Party: your lights, your show

1. Your first light show

You do not need to be a DJ or know music theory. A few lights and one preset are plenty to get started.

Set the stage

Connect hueDynamic to your Hue bridge and select a Hue Entertainment area in Party. If you do not have one yet, create it in the Philips Hue app using your compatible lights. Position the lights in that area to match your room: Party can use those positions to send colour travelling through the space.

1. Open Arrange and tap Add Light. Choose up to ten lights from the selected area.
2. Long-press an empty timeline track to open the preset library at that position.
3. Choose a built-in preset, such as Velvet Bloom, and use Add at tap location. Your effect appears as a coloured block called a clip.
4. Tap Play. You have made your first light show!
5. Tap the clip, choose Edit, and try another colour. Use Stop when you are finished.

For a comfortable first run, lower the show’s brightness in Master and begin with a gentle fade. Follow the light-sensitivity notice shown by the app before using flashing effects.

2. Find your way around

Party has three places to play:

Arrange — compose your show

Place effects along a timeline. Each light has a track, and the playhead shows where you are in the sequence.

Library — your collection of ideas

Find built-in presets and your saved shows, patterns, presets and pad layouts.

Pads — play it live

Launch effects with your fingers. Use a quick accent, hold a colour, or loop a favourite sequence.

A preset is an effect recipe. A clip is an instance of an effect on the timeline. A pattern is a reusable sequence of clips. A show brings your arrangement and its settings together.

The timeline is divided into beats and measures (also called bars). In 4/4, count “one, two, three, four”: that is one measure. BPM means beats per minute — higher numbers mean a faster beat.

3. Build a sequence in Arrange

Think of the timeline as a running order for your lights: a soft opening, a travelling chase, then a colourful finale. Clips farther to the right happen later.

Get around the timeline

• Swipe to move around and pinch to zoom.
• Tap a clip to select it and reveal its edit actions.
• While stopped, drag the playhead to choose where playback begins.
• Use Snap to choose the musical grid spacing for your edits.

Turn one clip into a sequence

Use the selected clip’s actions to move it earlier or later, move it to another light, shorten or lengthen it, or add a repeat. Duplicate makes another copy; Split divides a clip for separate editing. Delete removes the selected clip. Use Undo and Redo as you experiment.

To move several clips together, choose Group, select at least two clips, then Confirm. Editing a grouped clip still edits the clip you tapped. Ungroup before splitting, resizing or repeating individual members.

Play runs the arrangement. Loop repeats through the last measure containing a clip, leaving out empty measures at the end of the editor. Switch it off when you want the sequence to finish. The meter control changes the time signature — leave it at 4/4 while you find your feet.

If a toolbar action is out of view on your phone, swipe the toolbar sideways to reveal more controls.

4. Give each light a part to play

Use All lights lanes for a shared look across the lights in your show. Use individual-light tracks when a lamp deserves its own moment.

For example, put a soft wash on All lights and a short bright accent on one lamp. While that lamp’s clip plays, it takes priority over the shared wash. When it ends, the shared effect can show through again.

What happens when effects overlap?

• Individual-light clips take priority over All lights clips for that light.
• You can have up to three All lights lanes. When they overlap, the higher-priority lane takes over.
• On the same lane, the later-starting clip takes over from an earlier overlapping clip.

These are priorities, so overlapping clips do not simply blend their colours together. If an effect seems hidden, check what else is playing on that light.

Use Mute to leave a track out, or Solo to focus on a track while you work. Reordering light tracks also changes the sequence used by effects whose light order is set to Track order.

5. Choose your effect

Built-in presets are ready-made starting points. The effect family decides how the lights behave; your colours and settings give that movement its personality.

Simple ADSR

Shape a flash, glow or fade over time. Use a single colour or shape the red, green and blue channels separately for changing colours.

Position Chase

Send pulses from light to light. Great for a ripple around the room.

Radial Pulse

Let a ring of light bloom from a point in the room. Try it for a broad, rolling accent.

Spatial Wash

Move bands of colour through the room. A lovely foundation underneath shorter accents.

Bouncing Scan

Send a focused beam back and forth between your lights. Add a trail for a softer finish.

Streak

Let meteors travel through the lights with glowing tails. Lower the probability for occasional shooting stars.

Twinkle

Scatter individual sparkles. Try a restrained palette for a starry atmosphere.

Breathing Fade

Brighten and fade the room in gentle breaths. Ideal when you want movement without a busy look.

Volume Gate Wash

Use live sound to open a wash of colour and let it linger as the music falls. Enable Reactive music mode for audio response.

Frequency Burst

Create rhythmic colour bursts, with extra punch from a chosen part of the music in Reactive mode.

Try Neon Domino for a chase, Aurora Drift for a wash, or Starlight Scatter for twinkles. For a simpler colour envelope, start with Ice Strike, Neon Pulse or Velvet Bloom.

6. Colours, movement and timing

Select a clip and choose Edit to open its inspector. Start with Theme, then explore Properties and Audio. Controls vary with the effect, so you only see settings that apply to it.

Pick your palette

In Theme, choose a palette or edit its colours, and set the clip’s brightness. You can add and remove palette colours, use your own ambience, and copy and paste a palette between effects. Two or three colours are a great starting point: try violet and cyan, or amber and warm pink.

For Simple ADSR, Single Colour keeps the colour fixed while you shape brightness. Multi-Colour uses separate red, green and blue envelopes to change the colour over the effect.

Shape the effect

In Properties, try the effect family and its movement controls. Use the timing graph to shape the effect visually. Where available, Preview lets you audition the selected clip on your lights without playing the whole arrangement.

Changing families can change which settings make sense. In Settings → Party, choose whether to ask each time, apply recommended settings, or keep existing settings. Recommended settings are a useful fresh start.

7. Catch the beat and react to music

Party can run a planned sequence, keep time with a beat, or add live audio response. Play your music as usual and choose how your lights should join in.

Choose the show’s music mode

Music: Off

Effects use their authored timeline timing and ignore live music and BPM-based triggers.

Music: Tempo

Beat-based effects follow the show’s BPM. Playback does not need the microphone.

Music: Reactive

Beat-based effects follow BPM, and audio-reactive clips also respond to the microphone.

Music mode applies to the whole show. Each clip’s Audio settings decide how that particular effect uses it. The Use Reactive action in a clip’s Audio page switches the whole show to Reactive.

Find the tempo

1. Open the BPM controls. Set a tempo manually if you know it, or use Tap tempo and tap steadily with the music.
2. Alternatively, choose Detect BPM, allow microphone access, and let it listen to a clear stretch of music.
3. Review the result. If it feels twice as fast or half as fast, try the Half or Double choice. You can listen again or keep the current tempo.
4. Use Resync to beat on a beat to line things up. Use Resync to measure on the “one” at the start of a bar.

Tempo detection locks a BPM for your show. If the song changes tempo or drifts, tap or detect again and resync.

Give each clip a musical role

In the clip’s Audio page, choose a trigger:

• Timeline: use the clip’s own timing and ignore the microphone, even in Reactive mode.
• Beat Accent: use the Beat interval and show BPM in Tempo or Reactive mode. In Reactive, the chosen frequency band also changes its strength.
• Volume Gate: in Reactive mode, open the effect when the chosen frequency band exceeds its Threshold. In Off or Tempo it follows normal timeline timing.

Beat interval chooses the musical window: shorter notes make quicker accents, longer notes create broader phrases. Repeats divides that window into additional effect starts.

Choose Bass for kicks and bass lines, Midrange for vocals and many melodies, High for hi-hats and cymbals, or Full spectrum for the overall mix. A higher Threshold favours stronger sounds. Reactive depth controls how much the audio influences the effect: zero keeps its authored brightness; full depth follows the audio fully.

8. Perform live with Pads

Pads turn your favourite lighting ideas into an instrument. There are two banks of eight pads, giving you sixteen slots to make your own.

1. Add lights in Arrange first, then open Pads.
2. Choose Edit and tap a pad to assign it.
3. Pick a preset or a saved pattern. Choose All show lights or specific lights.
4. Choose how it launches, its grid timing, and an easy-to-recognise name and colour.
5. Finish editing with Done, then play!

Play once

One tap plays the effect once. Perfect for a fill or a little “ta-da!” moment.

Hold to play

Keep your finger down to keep the effect running. Lift it to finish.

Tap to loop

Tap once to keep the effect looping, then tap again to stop it.

Launch quantisation makes a pad wait for the chosen grid point, helping effects land together. If a tap feels slightly delayed, check that setting — it may be waiting for its cue.

If you see “Primed! Tap again to play”, Party has prepared the lighting connection. Tap again to launch. You can play pads live without first building a complete timeline.

Use the bank arrows for more pads. Assign a shared wash to one pad and individual-light accents to others; individual-light effects can override a pad targeting All show lights.

9. Record a performance

Found a pad performance you love? Punch recording captures your pad launches as clips you can keep in Arrange. It records lighting cues, not an audio file of the song.

1. Set up your pads and tempo, then open the Punch controls in Pads.
2. Choose Loop range to record over the complete arrangement loop, or New measures to start at the measure containing the playhead and extend into new measures as you perform.
3. Choose Overdub to add the take alongside existing clips, or Replace to remove existing clips that conflict with the new take.
4. Start recording, follow the count-in, and play your pads. Stop recording when you have your phrase.
5. Review the take, then choose Keep Take to merge it into the arrangement or Discard to try again.

Kept recordings become editable clips. Tidy their timing, change their colours, or turn the best phrase into a pattern. Undo Take is available when the kept take is the next edit that can be undone.

Replace can remove an existing conflicting clip as a whole, so review the result carefully. Clear clears the current punch capture, not clips you have already kept in the arrangement.

10. Save, reuse and remix

Library is where a good experiment becomes something you can return to.

Shows

Save and name the complete show, then open it from Library next time. Use New song when you want to start another idea, and respond to the save prompt if your current show has changes.

Presets

Reusable settings for one effect. Create or edit presets in Library. Editing a built-in preset creates a custom copy, leaving the original ready to use again.

Patterns

Reusable sequences of clips, including phrases that involve several lights.

Pad layouts

Save your pad assignments so your favourite performance setup is easy to load again.

Capture a pattern

1. In Arrange, choose New Pattern.
2. Select the clips you want. Use Range and drag across the ruler to select a whole-measure range.
3. Choose Save Pattern, give it a name, and save it as a new pattern or explicitly replace an existing one.
4. Find it in Library and choose Add to Arrangement, or assign it to a pad.

When inserting a pattern with individual-light lanes, map those lanes to the lights you want to use. This lets the same phrase take on a different character with a new light assignment.

Library items are stored locally. Saving a named show is separate from Party retaining your current workspace: save the versions you want to return to rather than relying only on where you left off.

The app’s Backup feature can include Party shows, patterns, effect presets and pad layouts. Use it to keep a copy of your saved collection; when importing, review any conflicts before replacing existing items.

11. Master controls and preferences

Master changes the feel of the whole show. Start with its brightness control; use the audio controls when a Reactive show needs tuning.

Brightness

Raise or lower the whole show without editing each clip.

Sensitivity

Make quieter sounds register more strongly.

Threshold

Filter quiet sounds from gates and bursts.

Smoothing

Steady the live audio response. More smoothing also makes it slower to react.

Reactive depth

Adjust the overall influence of audio on reactive clips.

Attack and Release

Control how quickly the show responds to rising sound and how gently it settles as sound falls.

The live input meter helps you judge what the microphone hears. Adjust one setting at a time and listen to a similar part of the song as you compare.

Use Settings → Party to choose what happens when you change effect family: ask each time, apply recommended settings, or keep existing settings. Where offered in the editor, resetting Properties restores the effect’s recommended settings while keeping Theme and Audio settings.

12. Three ideas to try tonight

The living-room sunset

Start with a Spatial Wash on All lights. Pick amber, pink and violet, keep brightness comfortable, and use broad colour bands. Add an occasional Twinkle on one lamp. No microphone needed: let the room drift.

The chorus lift

Use a gentle wash as your foundation. Assign a Position Chase to a pad set to Play once, choose the lights you want it to travel through, and launch it when the chorus arrives. Try grid launch timing to land on the beat.

Your own eight-bar hook

Set a comfortable tempo, choose New measures and use Overdub. Record a few pad accents over eight measures, stop and keep the take, then edit one or two colours in Arrange. Save the phrase as a pattern and bring it back in your next show.

13. A little help when you need it