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Building a song show: from intro to drop

A good song show retells the song: it starts small, opens up in the chorus, takes a breath in the middle and saves the brightest moment for the end. Droplit builds this arc by itself. Once you know how it works, you can fix things with more purpose.

Big changes belong on the one

Music is built in phrases, mostly 4, 8 or 16 bars. Big look changes belong at the start of a phrase or a new song part. Within a phrase, only effects on the beat keep running. A change in the middle of a phrase feels clumsy.

Part by part

The percentages are starting values for brightness. Check them on your own rig.

Intro: little light, one color family, heads still or moving slowly. No strobe. Fixtures join in one by one.
Verse: around 40 %, one or two colors. The look holds for the whole phrase.
Pre-chorus: brightness rises, movement picks up a little, the color palette narrows.
Chorus: 70 to 80 %, richer colors, all fixtures can join in. Each repeat gets one step bigger.
Bridge: pull right back, one color, hardly any movement, no strobe. This is the breather before the end.
Last chorus: the biggest moment, up to 100 %.
End: as calm as the intro, so the next song can start cleanly.

Identical song parts can look identical. The crowd recognizes the chorus, and that's part of the show.

Build-up and drop

In club music, the sequence of breakdown, build-up and drop often replaces verse and chorus. Build tension through brightness, density and tighter movement. You don't need very fast flashing for that.

Just before the drop comes a short moment of darkness: heads and strobe off, with a dim base light left on. On the one come a contrast color or white, one or two hard hits, then the effects on the beat. In the breakdown it gets dark and calm again.

What happens inside a part

Light works best when it follows single instruments:

Kick: a soft pulse on washes and uplights.
Snare and clap: short accents, ideally on small fixtures or tubes.
Hi-hats: quick little chases, in loud parts only.
Vocals: calm looks with little flicker.
Single hard hits: one flash. When the band stops, the light goes dark.

Effect speed follows the energy: calm parts change every two beats or every bar, verses on quarter notes, choruses on quarters or eighths.

If something goes wrong

Changes and flashes are off the beat: usually the beatgrid isn't quite right. Correct it in SoundSwitch, save, and open the song again.

Step by step

Open the song and tap a mood. It builds the whole arc.
Check the part cards. If something's off, correct it at the bottom of the part under “Are the parts right?”.
Tap a chorus and leave “All chorus parts the same” on. “How strong?” sets energy and movement for those parts only.
For the bridge, choose a calmer mood or “Calmer: …”, and take groups out under “Which lights join in?”.
Under “Special moments”, choose “Strong” or “Subtle”, see Special moments.
Hold on to parts you like with “Lock” and save with “Save to SoundSwitch”. More in Adjusting song parts.