Quickstart

Goal: get media into the matrix, trigger it, put it on a second display, and save your work. About ten minutes.

Everything in this walkthrough uses the state a new set starts in, so it works whether you just installed the app or just pressed ⌘N.

1. What you are looking at

A new set opens with one bank called Bank 1, four layers, and ten columns. Open it with ⌘N (or File → New set).

• The first six columns arrive populated with generator clips; columns seven through ten are empty.
• Layers are named Layer 4 down to Layer 1, top row first, and the third layer is selected.
• The composition is 1280 × 720 and tempo starts at 120 BPM.
• The window opens at 1600 × 980 and can shrink to 1180 × 760.

The window has four working areas: the library sidebar on the left, the clip matrix filling the middle, the row of Preview / Inspector / Output panels along the bottom, and the footer of transport controls at the very bottom.

For the full map of the window, see Interface tour.

2. Trigger a clip

Click any populated tile. It starts playing on its layer.

One habit matters before anything else: the right-hand 40% and top 50% of a tile is its preview zone. Clicking there auditions the clip in the Preview monitor instead of sending it to output. Click the rest of the tile to trigger it live. There is a visible divider marking the boundary.

Generator clips loop by default, so they will keep playing until you trigger another clip on the same layer or clear the layer.

3. Import your own media

Press ⌘I, click Import media in the library sidebar, or click an empty tile.

Select one or more files. Multiple files land in successive columns on the selected layer, so dropping in six clips fills six columns. Insertion can grow the grid and append an empty trailing column. Explicitly removing the last empty column can leave the last column occupied; use Add column in the Composition structure editor when needed.

Original files are never moved or copied. A set stores paths to your media.

Newly imported media triggers automatically on the first import. That setting — Trigger newly imported media — is on by default and can be turned off in Settings → General.

Supported formats are broad: anything AVFoundation can read, plus a whitelist handled by the bundled LGPL FFmpeg build. See Media formats.

4. Look at the Inspector

Click a clip once to select it. The bottom row becomes active: the Preview monitor on the left, the Inspector in the middle, and the Output monitor on the right.

The Inspector is scoped. Pick Clip, Layer or Master at the top, and the tabs below change:

• Clip scope offers Transform, Color, Effects, Audio and Transport. Source appears additionally for native text or shader clips.
• Layer and Master scopes offer Transform, Color, Effects and Layer.

Try it: with a clip selected, open Effects, click Add, choose Color correction, and drag Saturation. Trigger that clip to see its changes in program output. Use the eye for independent Preview audition.

See The effect stack for how ordering and blending work.

5. Put it on a real screen

Choose Performance → Fullscreen output, then pick your display.

Each entry reads DISPLAY NAME · WIDTH × HEIGHT. A menu entry with · current composition appended means that display's native mode cannot be matched — either the mode is not verifiable, or one of its dimensions exceeds 4096 pixels. In that case the composition keeps its own size and is scaled to the display.

The fullscreen output window is video-only and covers the entire chosen screen including menu and Dock. The console stays usable on any other display; Escape closes the output.

For building the set up before showtime without a second display, use Performance → Open windowed output instead — same picture, resizable window.

6. Save your set

Press ⌘S. The first save asks for a location and writes a .uvj file. Afterwards ⌘S saves in place.

Recovery is built in and on by default:

• Ultimate VJ autosaves every 30 seconds to ~/Library/Application Support/ULTIMATEVJ/Autosave.uvj whenever there are unsaved changes.
• It restores that autosave on launch. Launch once with --fresh to skip the restore.
• Opening or creating another set while you have unsaved changes writes a recovery copy into ~/Library/Application Support/ULTIMATEVJ/Recovery/ first.

7. Two things worth switching on now

File audio is off by default. If you want sound from your clips, enable it in Settings → Clip audio → File playback → Enable file audio. It stays off by design because it changes the audio footprint of the app; see File audio.

Nothing listens to your microphone by default. If you want music-driven visuals, go to Settings → Audio input → Enable audio input. The app will then request microphone permission.

8. Turn on the extras when you need them

Three subsystems are opt-in and start disabled:

Where to next

• Sets, banks, layers and clips — the mental model
• Clips and transport — cue points, trim, playback modes
• Tempo, Link and quantization — beat-syncing everything
• Output mapping — projecting onto angled or irregular surfaces