SYNE

Quick start

From opening the app to lights following a song, in about fifteen minutes. You need Syne installed, your lights, and a way to reach them: a USB DMX interface or an Art-Net / sACN node.

It's a beta. Screens may move around between versions. If something here doesn't match what you see, tell us at support@synelabs.app.

Syne has four places along the top: Show (what's running now), Music (your songs), Lights (your rig) and Settings. Blackout, White and the master fader are always in the top bar; B and W work from every screen.

1. Set up your lights

  1. Plug in your DMX interface and power your lights. Give each fixture a DMX address and mode on its own menu, and note them down.
  2. Open Syne. Read the light safety notice and turn on Safe strobes if flashing light could matter where you play.
  3. Go to Lights and click New setup. Give it the venue's name.
  4. In the Stage step, add each light: search the model (try the maker and model, like "chauvet slimpar"), pick the same mode the fixture is set to, and type its address. Drag it to where it hangs. Not in the library? Click Find or make a light and build it from the manual's DMX table.
  5. Click Save setup, then Use this setup. The Lights step's patch check warns about overlapping addresses and other mistakes, and can fix most of them for you.

Lots of moving heads, or a room with the booth off to one side? The Room step maps where things really are (trusses, the dance floor, no-go zones) so beams land on the floor instead of the walls. You can skip it and come back later.

2. Check the lights answer

  1. Open the Output step. Leave the mode on Auto: Syne uses a USB interface when one is plugged in, otherwise Art-Net.
  2. For Art-Net or sACN, type your node's address and universe.
  3. Run a test pattern. Every light should answer. If one doesn't, check its address and mode against the setup.

3. Bring in your music

  1. Go to Music and click Import.
  2. Pick a playlist from your DJ software, a USB stick, or files and folders. You can also drag songs onto the window. rekordbox users: in rekordbox, use File, Export Collection in xml format, and save it in Documents; Syne finds it there.
  3. Syne learns each song in the background, about 40 seconds each. Start with a playlist you'll actually play.
  4. Open a finished song to see its sections and preview the show on your own setup. Play here runs it on your real lights.

Import a whole playlist and Syne remembers it: songs you add to it later in your DJ software come in when you sync.

4. Play a set

Go to Show and pick how Syne knows what's playing:

  1. Follow decks for Pioneer DJ / AlphaTheta players. Turn on Pro DJ Link on the players and connect the computer to the same network (a cable into the players' hub or router is the most reliable). Close rekordbox on this computer first; it holds the same network ports.
  2. Listen for anything else. Feed the mixer's booth or record output into an audio input on the computer (Macs need a USB audio interface for a line input), pick it, and start. Songs from your library are recognized; ones it hasn't learned get a live show.
  3. Play here to play a song from the app itself.

If the lights feel a touch early or late in a venue, nudge Light timing in the same panel, 10 ms at a time.

Before a real night

Stuck?

Read the FAQ, or use Settings, Report a problem: it makes a zip on your Desktop with what we need to help (no audio, no music files). Email it to support@synelabs.app with a line about what happened.