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Lights and effects
Choose the right control desk
| Location | Controls |
|---|---|
| Club administration | Add, position, configure, test and remove a club's devices |
| Normal club DJ | Operate the club's saved devices through Lights & effects |
| Fixed festival DJ | Music and audio controls; use the separate FOH desk for the show |
| Festival FOH desk | Manual show presets, Music Sync and effect sequences |
The fixed festival DJ has no duplicate Lights & effects tab. Operators still need the appropriate job/grade, proximity and routing bucket; seeing a control does not grant permission.
Place and test devices
Select a club in the administration's Lights & effects editor. Choose the fixture/model, place it with the gizmo, configure it and save.
Ordinary clubs support lasers, strobe bars, RGB flashers and the available flame/CO₂ variants. Their additional fog, sparks and confetti options are separate from the fixed festival. Moving heads are not part of the current system.
Use an individual timed trigger to test a particle device. Manual triggers work without music. Keep the nozzle clear of the housing and nearby geometry. Stop the device before changing its position.
Save a newly placed or edited device before using its operational controls. The admin editor exposes placement and tuning; the DJ view operates saved devices and offers brightness changes and RGB-flasher controls. Static stage props have placement controls but do not emit light merely because they appear in this list.
Ordinary laser controls
These are the defaults for a new ordinary club laser, not the authored festival show or an existing saved device.
| Control | Default / accepted values | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Light colour | RGB 55, 185, 255 | Base beam colour; Music Sync can blend a response into it |
| Beam brightness | 1; 0–10 | Visible output strength; 0 is dark, not deletion of the fixture |
| Range | 60 m; 1–120 m | Configured beam reach |
| Laser pattern | Fan | Fan, Circle, Scan, Tunnel, Wave, Opposite or Plane |
| Laser beams | 7; 1–12 | Requested rays within that device; shared rendering limits still apply |
| Opening | 32°; 0–70° | Pattern spread; narrow openings group the rays more tightly |
| Beam width | 0.018 m; 0.003–0.05 m | Base visible ribbon width |
| Automatic movement | On | Allows the pattern to move automatically |
| Movement speed | 0.7; 0–3 | Pattern speed multiplier; 0 stops its automatic movement |
| Phase offset | 0°; −360–360° | Offsets the device's movement relative to other fixtures |
| Illuminate surroundings | On | Also contributes actual scene lighting; the visible beam and scene illumination are different costs |
| Priority | 0; 0–3 | Higher priority improves selection when devices compete for the same budget; it does not bypass distance or rendering limits |
For a coordinated row, start with matching patterns and speeds. Keep equal phases for matching motion, or stagger phases for a chase. Increase beam count only when the pattern needs it; doubling a saved count does not guarantee twice as many visible rays when the shared budget is already occupied.
Strobe bars and RGB flashers
Both offer colour, brightness 0–5 (default 1), range 1–120 m, Illuminate surroundings and priority 0–3. A new strobe bar starts at 12 m; a new RGB flasher starts at 20 m.
The simple Strobe bar uses all twelve cells with its normal 50 ms ON / 50 ms OFF timing. It has no editable flash-duration or pause field. Choose RGB flasher for the additional controls below:
| RGB-flasher control | Default / accepted values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | 60°; 0–70° | Spread of its illumination |
| Flash duration | 50 ms; 20–2000 ms | Lit portion of each normal flash cycle |
| Flash pause | 150 ms; 20–5000 ms | Dark interval before the next normal flash |
| Phase offset | 0°; −360–360° | Shifts the cycle relative to other flashers |
With normal fixture timing, 50 ms duration plus 150 ms pause gives a 200 ms cycle, or five flashes per second. Equal timings and phases align several flashers; phase offsets stagger them. Music-driven strobe timing can take over while its response is enabled, so test normal timing with Music Sync off first.
Particle controls and manual tests
| Control | New-device default / accepted values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Effect size | 1; 0.25–1.5 | Scales the native particle effect; it does not bypass particle budgets |
| Particle density | Automatic; Automatic / Sparse / Dense | Chooses a requested particle profile; Sparse is lighter, while Dense remains subject to budgets |
| Tilt X / Tilt Y | 0°; −180–180° | Tilts the jet relative to its placed fixture |
| Rotation Z | 0°; −360–360° | Rotates its emission relative to the fixture heading |
| Priority | 0; 0–3 | Selection preference when nearby effects compete |
The admin Trigger tests a saved device for one second. DJ duration controls support 500–10000 ms bursts. A burst stops emission at its deadline, while particles already emitted can fade naturally afterward. For ordinary club particles, continuous operation is a separate control; stop it before requesting a short burst.
Do not increase effect size to compensate for a nozzle inside another prop. Correct its position and emission angles, test it manually, then test its music response. New devices start switched off. Normal-club Music Sync does not silently switch those fixtures back on: enable the intended devices as well as their music-response channels.
Festival presets and participation
The FOH library combines independent channels:
| Channel | Output |
|---|---|
| Lasers | The fixed festival's mapped scanner show |
| Strobes | Flashing stage/tower lights |
| Stage illumination | Facade lighting |
| Tower illumination | Tower exterior lights |
| Flames | Participating festival flame devices |
| CO₂ | Participating festival CO₂ devices |
Apply replaces only the channels included in that preset. Solo first switches the other channels off, then selects that preset. Applying a preset gives its channels manual ownership even while other channels follow Music Sync. The active card's Turn off action switches off its channels. Favorites only organize your own preset list; they do not change the shared show.
For example, apply a laser preset and then a CO₂ preset to combine those channels. Using Solo on the CO₂ preset instead leaves only its included channels active. The FOH summary identifies channels currently under manual control. Save the FOH Music Sync form to return them to automatic ownership; saving a sequence or the global club settings does not do this.
Device OFF is a persistent opt-out. It survives a preset selection, Sync changes and a restart. A preset can therefore be selected while some or all of its physical jets are excluded.
Festival pyro uses finite emission windows. A single-device Trigger runs for one second; explicit duration controls support bounded bursts. Afterward the device returns to its previous automatic/OFF participation. Device OFF and All devices off cancel an active burst. Switching off an FOH channel stops its automatic/preset cues, but a separately triggered device test can continue to its deadline. A visible plume can still dissolve naturally after emission ends.
Treat these as three separate decisions: who owns the channel, which devices may participate, and whether a temporary device test is running. Enabling a family restores that family's device participation; it does not select a preset, start music or clear another family's deliberate OFF states.
The fixed layout distributes fire over the main-stage tips and tower supports, with CO₂ on the stage front and towers. The current defaults do not put jets along the perimeter fences. Custom placements are retained when upgrading.
Music Sync
Music synchronization is optional and disabled by default. Normal clubs and the fixed festival have separate controls:
| Venue | Where to enable synchronization |
|---|---|
| Normal clubs | /djadmin → Settings → Music synchronization; select the source deck/mix, response and effect channels, then save |
| Fixed festival | The FOH → Music Sync page; enable its direct music response, choose the response settings and allowed pyro families, then save there |
Saving the global club settings does not clear a festival channel's manual override. Use Save on the FOH Music Sync page to return those channels to automatic control; individual device opt-outs still remain until explicitly restored.
FOH Music Sync settings
The FOH uses the audible festival A/B mix. There is no separate deck-source selector on this form; the global normal-club Deck source field is not a replacement for it. The shared rhythm source follows eligible playing deck reports and the actual mix rather than a spectator's microphone or unrelated background music.
| FOH setting | Default / accepted values | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Music Sync | Off | Enables the festival's direct music response; does not start an audio track |
| Reaction mode | Bass & melody; Bass only / Melody only / Bass & melody | Bass emphasizes low-band pulses; Melody gives smoother movement; the combined mode uses both |
| Uptempo response | Automatic; Automatic / Uptempo | Uptempo emphasizes the supported high-energy response. It does not change audio speed, double the detected BPM or replace the shared laser clock |
| Response strength | 100%; 10–150% | Scales the response within output limits; it is not master volume, a beam-count control or a command to trigger every jet |
| Movement smoothing | 240 ms; 80–1000 ms | Lower values follow changes more sharply; higher values smooth the music-derived response. This is not audio delay compensation or a different laser beat grid |
| CO₂ jet | On | Allows automatic CO₂ cues for participating devices |
| Fire on strong peaks | On | Allows the automatic flame family, including its enabled sequence cues and recognized strong-peak response |
The family checkboxes do not restore individually disabled devices. Their state also does not block a separately requested manual device test.
The festival uses a shared beat clock from an eligible playing client. Laser movement makes a sweep over four confirmed beats and holds each scanner pattern for sixteen beats. Short brightness accents follow confirmed beats and drops without changing those positions or increasing the selected beam count. Raising strength or choosing Uptempo does not make patterns jump on every loud audio sample.
Melodic activity without confirmed beats keeps restrained shared-time movement. Silence, a muted source or expired playback data cannot fabricate a new automatic pyro cue. Melody-only mode does not trigger the flame response. A missing strong peak is therefore not solved simply by making the audio louder.
Fire on strong peaks controls enabled flame jets independently of the CO₂ option. A recognized heavy drop can trigger all participating jets in their bounded windows. Channel OFF and individual device OFF continue to win. Loud audio alone does not guarantee a confirmed beat or drop.
Music Sync is an interpretation of the audible track, not a pre-authored lighting timeline. Seek, pause, loops, tempo changes and lost reports retire stale rhythm information. Test the return from quiet passages as well as continuous loud music.
Normal-club Music Sync settings
These are the controls under Settings → Music synchronization. The defaults below describe a fresh installation; existing saved settings remain in SQL. Enable synchronization, select the intended channels and keep the relevant ordinary fixtures switched on. A channel checkbox opts it into audio modulation; it is not a substitute for the device's ON/OFF control.
Source and channels
| Control | Default / accepted values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Reaction mode | Bass only; Bass only / Melody only / Bass & melody | Chooses the musical components driving the response |
| Deck source | Audible mix; Audible mix / Deck A / Deck B | The mix follows the audible crossfade; A/B fixes analysis to that deck rather than whatever track happens to be louder elsewhere |
| BPM sensitivity | 1; 0.25–3 | Onset-detection sensitivity. Raising it can admit weaker attacks; excessive sensitivity can admit unwanted ones |
| Bass sensitivity | 1; 0.25–3 | Strength/sensitivity of the low-frequency response |
| Melody sensitivity | 1; 0.25–3 | Strength/sensitivity of the melodic-frequency response |
| Stabilize detected tempo | On | Smooths a reliable tempo estimate between attacks |
Channels selects Lasers, Strobes, Stage illumination, Tower illumination, CO₂ jet, Ground fog and Fire on strong peaks. They start enabled within the otherwise disabled global Music Sync feature. Ground fog is an ordinary-club option; it does not restore the retired festival fog system or moving heads.
Response
| Control | Default / accepted values | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Movement strength | 70%; 0–100% | How much music modulates movement relative to the configured pattern |
| Brightness pulse | 70%; 0–100% | How strongly music modulates the fixture's base brightness |
| Colour variation | 30%; 0–100% | Blends the musical colour response into the configured colour |
| Strobe response | 100%; 0–100% | Strength of music-driven flashes. At 0, normal fixture timing remains; this is not a strobe blackout switch |
| Movement smoothing | 150 ms; 30–1500 ms | Rounds movement/intensity changes; larger values feel less abrupt |
| Pulse hold | 120 ms; 40–1000 ms | Keeps a detected pulse present before its tail decays |
| Pulse rise | 30 ms; 10–300 ms | Attack time; smaller values make the onset sharper |
| Pulse decay | 350 ms; 80–2500 ms | Release time; larger values leave longer, more blended tails |
A longer hold or decay does not make beat detection more accurate. If the result looks continuously bright, shorten the tail and check the quiet threshold before increasing sensitivity. Use device OFF for a blackout; merely reducing a modulation percentage can leave its base output active.
Quiet sections and detection
| Control | Default / accepted values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Quiet-section threshold | 0.08; 0.01–0.5 | Level below which the response uses its quiet behavior |
| Quiet brightness | 12%; 0–100% | Quiet-section response level; final brightness also depends on the device and modulation depth |
| Quiet movement | 20%; 0–100% | Restrained movement level during quiet passages |
| Minimum / Maximum tempo | 45 / 400 BPM; each 30–480 BPM | Useful tempo window; the minimum must be below the maximum |
| Fallback tempo | 128 BPM; inside the selected window | Supports smooth movement without a reliable beat; does not manufacture confirmed beats or drops |
| Noise floor | 0.012; 0.001–0.15 | Removes very low-level input before analysis |
| Bass lower / upper frequency | 30 / 200 Hz; each 20–500 Hz | Band used for the low-frequency response |
| Melody lower / upper frequency | 250 / 4000 Hz; each 100–12000 Hz | Band used for the melodic response |
Each band's lower frequency must be below its upper frequency. These are analysis bands, not speaker crossover or deck EQ settings; changing them does not filter the music heard by players. Use Mixer and audio for the audio controls.
Tune one change at a time
- Play a familiar track with a clear kick. Verify one device manually before enabling synchronization.
- Begin with the saved defaults and Audible mix for normal clubs. At FOH, start with Automatic,
100%strength and240 mssmoothing. - For weak bass response, adjust bass sensitivity in small steps. For unwanted triggers between kicks, reduce sensitivity or raise the noise floor slightly; recheck quiet sections afterward.
- For an abrupt normal-club response, increase movement smoothing or pulse rise. For a sustained wash instead of distinct pulses, reduce pulse hold/decay. FOH has its own smaller response form; it does not expose every normal-club field.
- Test a breakdown, the next drop, a crossfade, pause and seek. Check the channel owner and device participation before changing detection settings to compensate for an OFF device.
Effect sequences
Use the FOH Effect sequence form and its own Save button. Sequence settings and Music Sync settings are separate; enabling a sequence does not start playback, enable music response, restore device opt-outs or release manual channel ownership.
| Setting | Default / choices | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Effect sequence | On | Allows shared rhythm-based particle sequencing when its music source and channel ownership permit it |
| Effect mix | Mixed flames and CO₂ | Selects the family recipe below |
| Sequence direction | Stage to containers | Forward traversal of the saved order; Containers to stage reverses it, and Back and forth bounces without duplicating the end device |
| Minimum beat spacing | 1 beat; Half a beat / 1 / 2 / 4 beats | Minimum musical spacing request, subject to complete-pulse timing |
Recipes
| Recipe | Normal sequence behavior |
|---|---|
| Mixed flames and CO₂ | Four sequence steps of flames, four of CO₂, then four combined steps; the phrase repeats |
| Alternate flames and CO₂ | A flame step followed by a CO₂ step, repeating |
| Flames only | The flame family advances through its order |
| CO₂ only | The CO₂ family advances through its order |
| Flames and CO₂ together | Both families receive a cue on each step, each using its own ordered device index |
“Together” does not mean every physical jet fires continuously or all at once. Normal steps select an ordered device from each permitted family. Recognized heavy drops can temporarily use all participating devices, with flame emission up to 1200 ms and CO₂ up to 900 ms. The shared drop section then leaves a rest before normal sequencing resumes; sustained loud bass is not treated as a new drop on every kick.
Direction and timing
The server orders stage devices first, then tower devices, then any saved container-labelled devices. The direction labels describe this logical order; they do not create new fence/container jets. The current default layout has no perimeter jets. Within an order, an explicitly disabled device stays excluded rather than being silently re-enabled by a sequence.
Minimum beat spacing is not a fixed millisecond firing interval. The planner doubles the requested subdivision until the nominal step lasts at least about one second, leaving room for a complete pulse and an OFF gap. At a stable 120 BPM, a one-beat request therefore becomes two beats (1000 ms); four beats gives 2000 ms. Faster music can require a wider subdivision. Flame step durations vary from 400–800 ms; normal CO₂ steps last up to 600 ms.
For a restrained starting show, use Mixed flames and CO₂, Back and forth, and 4 beats. For a more regular alternation, choose Alternate flames and CO₂ and compare 1 beat with 4 beats on the actual track. A lower minimum does not override pulse completion, device OFF states or the rendering budget.
Manual device bursts temporarily take priority over automatic cues. The sequence resumes from the current shared time; clients do not replay every missed cue after a hitch. An opted-out device remains excluded until explicitly restored.
Festival stage and client performance
Enable the venue in Configuration only when you need it. The fence switch controls the perimeter separately; it does not disable the stage show. Remove unused devices and compare idle, manual-preset, music-sync and heavy-drop scenarios on representative clients.
Use the performance and effect checks when reporting a problem. A browser preview cannot establish native FiveM particle visibility or resmon performance.