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Getting Started

This walks through everything from signing into IgorBox Studio for the first time to playing your first show on real hardware. If you have a controller in front of you, this should take about thirty minutes.

Step 1 — Sign in​

IgorBox Studio is currently invite-only. If you've ordered hardware and don't have a Studio yet, contact support and we'll set one up for you.

You'll receive an email invitation with a link. Click the link, sign in with email + password (or GitHub or Google), and land in your Studio at https://<your-org>.igorbox.studio.

Step 2 — Add a controller​

  1. From the dashboard, click Add Controller.
  2. Power on your controller and connect it to your network — see Connectivity if it's not already on WiFi.
  3. Read the 8-character setup ID off the controller's display.
  4. Type the setup ID into Studio.
  5. Pick a name (something like "Front Door" or "Coffin Room"), add tags if you want.
  6. Click Provision.

Within a few seconds, the controller appears in your Studio with a green online indicator. Full details: Magic Provision.

Step 3 — Open the controller​

Click the controller in the dashboard. You'll see four tabs:

  • Overview — at-a-glance status, current state, manual control button
  • Configuration — channel names, voltage settings, front button mode, ambient show
  • Provisioning — setup ID and re-provisioning options
  • Technical Details — telemetry from the device

Spend a minute looking around. Don't change anything yet.

Step 4 — Try Manual Control​

Before building a show, verify your wiring works.

  1. Click Manual Control in the controller's Overview tab.
  2. The channel sliders appear. Drag a slider, click a button, watch the channel react.
  3. The front-panel indicator on the controller will follow your input in real time. So will the actual wired load.

When you're done, click End Manual Control. The controller returns to its previous state.

See Manual Control for the full reference.

Step 5 — Make a show​

  1. From the sidebar, click Shows → New Show.
  2. Give it a name and a duration (the default 10 seconds is fine for a first show).
  3. Add the controller you just provisioned to the show's targets.

Now you're in the timeline editor. You'll see a track per channel that the controller has.

Build something​

Drop a clip on a relay channel: switch to Draw tool and click-and-drag in the track. That's an ON pulse. Drag the right edge to extend it. Drag it horizontally to move it.

Drop a lighting envelope on a lighting channel: in Draw mode, click anywhere in the track to place a control point. Each control point is a (time, value) pair; the channel ramps smoothly between them.

Drop an audio clip on the audio track: click the + button on the audio track, pick a media file.

See Timeline Editor: Basics for the full feature tour.

Step 6 — Live Preview​

Before deploying, preview the show on real hardware:

  1. Click Live Preview at the top of the editor.
  2. Hit Play in the transport.
  3. The show plays — on your real controller — with audio, lighting, relays, the works.

Edit the show, hit play again. The change applies on the next playback. This is the fastest iteration loop in show control.

See Live Preview for details.

Step 7 — Deploy​

Once the show is right:

  1. Click Deploy.
  2. Studio packages the show and sends it to each target controller.
  3. The controller acknowledges within a few seconds.

The show is now permanently on the controller. You can trigger it from a Logic Rule, from a webhook, by pressing the front button, or manually from the controller's Overview tab.

Step 8 — Make it run on its own​

The simplest "show triggers automatically" recipe is the ambient routine:

  1. In the controller's Configuration tab, scroll to Ambient Show.
  2. Pick the show you just deployed.
  3. Save.

The controller now plays your show on a loop whenever nothing else is playing.

For input-triggered shows (button press, sensor activation, webhook), see the Logic Rules overview.

What next?​

You've got the skeleton. From here, it's all depth: