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Stardust

Shows, Songs, and Patches

The core mental model of Stardust is a three-level hierarchy:

flowchart LR
    show["Show<br/>top-level production"]
    song["Song<br/>(or Number, Cue, Piece, Track — your choice)"]
    patch["Patch<br/>ordered sequence, advanced via footswitch"]
    show --> song --> patch

Show

A Show is the top-level container — the production you’re playing. Examples: “Hamilton (2026 Production)”, “Hadestown Summer Tour”, “Little Shop of Horrors — Community Theatre.”

A Show owns:

  • Settings: audio device, MIDI device list, channel routing, master volume, click track
  • UI layout: the default Perform-mode arrangement
  • Terminology: what to call sub-items (default Song, but you can use Number, Cue, Piece, Track, Set, Item, or custom)
  • Songs: the ordered list of items in the show

Song

A Song (or whatever you’ve named the unit) is one item in the show — typically one number/song/cue.

A Song owns:

  • Settings overrides (optional — anything not overridden inherits from the Show)
  • UI layout override (optional)
  • Patches: an ordered sequence (see below)
  • Notes: markdown-rendered show notes / lyrics / chord chart
  • Click track config: BPM, time signature, count-in
  • Transpose: pitch shift (semitones)
  • Cues: MIDI-event triggers that fire actions during this Song

Why “Song” and not “Number”? “Number” is musical-theatre / dance-coded. “Song” is universal across all music contexts. The internal name is Song but you can display it as anything per-Show via the Show settings dropdown.

Patch

A Patch is a single sound configuration — the actual instrument(s) you’re playing through. Within a Song, you have an ordered list of patches that you advance through (typically with a footswitch).

Example: in the prologue of Little Shop of Horrors, Keys 2 might be:

  • Patch 1: Whistle sound
  • Patch 2: Celeste bells
  • Patch 3: Sustained pad

You advance through these mid-song with a footswitch. Stardust pre-loads N±1 patches in memory so the switch is instant.

A Patch owns:

  • Settings overrides (optional)
  • UI layout override (optional)
  • VST chain: the plugins active for this patch (instruments + effects)
  • Effects: built-in inserts (EQ, reverb, compression)
  • MIDI mappings: which control sources affect which plugin parameters
  • Transition: how to enter this patch (immediate / fade / crossfade)

Why this hierarchy?

Real musical-theatre keyboardists don’t have a flat list of “sounds” — they have a structured show:

  • A show has a known order of numbers
  • Each number sometimes needs multiple sounds (whistle → bells → pad)
  • Some settings (your MIDI rig, your audio output) are constant across the whole show; setting them once per show, not once per patch, saves hours

This three-level model matches the real workflow: program your rig once at Show level, then design Songs and the Patches within them. Settings cascade down — see Cascading Settings.

Patch transitions

When you advance from Patch N to Patch N+1, several things happen:

  1. All notes held on the outgoing patch are either:
    • Released cleanly (default — sounds natural)
    • Cut immediately (configurable per patch)
    • Carried over to the new patch (rare; for sustained pads)
  2. The new patch’s VST chain is already loaded (we pre-load adjacent patches)
  3. A configurable transition plays — immediate, short fade, or crossfade
  4. MIDI mappings swap to the new patch’s mappings instantly

See Voice Tracking for how this avoids stuck notes between patches.

Direct jump

In addition to next/prev advance, you can:

  • Press 1–9 on the keyboard to jump directly to that patch in the current Song
  • Footswitch jump — assign specific footswitches to specific patches
  • MIDI cue — incoming MIDI message can trigger a patch jump (e.g. conductor’s cue note)

See Patch Sequencing for the full picture.