Playback
The playback is the show.
Cuelists with fade, snap, follow and per-cue effects (∿N). Fader wing, Grand Master, Programmer Time, Speed Masters, and a Fixed Look slot. ⚑ Prep for a dark opener. GO is always human.
The lighting console you program by talking.
Tell DORAH what the song needs. It patches the rig, builds the presets, writes the cues and the effects — and what leaves the desk is standards-compliant sACN and Art-Net, at stadium scale. Optional Guard tools can lock a certified look for venue work — off by default on normal events. Nothing hits the stage until you press GO.
sACN E1.31 · Art-Net · GDTF · MVR · NDI · SMPTE LTC
How the signal is built.
And what Fixed Look changes.
Forty times a second the console rebuilds the whole universe set from layers. Bottom layers are creative (playback, programmer, effects). Top layers are venue and safety. Whoever is higher wins on those fixtures. That is the whole story — said simply, then in order.
One tick · every 25 ms · bottom → top
- 1PlaybackActive cuelists and executors — the show as stored.
- 2Programmer + FX + Pixel + Solo/HLWhat you are writing live, effects, video map. Skipped in blind.
- 3Guest sACN if armedForeign desk input, only on allowed universes. Never paints Fixed Look fixtures.
- 4Facility House / EcoService looks for walk-in. Yield to Fixed Look when the field is locked.
- 5Fixed Look if ONBaked absolute values overwrite the creative stack on the locked scope. Untouchable until unlock.
- 6Safety panic / freeze / evacHard modes. By default they do not black fixtures inside Fixed Look (protect the field).
- 7Resolve → sACN / Art-NetGrand Master, pack every universe, send at 40 Hz with identity, priority, sequence.
Wire: sACN E1.31 or Art-Net · template packer ~0.12 µs/universe · keep-alive while sources live
Normal event · Fixed Look off
Creative layers write freely. AI stores in blind. Nothing leaves the programmer onto the stage until you GO or arm. Guest and House stay off unless you turn them on. Same desk for a club night or a tour.
Venue · Fixed Look on
You bake a full look (dimmer, position, colour…). While locked, that look wins after everything creative. Unlock restores the live show underneath — no blackout, no forced re-GO. CLI: secure on/off.
Why this order
If Fixed Look sat under FX, an effect could still move a “locked” head. By applying it after guest and facility, the certified look is the last creative word before hard safety — and safety still cannot silently kill the field unless you configure override.
What is not magic
No black box between cue and cable: merge → layers → resolve → UDP. The Network page shows the same tick numbers FOH watches. Backup stations can seize output by sACN priority mid-song.
- Bake, not live-ref
- Fixed Look freezes absolute channel values (0…1) at lock time. Changing a preset under the desk does not move a locked fixture — you would have to unlock, edit, bake again.
- Blind ≠ Fixed Look ≠ panic
- Blind hides programmer/FX from the stage while you work. Fixed Look holds a certified look on. Panic is hard safety — and by default respects the lock.
- AI bounds
- The AI may program looks and even help prepare a bake path, but by default it cannot toggle Fixed Look or emergency. Arming the field stays human.
You talk. It programs. You verify.
The conversation is the command line. Every request becomes real programming — presets, cuelists, effects — and every reply is a verifiable change on the cue sheet. Never a mystery, never a black box.
Operator
Chorus: white strobe bump on the back trusses, and keep the amber floor from the verse.
DORAH AI
Done — ✓ store cue 7 «CHORUS» --fade 0.5 — strobe bump
on 46 spots, amber floor held. It's in blind: review it, then GO.
Three real exchanges on a loop: the ✓ lines are the exact feedback DORAH prints — everything lands in blind until your GO.
How the DMX leaves the desk.
Fixed-rate engine, two standard protocols, a backup already running. The console shows its own vital signs — this bench lives on Network.
NETWORK ▸ BENCH REALTIME · same numbers FOH watches
- The tick 25 ms
- Rebuild every universe 40×/s through the stack above. Template packer ~0.12 µs per universe; optional parallel workers when the count grows.
- The wire
- sACN E1.31 (identity, priority, sequence, clean end-of-stream) and Art-Net with compliant ArtPoll/ArtPollReply. No ghost sources.
- The backup
- DORAH-Net: stations elect master/backup; backup seizes output mid-song by sACN priority. Universes can shard across stations.
Benchmarks: measured, not promised.
Production output engine · packets counted at the receiver · 100% reception verified · Mac mini M4 (10-core), Node 24. Live show vs synthetic limit, kept apart on purpose.
| Rig | Universes | Cost per 25 ms tick | Reception | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stadium show — live · 388 fixtures | 70 | 5.7 ms med · 7.4 P95 · 23% | full show, zero incidents | — |
| 1,000 heads × 50 ch bench | 100 | 0.85 ms · 3.4% | 100% · 40.2 Hz | 21 Mbit/s |
| 1,000 heads × 100 ch bench | 200 | 1.32 ms · 5.3% | 100% · 40.3 Hz | 41 Mbit/s |
| 4,000 fixtures × 40 ch bench | 334 | 2.74 ms · 11.0% | 100% · 40.2 Hz | 69 Mbit/s |
| Output engine alone 8 workers | 4,000 | 0.70 ms · 2.8% | 640k / 640k packets | 819 Mbit/s |
Full pipeline rows: merge + 2 FX on every fixture + resolver + real sACN. Green row = the live show. scripts/bench-network.js · M4 · 2026-07-24. Ceiling ~7,700 uni/tick single-thread; past gigabit → 10GbE or session shard.
Six hubs. One desk.
The rail is not a flat dump of every page. Work is grouped the way a show is run. Screenshots below are from the real stadium showfile — 388 fixtures · 70 universes · summer 2026.
▶ Hub · Show
Playback, time and the song.
Everything that runs the live show: cuelists, tracking sheet, setlist and audio analysis.
Cuelist
Every cuelist in one list.
Inventory of every sequence: create empty lists, open any in Playback, assign to an executor slot. Store still happens from the programmer — this page is the bank.
Tracking
What each cue really holds.
Pick sequence and cue, read fixtures as rows — presets and values, ◂N where content inherits. The human check after the AI has written.
Set
The setlist knows the clock.
Song sections on timecode: click a row, the show jumps there. Import cue points from your editor’s TSV; live offsets shift a whole song.
Audio
The song, drum-machine style.
Offline stems and onsets; each lane has a threshold; regions fire bumps on executors, quantized to the beat.
◧ Hub · Prog
Groups, presets, tools.
What you select and what you store into — the programming pools.
Groups
Pools are keycaps.
Hardware-style cells with identity light-bars, appearance colours, batch edit. Sub-fixture groups address single cells of multi-instance machines.
Preset
Complete pools, per machine.
Dimmer steps, colours, positions, gobos — built and filled by the AI. Recall is one tap; store is an armed two-step gesture.
Tools
An hour of pool-building, one key each.
Base pools, dimmer fill, pan patterns across a truss, copy families between fixture types. Quick effects on the selection for the FX pool.
∿ Hub · FX
Effects, faders, video, space, colour.
BPM engines, per-cuelist FX bank, pixel mapping and the 3D / Palette tabs.
Effects
Effects think in BPM.
Four engines as tabs — Live, Table, 3D, Palette — one shared ∿ pool. Per-cell G/S: selection or group-bound.
PRG FX
Effects ride the cues.
Per-cuelist motorized fader bank. Raise to enter a cue, track until pulled down. Link to a Speed Master for one BPM clock.
Pixel
Video becomes light.
Clip import or NDI live through UV maps from the real layout. Plates and bulbs as pixels; floor held so video never kills the show.
3D
Space is an instrument.
Waves on true 3D positions: planes, radials, width — all in BPM. Store with a ⬢ badge; rides cues like any other effect.
Palette
Colour from your presets.
Sequence any colour presets across the selection. Xfade from hard bands to gradient. Preset-first: fix the colour, every palette follows.
⌗ Hub · Rig
Patch and layout.
GDTF fixtures and the MVR geometry the programmer trusts.
Patch
Three subpages, one truth.
Fixtures (GDTF, auto-address, pan/tilt invert), Fixture Setup, Builder — by hand or described to the AI.
Layout
The rig as it stands.
MVR geometry — trusses, towers, floor. Select by click or marquee, down to a single cell of a multi-instance machine.
◎ Hub · Guard
Venue tools — optional, default off.
Fixed Look, look pool, house, emergency, guest sACN and the ops Desk. Cold on a normal event until you open them.
Fixed Look
Lock the field. Resume the show.
Bake a full look (stage, programmer, cue or pool). While ON, AI, FX, guest, facility and playback cannot change those fixtures. Unlock restores the live stack — no blackout. CLI: secure.
Pool
Full looks, ready to GO.
Store complete looks (opening, half-time, finale). Desk fires them as large pads; promote any pad into Fixed Look memory.
House
Service lighting, not the lock.
House / Eco for walk-in and service. They yield to Fixed Look. Optional on normal events.
Emergency
Panic, freeze, evac.
Hard modes with confirm. With Fixed Look ON, panic by default does not black locked fixtures (field integrity). Override is explicit config.
Guest
Foreign sACN, under policy.
Arm when another desk must feed selected universes. Merges outside Fixed Look scope. Default: disarmed.
Desk
Big pads. Small danger keys.
Pool pads = instant GO. House, Fixed Look, Panic, Freeze, Evac, Clear = small keys with confirm. Full-screen for a security monitor.
⚙ Hub · Sys
Network, setup, AI.
Session, machine settings (including language), keyboard/MIDI maps and autonomous pipelines.
Network
The desk that watches itself.
Master/backup by multicast; backup seizes output mid-song by sACN priority. Realtime bench on the page — the same numbers as above.
Setup
Set once — including language.
Timecode, audio, outputs, density. Italiano | English on the machine, not in the show. Tabs: Shortcut, MIDI, Visualizer.
Shortcut
Keyboard is the front panel.
Drawn key by key. Learn: arm LS, click target, press key. Letters write keywords — S 5 ⏎ is store 5. Space stays GO.
MIDI
Controllers that talk back.
Same keymap as the keyboard (LM learn). X-Touch motor echo; APC LED feedback paints pads from live state — semantic colours.
AI
Pipelines on keys, chat below.
Study, program, prep, doctor — one key each, in blind. Touched chips, diff, full-run rollback. AI never toggles Fixed Look or emergency by default.
The AI programs.
Only you arm.
Every irreversible gesture is two-step: first press arms (yellow), second fires. Store, update, delete, blackout. The AI writes in blind and can never arm the stage by itself.
Rack banners always name the state: Blind, Solo, Highlight, Fixed Look, guest, session. ⟲ Oops holds the last fifty gestures — human and AI — and undoes to any point. Venue stays optional: Guard can stay cold on a normal tour.
Try it. This one is safe here.
Battle-tested where it counts: one stadium stage, 388 fixtures, 70 universes, zero incidents. byte-level output · full show, live audience · summer 2026
Be there when the desk lights up.
Private development, limited beta ahead. One email — who you are and what you light.
Join the waitlist
coming 2026 · macOS · Apple Silicon