Setting one
Nobody touches them
The wash comes up at doors and stays there until the last song. Every act gets the same light. The room never changes shape all night.
Free beta — open now Mac now · Windows in about a month
Lighting that vaibs with the music.
Vaib listens to your room, works out where the music is going, and runs the lights you already own — the way a lighting designer would, on every night you cannot hire one.
sACN, Art-Net and USB DMX · runs on the laptop, not in the cloud
No lights yet? Plan your rig with the free planner →
Why it exists
Most rooms have lights. Very few have someone to run them.
Bars, clubs, churches, halls and touring acts own rigs that sit on one setting all night, because a lighting designer costs a day rate, needs programming time, and is never there on a Tuesday. Vaib is that job, done live, by something that is listening — so the person behind the bar can steer the night instead of programming it.
- 01
Set up once
Add the lights from the library, test each one, sign the room off. An afternoon, done by whoever knows the rig best — about five minutes for a small bar.
- 02
Then it just runs
No cue list, no per-song preparation, no beat-gridded library. Vaib hears the song as it happens and lights it, whoever walks through the door.
- 03
Take over whenever
Hold a look, pull a group down, ask in plain words, hit Blackout. Vaib keeps working underneath and hands back cleanly at the next phrase.
See it run
From eight pars in a bar to seventy-six lights under a dome.
Same software, same few controls on the screen. These are four real rooms, patched in Vaib and running real tracks — each one the desk’s room view: the room’s own photo, lit by what Vaib is sending.
The Sun
Bar
A living-room bar with two speaker towers. Two pars on faces, four for colour, two washing the wall — patched in about five minutes.
- Lights
- 8
- Universes
- 1
- Style
- House look
- Vaib heard
- Pop · 125 BPM
- Rig
- 6 LED pars, 2 wall washes
Laurenskerk
Church
A gothic church for a choir concert. Warm and still, faces lit, no effects and no strobe — the sides move, everything else holds.
- Lights
- 24
- Universes
- 1
- Style
- Choir and classical
- Vaib heard
- Classical · Ethereal
- Rig
- 4 profiles, 8 washes, 10 column uplights, 2 nave washes
Erasmus Aula
Auditorium
A university hall with a lighting truss over the stage. The truss, the side booms and the uplights on the tiled wall, drawn from one photo.
- Lights
- 52
- Universes
- 4
- Style
- House look
- Vaib heard
- Lo-fi · Dreamy · 85 BPM
- Rig
- 12 moving washes, 8 spots, 6 blades, 6 profiles, 12 wall uplights, 8 more
Blue City
Event space
A former tropical swimming pool under a glass dome, now an event space. Seventy-six lights over six universes, at the moment a new section lands.
- Lights
- 76
- Universes
- 6
- Style
- Club peak
- Vaib heard
- House · Euphoric · 125 BPM
- Rig
- 12 beams, 8 spots, 6 blades, 24 dome uplights, 26 more
Screenshots from Vaib 3, the desk at full size. The rigs were patched for these shots; the music, tempo and sections on screen are what Vaib heard and decided at that moment.
The gap
Most rooms run their lights on one of two settings.
Setting two
Sound-to-light, all colours, all the time
It reacts to loudness, so it strobes through a ballad and sits flat through the drop. It is busy, and it is never about the song.
A lighting designer solves this: they hear a chorus coming and light it, keep the singer’s face in light, and know when to do nothing at all. Vaib does that job live — and knows when to hold still.
How it works
Four things, every frame.
Nothing here is a preset being triggered. Vaib listens, works out where the music is, decides what the rig should be doing about it, and sends it — with the safety rules last, every time.
- 01
It hears
A line from the mixing desk, a microphone in the room, or what the computer itself is playing.
Vaib takes the sound apart as it arrives: how loud, how bright, where the hits land, how loud the vocals, drums and bass each are, and whether someone is singing. Nothing is loaded in advance and nothing is tagged by hand.
Audio worklet · band energies and onsets · stem energy (levels only) · system audio on Mac without a share dialog
- Line in
- Microphone
- This computer
- 02
It understands
The tempo, the bar, and what part of the song this is.
Intro, groove, build, drop, breakdown, a quiet passage, someone talking, the gap between songs. Each has to hold before Vaib commits to it, so one cymbal crash does not reset the night. Give it a folder of the venue’s own music and it recognises those songs by ear and counts their drops down before they land.
Beat and downbeat tracking · section sizes with dwell · Known songs: offline fingerprint, sections and drops ahead
- Tempo
- Sections
- Known songs
- 03
It decides
The part a lighting designer does in their head.
Which colours belong to tonight. Which lights hold the performers’ faces and which are free to move. How big each section should be, inside the night’s brightness budget. And the thing cheap systems always get wrong: when a look is allowed to change at all — at the end of a phrase, not in the middle of a line.
A scene per section: which lights hold, which move, which wait for hits · phrase-held looks · flash budget · Style limits
- Jobs
- Scenes
- Styles
- 04
It lights
Your fixtures, your addresses, your limits.
That decision becomes real values for each light you have, never asking a fixture for a colour it cannot make. The safety policy is the last thing every frame passes through, then it goes out to the rig.
Fixture profiles from the Open Fixture Library · safety last before output · sACN, Art-Net, USB DMX
- sACN
- Art-Net
- USB DMX
Switch what it is hearing.
A small simulation of the idea, not the product: a band builds and drops, a singer-songwriter never drops at all, someone speaking is held in steady light. Pick one.
Hearing
Simulation · the screenshots above are the real desk
Same room, another night
The rig belongs to the venue. The look can belong to the act.
A Style is the look of a night — colours, how big it gets, how much it may flash, how faces are lit, what stays on in the quiet parts. The venue keeps a house look; an artist brings their own as a small file and it runs on whatever rig is hanging, inside that venue’s limits.
House look
Night Drive tour
The same eight lights at The Sun, minutes apart. How an artist brings their Style
Free tool
No lights yet? Plan the rig first — free.
Lay out your room, get a rig sized to your stage from the AI planner, the DMX patch and a shopping list with prices. Then import it straight into Vaib.
- No account
- AI planner
- Shopping list with prices
- Exports to Vaib
Who it’s for
One desk, three kinds of people who will use it.
Bars, clubs, churches, halls
Venue managers
A good-looking night, every night, without a lighting tech on the rota — and nothing your staff can break.
- Patch once, then just press Go
- Staff steer it from a phone
- Safety that cannot be talked past
Bands, DJs, choirs, touring acts
Artists and acts
Your look, on any rig you walk into. Say what you want in plain words and Vaib proposes it.
- Your Style travels as a passport
- Ask Vaib, in your own words
- Knows your drops before they land
Designers, techs, production crews
Lighting designers
A tool, not a replacement: patch big rigs fast, see every channel, and let it carry the nights you are not there.
- 76 lights, six universes, one screen
- Every value visible, every change undoable
- Recordings you can replay and tune
Before you let it near the rig
Automation you can leave in a room alone.
The fastest way to lose a venue’s trust is one black stage in front of a paying crowd. Everything below is a rule the software cannot talk its way around — not a setting, and not a promise.
Blackout is always one press away
B on the keyboard, one tap on a paired phone, on every screen. Nothing — a Style, a phone, Ask Vaib — can delay it, and undo never turns the lights back on.
Nothing reaches the rig unchecked
A room sends light tests, never a show, until a Manager signs it off: every light tested, no address clashes, Blackout seen to work. Change the patch and the sign-off goes, so the rig is checked again.
Limits are enforced, not suggested
Flash rate is capped by default. Anyone can lower a limit; only a Manager, at the desk, can raise one. The safety policy is the last thing every frame passes through.
It never just goes dark
If the desk stops sending, the bridge applies the room’s own choice — hold the last look, fade to black, or the safe scene. Quitting ends the show cleanly; the app restarts its output in under two seconds if it ever has to.
Nothing is silent
Ask Vaib, learned taste and photos from a phone all propose; a person confirms. Every change on the desk is one labelled step you can undo — including the ones made from a phone.
It works without the internet
Listening, deciding and DMX output all run on the laptop. The phone talks to it over the venue Wi-Fi only. Nothing is uploaded unless someone exports it.
Where it sits
It is not the thing you already tried.
Sound-to-light hears loudness. DJ software plays back a grid you prepared. A console is a person, listening. Vaib is the one that understands the song while it is happening.
| Capability | Sound-to-light | DJ lighting software | A lighting console | Vaib |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it actually hears | Loudness in a band or two | A beat grid you prepared earlier | Nothing — a person is listening | The song, its sections and its parts, live |
| Knows where the song is going | No | Only for tracks you prepped | The operator does | Yes, while it plays — and ahead, for Known songs |
| Work before the doors open | None | Per track, forever | Days, per show | Patch and sign off the room, once |
| Who can run it on the night | Anyone | The DJ who owns the library | A trained operator | Whoever is behind the bar |
| Handles an act nobody prepared for | Sort of | No | By busking it live | That is the normal case |
Questions
The ones we always get asked.
Something not here? Email us — a person replies.
How do I get it, and what does it cost?
The beta is open and free: request a place and we send you the Mac app. Windows follows in about a month. Everyone who tests in the beta gets a year of Vaib free after launch. After launch, pricing will be a subscription per room; it is not final yet, and beta venues help shape it.
I don’t have any lights yet. Where do I start?
With the free planner on this site: lay out the room, get a rig sized to your stage and a shopping list with rough prices, and export the plan. When the lights are up, Vaib imports it — every light, its address and where it hangs.
Do I need to buy new lights?
No. Vaib drives standard DMX fixtures over sACN, Art-Net or a USB DMX interface. If your rig runs off a console today, it will run off Vaib. Common fixtures are built in; anything else comes in as an Open Fixture Library or GDTF file, or by hand.
What computer does it need?
A normal laptop. Vaib is a desktop app for Mac; Windows follows in about a month. It talks to your DMX hardware from the same machine — no console, no rack, no server, and nothing that needs the internet during a show.
What do I have to do before a show?
On the first day, add the lights, test each one and sign the room off — the part a tech does once. After that, open Vaib and press Go. There is no per-song preparation and no cue list to write.
What happens when it gets something wrong?
You take over and it keeps helping. Hold a look through a chorus and it hands back at the next phrase; pull a group down and Vaib stays under your limit; ask “calmer, it’s a ballad” and it proposes the change. Every change is one undo step, and Blackout is always one press away.
What about talking, DJs between bands, or an empty room?
Vaib hears the difference between music, speech and near silence and behaves differently for each. In the quiet parts the lights fade with the look — never a cut — and come back with the music. A Style can say which lights stay on when it goes quiet.
Is it safe for photosensitive audiences?
Flash rate is capped by default — you do not have to find a setting and turn it on. The safety policy is applied after everything else, so no Style, phone or request can push past it, and a Manager can switch strobe off for a room entirely.
Does it record my room or my audience?
No sound and no faces leave the computer. Vaib keeps each night as numbers — the levels it heard, what it decided, what it sent — on that computer, so a show can be replayed and tuned. A Manager can switch that off per room, and nothing is shared unless someone exports it.
Free beta — open now
Try it on your own rig. The beta is free.
Request a place and we send you the Mac app, help you patch your first room, and listen to what you think. Run real nights with it before it opens properly.
- Mac now · Windows in about a month
- Free while it is in beta
- A year free after launch for testers