Build scenes and a set list

A scene pad holds a look. Firing one blends the field from what's on screen to that look. A page is a row of scene pads and a row of gravity pads, usually one per song, and the pages in order are your set list.

Everything here happens on the performance layout. Press P to open it.

1. Start a page

The set list sits above the pads. Each chip is a page.

• Press + for a new, empty page.
• Or right-click + and choose load the built-in set: twenty songs, each with eight pads (Intro, Build, Break, Drop, Bridge, Peak, Outro, Blackout) already filled. Each song has its own look, varied for each part of the song, from a quiet bed to the peak and an ember at the end. It replaces every page you have, so it asks first.

Right-click a chip and choose rename… to name the page after the song.

2. Put looks on pads

There are three ways to fill a scene pad:

• Capture what's on screen. Press store under the scene row, then press a pad. The look on screen is saved as a new look and put on that pad.
• Drag a preset tile from the preset row onto a pad.
• Right-click a pad and choose assign preset…, then pick a look.

A good page tells the song's story: a quiet look for the intro, a bigger one for the build, the biggest for the drop, and a pad set with store blank for the ending.

Double-click a pad to give it a name of its own, such as Drop. The pad shows the name, whatever look is on it.

3. Fire and blend

Click a pad to fire it. The field blends to that look over the blend time, 0 to 30 seconds. 0 is a cut. The pad fills as the blend goes.

The curve sets how the blend moves:

• linear: at an even speed.
• smooth: eases in and out. This is the default.
• ease in: starts slowly and ends quickly.
• ease out: starts quickly and ends slowly.
• cut: jumps straight there.

Settings that step, such as the shape, switch halfway through the blend. A cloud change is never blended point by point: the field morphs from one cloud to the other.

4. Add gravity

The gravity pads hold pulls: where the attract and repel wells sit and how strong they are. They blend separately from the scenes, so you can pull the field around without changing the look.

1. In the control panel, open the gravity group and set up a well or two. See Gravity.
2. On the performance layout, press capture gravity into pad 1. The full gravity row appears.
3. Change the wells, press store on the gravity row, and press pad 2. Repeat.

Alt-click a pad to fire the whole column: the scene pad and the gravity pad with the same number, together.

5. Let the autopilot play

Press auto on a row. The autopilot walks the filled pads in order, one step every bars bars, in time with the tempo. The button shows how long until the next step and where it goes, for example AUTO 2.4 bars > Break.

Each row has its own autopilot. On the scene row:

• lock keeps the gravity autopilot on the scene autopilot's rate and curve, so they can't drift apart.
• resync puts both back on their first pad, on the same step.

You can still fire pads by hand while the autopilot runs.

6. Move through the set

Click a page's chip, or use ‹ and ›, to turn the page. Turning a page doesn't change the picture. It changes which pads are under your hands, and the next pad you fire starts the new song.

To drive pages from a controller, right-click a chip and choose MIDI learn. On an APC40 mkII, the five Scene Launch buttons select pages 1 to 5 already.

To have Resolume Arena turn the pages and fire the pads, see Follow Resolume's columns.

Change your mind

• Replace a look everywhere: right-click a pad and choose re-capture in place. Every pad on every page that plays that look gets what's on screen now.
• Empty a pad: press clear, then the pad.
• Copy a page: right-click its chip and choose duplicate, then change the copy.
• Delete a page: right-click its chip and choose delete page. The looks on it stay in your library.

Pages, pads and looks belong to the open show. Start a new show… for a different act, or save as… to branch this one.