Your lights and video,
running themselves.
Build the show in TraxxTool, on the same timeline as the song. ShowVizz plays it at the gig: it listens to the iPad that is already running your tracks, and drives your DMX rig and the screen behind you. No lighting console, and nobody at the back on a laptop.
Free·never sold·Windows, Mac and Linux
Four steps, and none of them are a lighting course
You already know how to put a marker on a timeline. That is the only skill this needs.
Key in your rig
Drag your lights onto a stage plan. TraxxTool numbers them, prints the patch sheet, and works out the groups so you never think in channels.
freeLet it draft the show
Pick a style. It writes the cues off the song's own sections, energy and beat grid, so you start with a show rather than an empty timeline.
freePolish it where you always do
A lighting lane under your section markers, a look palette above it. Pick a look, paint a clip, drag the fades.
freeCopy it to the show machine
One folder, with the cue triggers written into the song's own MIDI. That is the last time you think about any of it.
ProTen minutes, and it knows your stage
Drag each light onto the plan roughly where it hangs. That is the whole setup. Front, back, floor and sides are worked out from where you dropped them, and every cue after this talks about the front wash instead of channel 17.
- It picks the numbers. You get a list saying what to set on each light's own display
- Never seen your fixture? Import a QLC+ or GDTF profile, or teach it by wiggling the real channels
- There is no lighting desk anywhere in this. Your lights answer to the machine that runs your show
Tick a group, pick a colour
A look is a picture of the stage: who is lit, what colour, how bright. Build the six or seven your band uses and every song draws from the same set, so the blue you like is the same blue all night.
- The stage plan shows what TraxxTool will send, before anything is plugged in
- Six starter looks are invented from your own rig
- A light running its own built-in program is ringed, because only that light knows how it looks
It writes the show, you make it yours
Pick one of five styles: classic band, rock show, ballad, party or worship. The chorus comes out brighter than the verse because it measured them. Every song is seeded from itself, so two songs in the same style do not come out as the same show.
- 21 effects locked to the beat grid, so a chase lands on the beat rather than near it
- Movers hold their aim through a fade instead of drooping with the intensity
- No moving lights in your rig? It says so, and plays the sweeps as level changes instead
Your video, cued to the chorus
The screen behind you runs off the same timeline as the lights. A film that plays with the song, clips that come in for the chorus, a splash that holds the wall between numbers, and your logo over the top of all of it.
- Point a cue at a camera instead of a file and the wide shot becomes another layer, with the same fades
- The show asks for "wide", and tonight's band profile decides which camera that is
- The duo and the five-piece play the same show with their own footage, with nothing re-exported
- Overlays can key a flat colour out of any video, so a logo does not arrive in a black box
- TraxxTool converts your video when it compiles
Open it, and leave it alone
That is the whole operating procedure.
It follows the iPad
Stage Traxx already sends MIDI when you pick a song. ShowVizz loads that song's show and fires its cues. Start a song halfway through and the lights catch up to where they should be.
It stays out of the way of your gear
The cues ride in the song's own MIDI file, alongside your pedal and mixer commands, on their own channel.
There is nothing to press
A status screen: the song, the show time, the next cue, and a panic button. No cue stack to learn and nothing to program at the venue.
It runs without a rig
Art-Net or sACN over the network, or a USB DMX dongle. With nothing plugged in at all it still plays the show, so you can prove a set works at the kitchen table.
One missing file is one missing clip
It carries on with everything else rather than stopping the show. On quit it blacks the rig out before it lets go.
It installs by unzipping
No installer and no administrator rights, which matters when the laptop belongs to the venue. A USB stick is a fine home for it.
TraxxTool does this part for you
The laptop or mini PC that runs ShowVizz. One folder, copied across once. After that it is just a thing you switch on.
The short version
- In TraxxTool, export a Stage show: tick your songs, or your whole library, and it saves one show file. Whatever order the night takes, the right song's lights and video are already inside it.
- Then Lighting, Set up ShowVizz for your logos, overlays and films.
- Get the stage player, open the show. On the same machine TraxxTool opens it in ShowVizz for you.
You are never asked to choose a version. TraxxTool checks that the player it gives you can open the shows it writes, so there is no wrong one to pick.
If that laptop will never have TraxxTool on it
The button below is the same player TraxxTool hands out: a folder. Unzip it
anywhere, a venue laptop or a flight-case stick, and open
showvizz-player. No installer, no administrator rights.
ShowVizz for Mac (Apple Silicon)
Verify your download (SHA-256)
ab7a10b29c1c664906d81d37f5984a81afbf05c4c28185decf80611ba5dc34b0
ba33888d5d3ca98f667718aaf6287fd093e4e7b06a481ce049efa576a5794a99
f36c8c1602b978ffef1523ee0b3f1c562ed514c37668c1f3372cfed1f5138a90
The player is free. Building rigs, looks, effects, drafted shows and overlays is free too, and so is previewing the lot on the stage plan. Pro is what compiles the finished show for the stage.
Your set already has the timing in it
Every section marker you have placed is a lighting cue waiting to happen. Start with one song and see what it drafts.