Your First Transition

Every transition runs in one of two modes, and the difference is a single question: who owns the timing? This tutorial answers it by running the same fusor both ways, back to back, so you feel the difference rather than reading about it.

Two runs, about ten minutes.

Before you start

• Playback in Demo done, so the player window is familiar.
• Two tracks that blend across the whole transition: the outgoing track has to be transitioning out, and the incoming track transitioning in, for the entire length of the run rather than only at one end of it.
• The same crossfader setup you settled on in Demo, since the fusor is the same one. If you mix on the channel faders, the Channel Fader domain stays enabled and your crossfader is in bypass or through mode. If you mix on the crossfader, the Channel Fader domain is switched off in Session View and the crossfader stays in the signal path. Either way the crossfader still reports its position, which is what lets Manual Run Mode read it as the clock. The setups are laid out in Crossfader Setup and Deck-Level Modulation.

Use whichever fusor you loaded last time. The examples assume Classic EQ Swap, whose three-band swap is audible on both decks at once, over a matched pair of channel-fader curves.

Run one: Manual Run Mode

In Manual Run Mode you own the timing. Your crossfader is the clock, and the fusor is a shape you scrub through.

1. Load the fusor. Click the fusor picker, click the fusor's row in the Library window.
2. Check the Mode toggle. Leftmost icon in the menubar's middle group, a small stopwatch. It's dark for Manual and blue for Auto. Manual is the default; click it if it's blue. Notice the middle of the progress strip is empty — there's no timer to configure.
3. Start the outgoing deck in your DJ app, and cue the incoming deck. Put the crossfader hard over on the outgoing side.
4. Click the arm control. Its dot turns yellow. The status line reads Armed: move crossfader to start.
5. Move the crossfader toward the incoming side. Progress follows it; the EQ knobs in your DJ app move, and the channel faders too unless you switched that domain off; the status line reads Manual in green.
6. Push it all the way. The status line reads Completed — stop outgoing deck or press End. and the arm control becomes an END button.
7. Press END. The transition finishes and the deck roles swap.

Two things to try before you move on, because they're the whole character of this mode:

• Freeze it mid-run. Press the arm control while the transition is running. Progress stops and the crossfader is disconnected from it — you can move the fader without moving the transition. The status line reads Frozen. Press again to reconnect. That's useful when you want the fader for something else mid-transition.
• Back out at the end. Instead of pressing END at 100%, walk the crossfader back. The transition returns to running and you can keep working it. Nothing is committed until the outgoing deck stops or you press END.

Run two: Auto Run Mode

In Auto Run Mode a timer owns the timing. You give it a length, press Play, and it walks from 0% to 100% on its own at an even pace.

1. Click the Mode toggle. It turns blue.

2. Look at the middle of the progress strip. A readout has appeared that wasn't there in Manual. Three numbers:

   Readout	What it is
   < N > bars	How many bars the transition should last. The chevrons halve and double (4, 8, 16, 32) because that's how phrases divide. Click the number itself to type any value from 1 to 99.
   @ NNN.N BPM	The tempo the transition runs at. Click it to input your desired beatmatched tempo, or the tempo on the incoming deck, whichever tempo the transition will run at. Fusor Studio does not read BPM from your DJ app, so this is yours to set.
   = NN.Ns	The transition length the other two produce. This is the number that actually matters.

   Set bars to 16 and the BPM to the tempo the run will play at. Watch the duration change.

3. Look at the arm control. It isn't a dot any more, it reads PLAY, and the status line reads Armed: Press Play to start. Play starts the transition as soon as it is pressed.

4. Start the outgoing deck and reset your crossfader to the outgoing side. The incoming deck does not have to be playing for an Auto run to start, so cue it and start it when your mix wants it.

5. Press PLAY. Progress starts advancing on its own. The status line reads Playing in green and the button now reads PAUSE.

6. Let it run. Watch the EQ knobs and faders in your DJ app move without you. Nothing needs a hand on it.

7. At 100%, the same completion wait as before: Completed — stop outgoing deck or press End. Press END.

Two ways to stop it, and they're not the same

This is the one Auto Run Mode behavior that surprises people, so try both.

Press PAUSE. The fusor stops sending; controls freeze where they are. But the timing window keeps running. Resume and the rest of the transition goes faster than planned, because it's still trying to finish when it originally would have. Pause long enough and the window runs out — progress just stops where it is.

Stop the incoming deck in your DJ app. Now the transition's clock stops too. Restart the deck and it picks up exactly where it left off, at the original pace, finishing later by however long you waited. This one needs the incoming deck to have been playing in the first place, so start it before you try it.

So: PAUSE stops the fusor. Stopping the incoming deck stops the transition. Reach for the one that matches what you actually want.

Grab it back mid-run

Start an Auto run and, while it's playing, move your crossfader.

The transition converts to manual from that point on. The crossfader becomes the clock and the status line changes to Manual. This is manual takeover, and it's one-way — you can take an Auto run over by hand, but you can't hand a Manual run back to the timer.

You can also take over a single control: move one of the EQ knobs this fusor is driving and Fusor Studio stops automating that knob for the rest of the transition, leaving the other five and the channel faders running.

Both need telemetry, so neither works in Blind Mode. The rules are in Arming and Running → Manual takeover.

Which one do you want?

Manual is the safer default while you're learning: you can always perform a steady Auto-style run by hand, but you can't add expressive freedom to an Auto run once it's under way.

Fusor Studio remembers which mode you chose across sessions. You can switch while a fusor is loaded and idle; once a transition starts the mode is locked, apart from the takeover above.

A fusor's author can also tell you which mode they built it for, in the fusor's notes — see Reading the fusor's intent.

One more toggle worth knowing about

Beside the Mode toggle is a chain-link icon: Start-with-Incoming. Turn it on and an Auto run stops waiting for you to press Play — it starts by itself the moment Fusor Studio sees the incoming deck begin playing. The arm control goes back to being a dot you click to arm.

Turning it on also switches you to Auto Run Mode, since waiting on the incoming deck is a timer behavior.

It's worth a try once you're comfortable with the basics: drop the needle and the transition starts itself. When it can't be used, and how it changes pause and resume, is in Start-with-Incoming.

If something refuses

The status line is where refusals go, and warnings carry a short code:

• GATE2-Start: outgoing not playing — the outgoing deck has to be playing. A transition mixes out of it.
• CAP5-Uncaptured: run Capture first — control state capture hasn't succeeded. Go back to Setup, step 7.
• GATE4-No fusor loaded — nothing to arm.

Every code is listed in Status Messages with what it means and what to do.

Where to next

• Actions and Pad Mode — put a command on a pad and fire it mid-set.
• Manual Run Mode vs Auto Run Mode — the comparison as a reference page.
• Transport Controls — every button, every state, in tables.
• Crossfader and Deck Levels — read this if your crossfader and channel faders are fighting each other.