Tutorial: Beat Link Trigger

Overview

Beat Link Trigger is an open-source project that monitors tempo and beat information from Pioneer DJ devices on a local network. This can be used to synchronize the metronome of LX Studio.

Installation

Download and install Beat Link Trigger here: https://github.com/Deep-Symmetry/beat-link-trigger

Pre-built releases are available for Mac/Windows: https://github.com/Deep-Symmetry/beat-link-trigger/releases

Configure LX Studio

Configure LX Studio to receive OSC messages.

Set the clock source in the toolbar to OSC.

Configure Beat Link Trigger

First, from the gear icon select Edit Setup Expression and enter the following:

(swap! locals assoc :lx (osc/osc-client "localhost" 3030))

Note that you may substitute localhost and 3030 if LX Studio is running on a different machine or OSC settings.

Next, select Edit Beat Expression and enter the following:

(when trigger-active?
  (osc/osc-send (:lx @locals) "/lx/tempo/beat" beat-within-bar)
  (osc/osc-send (:lx @locals) "/lx/tempo/setBPM" effective-tempo))

The first osc-send call sends an active beat, and the second one sends the tempo. Typically LX Studio applications will want to receive both, but it is possible to only send one or the other if desired.

Finally, repeat this process for Edit Shutdown Expression and enter the following to close the OSC client:

(osc/osc-close (:lx @locals))