When programming lightshows synced to music, I often create “step beat” effects, where I select four lights, apply an intensity step effect across the four fixtures, and sync the BPM to the beat of the song. If the song is in 4/4, this will create an effect where on beat 1, the first fixture lights up, on beat 2, the second fixture lights up, etc. The tap tempo button in the effects editor is super helpful for this and I’m able to perfectly sync the beat to the music.
However, when playing back the effect in a cuelist, the effect doesn’t quite sync. I’m a rather musical person so I trust that I’m pressing the next cue button on time (I’m able to trigger other cues perfectly in time and it syncs just fine). The issue seems to be that when starting the cue, the effect is off by about -20º. If I set the offset in the advanced tab to 340º, the effect functions exactly as expected in that it perfectly syncs to music. However, when it’s at the default of 0º (aka 360º), the beat doesn’t line up as I would like it to. I can record a video to demonstrate, if you’d like.
It’s possible this is just due to the way the effects function; maybe I’m expecting them to work differently than they do. Since Vista has the offset functionality, there is a workaround to this, allowing it to function as I desire. But I thought I would bring it up, in case this is an actual issue with the timing of starting effects when a cue is played.