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Your Workspace

Liquid LSD has a lot going on, but it's organized around a handful of core ideas. Once those click, everything else makes sense.

Watch: Overview — open the guided tour

The window
Decks and sources
Knobs and crossfaders
FX chains
Edit view
Library and themes

The Library & What It Controls

The Library panel spans the left and middle columns of the app. That column has four views:

  • Perform — The Performance rows sit above the Library, which fills the rest of the window. This is the everyday view for playing a set.
  • Edit — Open a row's Edit and the Library goes away completely. That row and its parameters fill the column, so you have room to fine-tune presets and FX. To swap a deck's source or FX, click its source badge, chain name or slot (this opens the pair view, described in Presets & Library) or use the controls on the row itself. Press Esc or click the row's Collapse button to get back to Perform.
  • Pair view — Click a deck's source badge, an FX chain name or slot, a preview monitor or the transition name and the Library goes away too: that deck's SRC and FX rows stay on screen with the browser below. Press Esc or Back to return to Perform. See Presets & Library.
  • Library — The Library fills the whole column and the Performance rows are hidden. Use this when you're building or editing playlists and queues.

Press Space (when the cursor isn't in a text field) or the button at the right of the Library's title bar to switch between Perform and Library. From Edit, Space, Ctrl+F or / closes Edit (cancelling any armed Add Target or Learn) and brings the Library back.

The Performance rows have a fixed height, so the Library gets whatever window height they leave: a taller window means a taller Library.

The Library contains your Presets, Playlists, and A/B Queues — not shaders (those are managed separately under Preferences → Shader Locations).

The Four Decks

Liquid LSD uses four independent rendering decks — think of them like channels on a mixer, each running its own visual independently:

  • Deck A & Deck B — Your two main stage decks. These go through the crossfader and blend modes, so you can mix between them in real time.

  • Deck BG (Background) — Renders behind Decks A and B. Good for subtle textures or dark ambient fields that sit underneath your main visuals.

  • Deck PV (Preview) — A fully independent audition deck that never outputs to the master. Use it to quietly load and preview a preset on your monitor before pushing it live. It runs the complete visual and modulation chain, so what you see is exactly what you'll get.

Each deck is completely independent — its own visual source, its own effects chain, its own feedback loop, and its own modulation.

Signal Flow

Here's how audio becomes visuals:

  1. Audio in → The DSP engine analyses your track in real time, splitting it into frequency bands and tracking the beat.
  2. CV modulation → Those audio signals become control voltages that can drive any visual parameter.
  3. Visual generators → Each deck runs a visual source (Mandala, a shader, external video, etc.) using those CV signals to shape what renders.
  4. FX & Feedback → Each deck has two post-processing effect slots and an internal feedback loop that layers and trails the image over time.
  5. Mixer → Deck A and B blend together through a crossfader and blend modes, sitting over the BG layer.
  6. Output → The master output goes to your screen, projector, or other apps.

The Performance Panel (Left & Middle)

The top of the left and middle columns is the Perform view: a 4×4 grid of macro knobs, one row per deck or section, with tabs across the top (A/B, BG/PV and MIXER). Click a deck row's generator badge to change its visual source.

For full control, open a row's Edit (the chevron on the row, or click a deck monitor in the Mixer and press Parameters). Edit has three columns:

  • Side rail — [MIX] [A] [B] [BG] [PV] to jump between channels.
  • Parameter grid — every row is a visual parameter (like "Lobes", "Zoom", or "Hue") and each column is a modulation source (manual value, MIDI, LFO, sequencer, audio). Click a cell to configure that connection. See Modulation for the full guide.
  • Modulation — the details of the selected cell: waveform controls for LFOs, band selectors for audio, step patterns for the sequencer, etc., with a live oscilloscope of the signal going to the parameter.

See Macro Controls & the Perform View for the knobs and Edit in detail.

Themes

Liquid LSD has two color themes: Grey Acid (dark, the default) and Orange Sunshine (light). Switch between them in Preferences → General → Theme (Ctrl+P); the choice is remembered between sessions.

The Mixer (Right Panel)

The right panel shows: - Live previews of each deck - The crossfader between Deck A and Deck B - Level controls for each deck - Master output monitor - Blend mode selector

Clicking a deck monitor opens that deck's pair view (its SRC and FX rows plus the browser); clicking the master monitor does the same for Master. Press Parameters there for the full Edit.

Macro knobs are edited in the Performance rows' Edit view, where each knob gets a target strip for choosing what it controls. See Macro Controls & the Perform View.

The Library

The Library spans the lower portion of the left and middle columns and holds your Presets, Playlists, and A/B Queues. See Presets & Library for the full guide.

Global Shortcuts

A few keyboard shortcuts work anywhere in the app:

Key What it does
Space Switch the Library between Half (Perform) and Full; from Edit, close it and bring the Library back (when cursor isn't in a text field)
F Output View — hides the UI, pure video output
Esc Exit Output View
F11 Toggle fullscreen for the main window (UI stays visible)
B Toggle background video rendering behind the UI
Ctrl+Z Undo the last parameter/modulator change (30-step history)
Ctrl+S Save the preset of the deck open in Edit
Ctrl+R Start / stop recording
Ctrl+P Open Preferences
Ctrl+F or / Jump to the search box of the open Library tab
T Tap tempo
Ctrl+Shift+O Toggle OSC map mode (click any OSC-learnable control to map it)
Ctrl+- / Ctrl+= Make the Library preset names smaller / larger
Caps Lock Toggle the touch console controller
Q / Shift+Q Add the selected Library item to the A/B queue / BG queue
Up / Down Move the selection in the Library lists and queues
Delete Delete the selected user preset, or remove the selected queue item
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V Copy / paste a modulation cell or row in Edit

Every shortcut except Caps Lock and Space can be rebound in Preferences → Shortcuts. Shortcuts are ignored while you are typing in a text field.

Glossary

Term Meaning
Source A stock ISF shader or an external video input. External video can't be saved as a preset.
Preset A Source you configured, named and saved.
Edit The parameter editor for one row: parameter grid, modulators and Modulation.
Bank A saved set of macro knob targets (Library → Macros → Banks). Perform pages (Library → Macros → Pages) are saved row layouts.
A/B Queue / BG Queue The auto-VJ queues feeding Decks A/B and the Background deck. FX and Transitions have their own queues.
Level A deck's or the Master's output opacity.
XF Crossfader row: the crossfade and transition shader.
W/D Per-deck FX chain wet/dry.
Mapping A hardware (MIDI/OSC) control tied to a parameter. A macro knob's targets are the parameters it drives (no hardware involved).
Bypass / Mute Bypass turns off an FX chain or shader; Mute turns off a modulator.