The performance layout

The performance layout is the screen you play from during a set. Press P, or play on the control panel, to open it. Press P again, or edit, to go back.

The control panel is for building a look. This screen is for playing looks in an order. Its controls are large enough to hit without aiming, and it's high-contrast for a dark room.

From top to bottom:

1. The status strip and the audio strip.
2. On the left, the punch buttons, the vector layers and the preset tiles. On the right, the output.
3. The set list.
4. The gravity pads and the scene pads, each with its own blend and autopilot.
5. The faders and the master.

When the window is short, the rows stand down in order: first the layers and preset tiles, then the punch buttons. A line says so (taller window: punch, layers and preset tiles). The pads and faders always stay.

Status strip

Show chip

The open show. It's the same menu as on the control panel: see Show chip.

Output dots

A dot for each output that's sending. It says no outputs in amber when nothing is going out.

REC

Click to start recording the output. The chip turns red and shows the time and frame count while a take runs. Click it again to stop. If a countdown is set, it reads REC in 3… first, and a click cancels. The format and rate come from recording on the panel.

Tempo tag

Where the tempo comes from:

• AUTO: detected from the audio. It's amber when the detection isn't sure and the clock is coasting on its last tempo.
• MIDI: following MIDI clock. It's amber when no ticks are arriving.
• No tag: Vizz's own clock, set by tapping.

bpm and tap

The tempo, and a tap button. Three taps set the tempo and turn AUTO off. T does the same.

fps

The frame rate. It's amber when frames are over budget.

view

Clears the controls from the left-hand column so you can see the output bigger. The punch, layer and preset rows come back when you switch it off. Key: V.

edit

Goes back to the control panel. Key: P.

Audio strip

react

The same one-press switch as on the panel: the kick moves particle size, the loudness moves glow, and the snare moves brightness. It reads reacting while it's on. See react.

Input

The audio device's name. Click it to pick another. It says not capturing when the device isn't delivering.

Band meters

The four bands, low, low-mid, high-mid and high, as live meters, so you can see at a glance that the music is arriving. Set them up in audio.

Punch

Five buttons that act while you hold them. Let go and the picture comes straight back.

Shift-click latches a button on, and a plain click releases it. Every punch can be learned to a MIDI button from its right-click menu. A MIDI note acts while held, which is how they're meant to be played.

FLASH

Whites out the output. Space does the same, and Shift+Space latches it.

STROBE

Strobes in time with the beat. S on the keyboard.

Strobe rate

The box beside the buttons: beats per strobe cycle. Drag it to change it. See /punch/strobe_div.

BLACK

Blacks out the output. B on the keyboard.

FREEZE

Holds the picture where it is. F on the keyboard.

INVERT

Inverts the picture. I on the keyboard.

Layers

The vector layers: flat shapes drawn over the point field, such as rings, stripes and stars. Each row is one layer. Every setting is in Vector layers.

Colour mark

The swatch at the start of the row shows the layer's ink colour.

Generator

The shape the layer draws. Click to step through them, or right-click to choose from the list. An empty layer reads off.

Blend mode

How the layer mixes with what's under it: normal, multiply, screen, add, difference, exclusion or subtract. Click to step, right-click to choose.

Opacity and frequency

The two numbers: how strong the layer is (0 to 1), and how many repeats it draws. Drag to change them.

+ a layer

With no layer on, the row offers + buttons to start one. Right-click its name afterwards to choose the generator.

Preset tiles

Your looks, as tiles with a picture of each. Click a tile to recall the look. The header says cut because a tile changes the look straight away, unlike a scene pad, which blends.

The tiles are grouped and tinted by what each look was built on: clouds, shapes, attractors, the built-in set and so on. The number on each tile is its slot. The number keys 1 to 9 and 0 fire slots 1 to 10. The look you recalled last is outlined.

Drag a tile onto a pad

Drag a tile onto a scene pad to put that look there.

Right-click a tile

• update picture: takes a new picture for the tile from what's on the output now.
• rename…: renames the look. Pads that use it follow.
• put on a scene pad: a list of the 16 pads, showing what each holds now.
• MIDI learn / unmap: binds a controller button to recall this look.

Output

The live output, the same picture Syphon, NDI and recordings get, letterboxed to the output's shape.

Set list

One page of pads per song. Each page has its own gravity and scene pads. The chips are the pages. Click one to switch.

‹ and ›

The previous and next page. Over OSC: /deck/prev and /deck/next.

Page chips

Click a chip to switch to that page. Right-click one for:

• rename…: give the page a name and, optionally, the song.
• duplicate: a copy of the page, to make a variation.
• resolume columns from N: the Resolume column this page starts at. See Follow Resolume's columns.
• MIDI learn / unmap: a controller button that selects this page.
• delete page: asks once (delete for good). The pads go. The looks they name stay.

+

Adds a new, empty page. Right-click it for load the built-in set: twenty songs, each with eight pads (Intro, Build, Break, Drop, Bridge, Peak, Outro, Blackout). It replaces every page you have, so it asks once. The looks your pages name stay.

resolume

When on, Vizz follows Resolume: launching a column in Resolume fires the matching pads here, and selecting a deck picks the matching page. See Follow Resolume's columns.

Gravity

A row of 16 pads for the attract and repel layer. Each pad holds a pull: where the gravity wells sit and how strong they are. Firing a pad moves the wells there over the blend time.

The row stays hidden until you capture your first pull. Until then it offers capture gravity into pad 1. Shape the wells in the panel's gravity group first (see Gravity).

The gravity row has the same buttons as the scene row, described next. It runs its own autopilot, and its lock can tie it to the scenes.

Scenes

A row of 16 pads. Each pad holds a look. Firing a pad blends from what's on screen to that look over the blend time, using the curve you pick. The guide is Build a set with scenes.

Settings that step, such as the shape, switch at the halfway point of a blend. A cloud is never blended point by point. The shape morphs to it instead.

Pad

Click to fire. A filled pad shows the look's name. The one playing is lit, and the one blending in fills as it goes.

• Alt-click fires the whole column: this scene pad and the gravity pad with the same number, together.
• Double-click renames the pad.
• Drop a preset tile on it to assign that look.

Right-click a pad

• assign preset…: choose a look from the list.
• capture current look: saves what's on screen as a new look and puts it on this pad.
• re-capture in place: replaces this pad's look with what's on screen, on every pad and page that plays it. Asks once.
• rename
• clear: arms the pad. Press it to empty it.
• store blank: a scene that takes everything to zero, for an ending.
• MIDI learn / unmap: a controller button that fires this pad.

store

Arm it, then press a pad to capture the current look into it. If that look is also on other pads, the pad gets a new copy and the others keep theirs. Shift-click re-captures it on all of them.

clear

Arm it, then press a pad to empty it. Pressing anything else keeps it.

MIDI

Arm it, then press a pad, then press the controller button that should fire it.

blend

How long a change takes, 0 to 30 seconds. 0 is a cut. Over OSC it goes up to 60 (see /scene/time).

Curve

The shape of the blend: linear, smooth (the default), ease in, ease out or cut.

auto

The autopilot. When on, it walks the filled pads in order, in time with the beat clock. The button reads AUTO 2.4 bars > Break: how long until the next step and where it goes. auto off means it's stopped. Click to switch it on or off.

bars

How often the autopilot steps, 0.25 to 16 bars.

resync

Only on the scene row. Puts both autopilots back on their first pad, on the same step.

lock

Only on the scene row. Keeps the gravity autopilot on the scene autopilot's rate and curve, so the two can't drift apart.

Faders

Large faders for the parameters you play most. There are 16 to start with. Use − and + beside the FADERS header for 4 to 24. The fader layout is saved with the show.

As the line above them says: click a fader's name to reassign it · click its value for a modulator · right-click a fader to reset it.

Fader

Drag to set. The bar is the value you set. When something is modulating the parameter, a second, thinner mark shows where it's actually been pushed. A stepped parameter such as the shape reads a name (sphere) rather than a number. Right-click puts it back to its default.

Name: reassign

Click a fader's name to choose what it controls. The list is grouped by area and has a filter: type part of a name to narrow it. Choose — none — to leave the fader empty.

Value: add a modulator

Click the number under a fader to give it a ready-made modulator, with no wiring:

— none — takes it off. Each one is built on the modulation canvas, so you can open it there and change it. A fader moved by something built on the canvas says modulated from the canvas.

learn

The line under each fader. Click it, then move a knob or fader on your controller. The binding shows in its place, for example ch1 cc21. Click the binding to clear it.

Master

The red fader at the end. It dims everything on the output, and at the bottom it reads BLACK. A preset or a scene never moves it. Right-click resets it to full. See /master/dim.