is built: the patch on the left, the rig layout in the middle, the groups beside it. Add a fixture with Add fixtures, place it on the layout, put it in a group, then give a track that group in the track's panel. See Patching fixtures, Layout and groups and Tracks.
7. Send it to the lights
Setup also has the Output panel, where each universe is routed to sACN or Art-Net. See Sending DMX.
Starting from an empty show
New empty in the show menu starts with nothing patched. Until it's set up, a Setup button beside the show menu in the header shows how far along you are, such as 2/7, and opens a checklist: unlock editing, add fixtures, place them, group them, add tracks, fill a clip and launch a scene. It opens by itself the first time and stays open while you switch layouts. Each step ticks itself off as you do it, and the next one has a button that does it, such as Make a group of each type or Add a track for each group.
The tabs along the bottom of the window switch between views of the app: Setup to build the rig, Place to position it, Perform to play it, and more (see Screen layouts). Unlocking adds the views for building the show. A step's button takes you to the view it needs, Setup for fixtures and groups and Perform for tracks, presets and launching, and that view's tab glows for a moment so you can find your way back.
Place them is about where the lights hang. Effects such as waves roll across the lights by their place on the Rig layout, a plan of the room seen from above: drag each fixture to its spot and turn it to face the right way. The Place view adds front and side views and the 3D stage, for heights and how moving heads hang (see Layout and groups). The step ticks off when you move a fixture, or click They're fine as they are if where they landed will do.
Click any step's name to open it again, done or not, or use ‹ Back to step back through them; To the next step returns. Every open step has Show me where, which goes to the step's view if you're elsewhere and rings its part of the window for a moment: the lock, the fixture picker, the plan, the Groups panel, the tracks, the first clip slot or the first scene. The step buttons ring the same parts as they take you there.
Fill a clip offers Load a look, a preset that sets intensity and color so the lights come on, or Start empty, which makes an empty clip in the first free slot, selects it and opens the list of lanes. The step only ticks off once a clip has a lane: while it's empty, the step explains lanes and offers Add a lane.
– (or Esc) hides the checklist to the button, which flashes when a step gets done; click it to bring the checklist back. When the last step is done the button shows a tick for a moment and goes. I'm done with this ends the guide for the show early. Shows that already had clips when first opened never see it.