SequenceStarter how to use it

SequenceStarter turns a song into an xLights sequence. It finds the beats, the parts of the song and the words, suggests which props light up and how, lets you watch it on a picture of your house, and saves a .xsq file that xLights opens and renders like any other sequence: a head start that you can finish your way in xLights. Everything runs in your browser: your song and your show are never uploaded.

Open the app with the guided tour Just open the app ✨ What's new 💬 Join the Discord

Before you start

Contents

  1. Load a song
  2. Check the beat
  3. Check the song's parts
  4. Find the words (optional)
  5. Open your show
  6. Your house in the preview
  7. Get a starting plan
  8. Steer the ideas
  9. Effects for props and profiles
  10. Start from a sequence made in xLights
  11. Change parts by hand
  12. Save your work
  13. Into xLights
  14. Questions and fixes

Once a song is loaded, a row of steps under the two tabs (Song › Words › Your show › Plan the lights › Export to xLights) ticks off what's done and highlights what's next. Click a step to go there.

Part 1: the song

  1. Load a song

    Drop an MP3 onto the page, or press choose a file. In a few seconds the app works out the tempo, the beats and bars, the loud and quiet parts, and the drum hits.

  2. Check the beat

    Press Play and tick Beat click: you hear a click on every beat, a higher one on the first beat of each bar. If the clicks drift or sit between the drums, fix it in the Tempo grid panel (½ tempo or 2× tempo, Tap tempo along with the song, or change which beat starts a bar). Everything else is built on this grid, so it is worth a minute.

    Press Space to play or pause and Home to go back to the start.

  3. Check the song's parts

    The app splits the song into parts (verse, chorus, ...). Its names are guesses: in the Sections panel, rename parts so they match what you hear, split a part where the music changes, join two parts, or drag a boundary in the timeline. Each part gets its own lights later, and parts with the same name ("Chorus 1", "Chorus 2") can share ideas.

  4. Find the words (optional)

    For singing faces and words on a matrix, go to Words & vocals and press Find words & vocals. Paste the lyrics first if you have them: the timing comes out better. The first time, the browser downloads the voice and speech models (about 400 MB, kept for next time), and working through a song takes a few minutes. You can drag any word in the timeline if it lands in the wrong place. Words that shouldn't be there (an "Ah-ha" it heard in the music, say) can go: click a word in the timeline and press Delete, press ✕ on a line in the list, or remove them next to the filled-in sounds to take all of those out at once. Wrong or missing words: double-click a word (or press Enter on a picked one) and type the right ones; typing several words splits its time between them. Double-click a line in the Lyrics row, or press ✎ in the list, to retype a whole line, and double-click an empty spot in the Words row to add words there. Drag a word's left or right edge to change when it starts or ends. Ctrl+Z undoes any of it.

    Want the timing in xLights directly? Export timing → Download .xtiming saves the beats, parts and words as an .xtiming file.

Part 2: the lights

  1. Open your show

    Go to 2. Make a sequence and choose your xLights show folder (Your xLights show). The app reads your models, groups, submodels, singing faces and house photo. It remembers the folder for next time. Changed your layout in xLights, or picked the wrong show? ↻ Reload show, Choose a different folder… or Pick different files… read it again; your plan stays. A prop placed far outside xLights' preview area is left out of the view (the line above the preview names it), so it can't shrink the rest of the house to a few dots.

  2. Your house in the preview

    If the photo doesn't sit under the lights, press Line up photo… and drag it, or use the mouse wheel to size it. This only changes how the preview looks.

    • Zoom: scroll over the preview to zoom in or out on whatever is under the mouse, or use the − / + buttons (50% to 600%). Click the percentage to go back to 100%. Once zoomed in, drag with the middle mouse button, or Shift+scroll, to look around.
    • 💡 Props only: click a prop on the house (Ctrl-click, or drag a box, to pick several), then press Props only: the house photo and every other prop disappear, and what you picked fills the preview, so you can see exactly what one prop is doing. Full view goes back.
    • ⧉ Pop out puts the preview in its own window, handy on a second screen (close it to bring it back).

  3. Get a starting plan

    Press Suggest a plan. The app picks props for every part, puts steady looks under one or two props that carry the beat, makes loud parts brighter and fuller than quiet ones, and picks a transition into each lift (ramp up, sweep in, burst, color hit, crossfade, and once per song a build & land). Each part shows how it comes in; open the part and change Comes in with to pick another. With Try 4 ideas, keep the best fit ticked (under Idea settings) it makes four ideas and keeps the one that follows the music best. Don't like it? Press 🎲 Another idea, or 🎲 Randomize the whole sequence above the parts for new lights in every part at once.

    Press Play to watch it on your house. The Fit with the music score shows how well the lights follow the loudness and the beat, and whether loud parts are brighter.

  4. Steer the ideas

    • Feeling (peaceful, joyful, playful, powerful, magical) and Intensity change the kind of effects and how busy they are.
    • Colors for ideas picks the color scheme (Christmas ones, Halloween ones such as orange & purple, and more); Edit color schemes… makes your own.
    • Prop mix… uses a prop more, less, always or never, in every part or one kind of part.
    • Prop types… tells the app what a prop is when its name doesn't say ("Big Tree" is a mega tree). Names in English, French, Spanish, German and Dutch are understood by themselves (snowflake, flocon, copo, Schneeflocke...).
    • Leave out of ideas… keeps props out completely.
    • 🎛 Effects for props (its own tab, or the button under Props) chooses which effects ideas may use on each kind of prop, and how often. See Effects for props.
    • For: chooses which parts the next idea changes. The 🎲 tick on each part does the same.

    These sit under Ideas → Idea settings in three columns: Look, Props and How ideas are made. Same look for parts with the same name (off to start) gives every Chorus the same effects, every Verse the same, and so on; leave it off for a fresh idea in each part.

  5. Effects for props and profiles

    Every xLights effect is in the app: pick any of them in a light row's Effect list (grouped by kind), and the preview draws it the way xLights does. The 🎛 Effects for props tab decides which ones Suggest a plan, Another idea and 🎲 Randomize may pick by themselves.

    • Each column is a kind of prop (arches, mega tree, matrix...), each row an effect. The number is how often ideas pick that effect for that kind of prop, compared with the other numbers in the column; blank means never. Hover a number to see the share it gets.
    • Steady looks are what a prop shows through a part; Hits on beats & drums are the short flashes on top.
    • The none / default buttons under a prop kind clear or reset that column; all / none next to an effect (hover its row) turn it on everywhere or nowhere. Only effects in use and Only prop kinds in my show shorten the grid.
    • Default is what the app has always picked. Every effect adds a little of every other effect. Change any number, then 💾 Save to keep your choices under a name; ↺ Back to default goes back any time. Your sets stay in this browser; Export… / Import… share them as a file (on Discord, say).
    • A few effects are only picked by hand, because they need something from you: a picture, video, shader or recording from your show folder (Choose… lists the files in it), words for Text, a prop with states, DMX fixtures, servos, or a drawing for Sketch. They're listed under the grid.
    • Warp, Kaleidoscope and Adjust reshape the row under them (xLights' Canvas mode): ideas put a look underneath for them. Piano and Guitar play the sung melody, from the Vocal Notes timing track the export adds after you find the words.
    • If you switch every effect off for a kind of prop, ideas leave those props dark and say so.

    Profiles from your own sequences

    Open 📂 Build a profile from your own sequences at the top of the tab and choose a folder of finished sequences (.xsq; its subfolders are read too, backups skipped). The app reads which effects you put on each prop, for how long, and the settings you used. Long effects count as looks, short ones (about a second) as hits.

    • Sequences lists every sequence found: untick any you don't want to learn from (Select all / Deselect all and a search help). Sequences exported from this app start unticked, since they would only teach it what it already does.
    • Every kind of prop starts ticked; untick the ones you don't want (just your mega tree, say). Select all / Deselect all above each list tick or untick everything (for single props, everything the search shows). Kinds you leave out keep the Default choices.
    • Tick single props to give them their own column, learned from that prop alone. A group made of that prop ("All Mega Tree") uses it too.
    • Name it and press Build profile. It is saved in the Profile list and ideas use it straight away: they pick your effects as often as you do and, most of the time, with settings from your own sequences.
    • Switch between profiles with the Profile list. Change numbers and 💾 Save, Rename or Delete them, and Export / Import to move them to another computer or share them.
    • Open your show first (2. Make a sequence) so props are recognized from your layout.

  6. Start from a sequence made in xLights

    Open your show folder first, then File › Import xLights sequence (.xsq). The page finds the sequence's song, and every effect comes in exactly as xLights had it, grouped per part, per prop and per layer (marked imported). Change the lights or colors of those rows, mute or remove them, or press 🎲 on a part to add new lights on top. When you export, everything you didn't change goes back to xLights exactly as it was, in the sequence's own row order.

    The preview draws imported effects closely, but not perfectly: every xLights effect has a drawing here, read from its own settings. Pictures, videos and shaders play in the preview when their files are in your show folder (where xLights keeps them too); Glediator recordings and Duplicate show as a soft twinkle so you can still see where they play.

  7. Change parts by hand

    Open a part to see its light rows. Each row starts with its lights (in bold), then the effect, when it plays (the whole time, every beat, drum hits, while someone sings, ...) and its colors. Click a row to change it. Handy tools:

    • 🔁 Loop plays one part over and over while you work on it.
    • Brightness and Loudness inside a part: Brightness dims (or brightens, up to 200%) every light in that part on top of each row's own. Loudness says how lively new ideas for the part should be (it starts from how loud the song is there): press 🎲 Randomize afterwards to get an idea at that loudness. ↺ puts either one back.
    • 🎲 Randomize gives just that part a new idea. The 🎲 on a row gives just those lights a new effect and colors; ↶ next to it takes that row back a step (Undo works too).
    • Click a row's colors (or 🎨 in its settings) for a palette box: pick one of the row's colors, then any color in the grid, or click one of your palettes to set them all at once.
    • Filter: a part with many rows has a box above them; type a light or an effect to show only those rows. Sort next to it lists them by lights, effect or when they play (only the list changes, not the layers).
    • Untick a row to keep it: new ideas fill in around it (it shows a 🔒).
    • Solo / Mute show or hide a row in the preview only.
    • Fade in / Fade out soften every effect of a row. Mix can turn a row into a mask: a moving shape (fan blades, spirals, a ring) that shows the colors of the row below it only where it is lit.
    • On a group: one picture across the yard, each prop on its own, or every prop the same (all your spinners showing exactly the same thing).
    • Restart every beat / bar chops a steady row into short effects, turning round or changing color each time (the way most pro sequences are built). Sparkles add white glints (optionally with the music), Comes in / Goes can wipe or burst a row in and out, and Spin turns the whole picture.
    • Copy to… copies a part's lights to other parts.
    • 🎨 changes only the colors. A part you recolor (or whose row colors you change by hand) keeps its own colors: its 🎲 Randomize and new ideas use them instead of the main scheme. The part shows "own colors" with a ✕ to go back to the main scheme.
    • Effects: every xLights effect, in a list grouped by kind (solid colors and washes, chases and sweeps, shapes and spins, sparkle, snow and fire, music, words and pictures, layer tools, DMX). Their settings show under the row. For a picture, video, shader or Glediator recording, Choose… lists the files in your show folder (open it with Choose show folder…). Warp, Kaleidoscope and Adjust change the rows under them on the same lights.
    • Singing face is in the Effect list of any row whose lights include a prop with a face set up in xLights (first in the list for those props). The face sings along with the words, so find them first (step 4). Piano and Guitar play the sung melody the same way.
    • Moving heads get the Moving head effect: pick a pattern (circle, figure-8, square…), its size, where it aims, how many rounds per part, how far apart the heads move and how bright. Ideas and 🎲 Randomize include them (calm, slow shapes in quiet parts; big, fast ones in loud parts), and the preview draws each head's beam. The Moving heads box (shown when your show has them) picks the parts they join, adds or re-rolls just the heads without touching other rows, and sets how big they look in the preview. Each part also has + Moving heads.
    • 📝 Words on the matrix… shows the sung words on your matrix in the parts you pick (the choruses to start with), so people can sing along. Find the words first (step 4).
    • Click a prop on the house to see what lights it; Ctrl-click or drag a box to pick several.
    • View → Only the part that's playing shows just the part you're hearing, opened, and follows the song as it plays: less scrolling while you adjust things.
    • Arrange the boxes (How this works, Ideas, Change what's planned, View): ▾ folds a box to its title. Press 🔒 Layout locked to unlock, then drag a box by its ⠿ grip or use ↑ ↓; press it again to lock. Reset layout puts them back.

    Every change can be undone with Ctrl+Z.

  8. Save your work

    Everything to do with files is in the File menu at the top: open a song or a project, your recent projects, Save, Save as, Auto-save and Export. The project's name shows beside it, with a • while there are unsaved changes.

    Save project (Ctrl+S) writes a small .lightseq.json file with the beat grid, your parts, the words and the whole light plan. After that, Save writes back to the same file.

    • Auto-save: tick it and every change saves by itself a moment later.
    • The File menu lists your recent projects (and, with Choose projects folder…, every project in that folder). Click one to switch; if you have unsaved changes it asks Save / Don't save / Cancel first. Recent projects also show on the start screen.
    • Opening a project finds its song by itself. The browser asks once per visit before the page may read a file again: press Open on the note at the top, and in Chrome or Edge choose Allow on every visit so it stops asking.

  9. Into xLights

    Press ⤓ Export to xLights (Ctrl+E), then Save into show folder (or Download .xsq). Open the sequence in xLights, render it, and play. It includes timing tracks for the beats, bars, song parts, words and the music's note onsets, so you can keep adding effects in xLights the usual way.

    Every prop and group of your layout gets a row, empty if unused, like a sequence started in xLights. They're in render order: groups at the top (drawn at the back), then props, each by name, so a prop's own effect shows over a group effect.

Questions and fixes

It keeps asking where the song is.
Choose the song once (or Pick your music folder…); after that the project remembers it. If a note at the top says the browser wants to allow it, press Open and pick Allow on every visit.
Can I use a dark page?
Yes: the menu at the top right switches between Auto (follows your computer), Light and Dark.
I have an idea, or something isn't working.
Tell us on Discord: #suggestions for ideas, #bugs for problems, #help for questions.
Is my music or show uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser. Only the voice and speech models are downloaded (once).
The clicks don't match the drums.
Fix the tempo first (step 2): try ½ tempo or 2× tempo, or Tap tempo along with the song.
The page shows "Something went wrong".
Press Copy details and paste them in Discord #bugs, ideally with your xlights_rgbeffects.xml. A prop the app can't read is left out (the status line names it) rather than stopping the whole show.
xLights says models are missing or "not in your layout".
Make sure xLights has the same show folder open that you chose in the app (the app shows its name at the top of Make a sequence). If the plan was made with another layout, or you renamed props in xLights since, the app shows a ⚠ note listing them: press Fix… to swap each for one of your props, or leave it out. Props that aren't in your show are never written into the saved sequence.
A prop gets odd effects, or isn't used.
Use Prop types… to say what it is, and Prop mix… to use it more. 🎛 Effects for props sets which effects each kind of prop gets.
A prop shows as a single dot in the preview.
That kind of model isn't drawn yet (for example DMX fixtures other than moving heads). The saved sequence still works in xLights. Please report it on GitHub.
"Find words" is slow.
The first run downloads the models. In Chrome or Edge the models use your graphics card; other browsers fall back to the processor, which is slower.
The ideas don't look like my style.
The ideas start from one person's sequencing style (which effects suit which props and how they're put together, learned from 56 finished sequences and a few professional ones). Build a profile from your own sequences and the ideas use your effects, mostly with your own settings. Feeling, Prop mix, Prop types and Effects for props steer them too, and you can keep the rows you like.
An imported sequence looks different in the preview.
The preview is a close guide, not xLights itself: some effects and settings are only approximated, and pictures, videos and shaders need their files in your show folder. The exported sequence is always exact, so check the final look in xLights.
Scrolling over the preview zooms instead of scrolling the page.
That's the zoom: move the mouse off the preview to scroll the page, or click the zoom percentage to reset it.

An independent tool for xLights, not made by the xLights project. Free and open source (GPLv3). Source and issues on GitHub.