Lesson 5. The playlist

Over four lessons we built everything separately: scenes, chases, effects — and taught them to listen to the music. But at a real event there is no time to remember what to fire after each moment. That is what a playlist is for — the running order of the show, everything written down in sequence: the program leads the evening and you only say “next”.

A playlist is a chain of prepared scenes, chases and effects that play one after another. Each entry in the running order is called a cue — just like in the theatre: “cue 5 — the waltz starts”. And a playlist can also have a music track attached, so the whole show runs exactly to it (more on that in Step 6).

Step 1. Building the running order from cues

Open the project (we already have several scenes and chases). The “Playlists” tab → “+ Playlist”.

On the left of the editor are the available scenes/chases/effects, on the right are the steps of the running order. We name the playlist “Mini-show” and click in order:

The “Artist entrance” scene — cue 1.
The “Colour run” chase — cue 2.
The “Finale” scene — cue 3.

The order is changed with the ▲ ▼ arrows.

Step 2. Time and smoothness

Each cue has two fields:

Field	What it does
Time (s)	How many seconds the cue is held. 0 = for ever — it waits for your GO
Fade (s)	The smoothness of the entrance: the light does not snap on, it emerges

Let’s give “Artist entrance” 10 seconds and fade 2 — it will appear nicely and hold. For “Finale” we leave 0: the finale holds until you decide to end it yourself.

💡 Tip: a zero in the time is a deliberate pause “until told otherwise”. But if a show in timer mode suddenly seems “stuck”, the first thing to check is whether a zero has been left somewhere.

💡 You can set a default “Fade” (the field in the header) — it applies to every cue that has no fade of its own. Handy: set the smoothness once for the whole show.

Step 3. The play mode

In the settings row at the top: how the playlist moves on to the next cue.

Mode	How it runs	Who for
Manual (GO)	Only on the GO button	Theatre, full control
Timed	By itself, on the time of each step. With a track attached — in sync with the music	A background show, a show to music
Hybrid	Runs on the timer, but GO can hurry it along	A party: it drives itself and the control is at hand

Next to it is the “Loop” checkbox — after the last cue, start again.

Step 4. Layers

In the previous lesson, live, an effect honestly lay on top of a chase, while a new scene or chase replaced everything under it. In a playlist that is no longer an accident but your choice for every cue: each step has a “Layer” switch that says what to do with whatever is already playing when this cue’s turn comes:

Layer	What happens when the cue starts
⤺ Replaces	Kills everything that was playing and puts its own in (the ordinary default behaviour)
+ On top	Turns nothing off — it simply joins what is already playing
■ Stop	A special cue: it kills one particular chase or effect, everything else keeps playing

It is “+ On top” that gives you what plain clicking could never do: the chase lies over the scene and the scene underneath does not go out. That way a show grows in layers instead of jumping between pictures. Let’s build a piece with some depth:

The “Artist entrance” scene (⤺ replaces) — laid down as the base, the general light.
The “Colour run” chase (+ on top) — running over the base, the scene beneath does not go out.
The “Sparkle” effect (+ on top) — sparkle added above (as many effects on top as you like).
A ■ Stop cue for “Sparkle” — it removed only the sparkle; the scene and the chase play on.
The “Finale” scene (⤺ replaces) — kills everything at once and starts the finale.

Fig. 4 — Steps with the ⤺ / + / ■ layers

⚠️ There is always exactly one base — two scenes at once do not happen (a scene defines the state of every fixture as a whole), and neither do two chases (there is one slot). Want more movement — layer effects on: they are parallel mini-chases.

Step 5. The Timeline view

The “List / Timeline” switch in the settings row shows the same steps as a time strip with the Scene, Chase and Effects tracks. Blocks stacked under one another play at the same time — the layering is visible at a glance.

Right on the strip, with the mouse:

drag a block — change the order of cues;
pull the right edge — change the duration;
the ⤺/+ icon on a block — switch the layer;
🔍 − / + — the zoom.

Fig. 5 — The timeline: the chase lies over the scene, the layering is visible

💡 Tip: want the chase to come in halfway through a scene? Give the scene a time of 10 s and the next chase step the “+” layer: on the strip the chase block will start at second 10 and the scene will carry on underneath it.

Step 6. Music: a show to a track

In lesson 4 we taught the light to react to live sound (the beat from a microphone or a player). Here it is the other way round: a specific track can be attached to a playlist, and the whole show runs exactly to it.

In the timeline header press “🎵 Music” and choose an audio file (mp3, wav).

Once it is attached you get: the file name, the music volume slider and the “Replace” and “Remove music” buttons. And under the cue tracks a waveform of the track appears on the same time scale — the intro, the chorus and the drop are visible immediately.

💡 As soon as music is attached, the mode switches automatically from “Manual” to “Timed” — the light will run in sync with the track. You can still change the mode by hand if you want.

Starting from a chosen point. Click the waveform (while playback is stopped) and a “Playback starts here” flag appears. The show will start from that second — handy for polishing the chorus without listening to the intro every time.

Playing the show. The “Play show” button in the header starts the music and the light together: a vertical line (the playhead) runs along the waveform and the cues fire in sync. A click on the waveform during playback jumps there. To start you need a saved playlist and attached music (otherwise the button tells you what is missing).

Placing cues to the music. To make a cue fire at an exact moment of the track, drag its block straight onto the waveform: it lands on the right second. That way the light “hit” falls exactly on the beat or on the first note of the chorus. You can also drag an item from the palette on the left — it is added right at that spot.

Fig. 6 — The track waveform under the tracks: the start marker, the playhead, the cues on their seconds

⚠️ Music is stored as a link to the file (so that the .smp project stays light). Move the project to another computer, or rename or move the file, and the link is lost: the program shows a notice and runs the show without sound (the light does not break). Just point to the file again. When the track ends, the playlist stops.

🎧 For the DJ: attach the track, put the start marker on the drop and place the key scenes and hits right along the waveform — the light will sit perfectly on the music, with no manual pressing during the show.

Step 7. Running the show

Starting — a click on the playlist card (clicking again stops it). If a track is attached, it plays together with the light, in sync.
The best place to run it from is Live: the big GO button and the “Now / Next” display — you can see what is playing and what is coming. A “+” before the name means layering, “■” is a stop cue.
The “Active” row shows the whole “cake” of layers: the scene, the chase, every effect — any layer can be taken off with its cross without stopping the rest.

🎭 For theatre or staged work: Manual mode and a time of 0 everywhere the change happens “on the action”. In Live switch on “Quiet scene” — you will run the performance from one big button, with the display as your prompter.

Let’s sum up

Today we:

built a playlist out of cues and set up time + fade;
chose the mode (manual / timer / hybrid) and looping;
mastered layers: the scene as the base, chases and effects on top, stop cues for switching one thing off;
attached music and built a show to a track: the waveform, the start marker, “Play show”, cues placed by the second;
saw the running order on the timeline and ran the show with the GO button.

Your evening is now written down in advance — at the right moment one press is enough, and to music the light runs by itself.

A hyperlist is a queue of playlists: as soon as one has played to the end, the next one starts. Handy for an event made of several songs — each song stays a separate playlist with its own music, and the hyperlist plays them one after another.

What is next: in the following lesson we step out of the virtual room into a real one — we take the show out to live light.

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