Help needed improving sequenced light shows

[Mark Scrivener]

Last night I used FreeStyler and Reaper to put on a pre programmed synchronized sound and light show for Halloween and it was a smashing success. I used a midi track inside Reaper to send midi commands to Freestyler that would activate various sequences. Worked like a charm. I even figured out how to manually step sequences via midi so changes could line up with the music.

But there were a few things that confounded me. For example in the "cue" window you can toggle fades on or off for a sequence, but I could not find a midi command to do this. As a result I needed two sequences for each color if I wanted the option of "fade" or "snap". Also there are only 20 sequences that you can trigger via midi, which seemed like a lot at first, but I quickly ran out.

Here is how I had things organized. Hopefully the more experienced out there can point out how to structure this more efficiently.

Rig consisted of 4 RGBAW+UV Pars, and 4 dimmer switches. The dimmers had - flaming cauldron, wind fan, strobes, and a spot par.

I had the following sequences:

Red fade
Red snap
UV fade
UV snap
Amber fade
Amber snap
Green fade
Green snap
Fire red fade
Purple fade

Chase 1 (could be applied to any color)
Chase 2 (could be applied to any color)
Lightning sequence (could be applied over any color)
Lightning flash (erases color)
Lightning flash2 (erases color)

All off (blackout)
Flame on
Wind on
Wind off
Par on

This filled up all 20 sequences in the queue list. Only modifier I figured how to use via midi was to manually step through the sequence. I used this to time my chases. But half this list is just setting all the lights to a particular color (and either fading in or snapping). Seems like there must be a more efficient way to do this via midi than taking up 10 sequence spots.

So please, point me in the right direction so I can improve my approach.
Many thanks in advance,
Mark

[Partyman]

You may be better served by using cuelists or submasters

[Mark Scrivener]

You may be better served by using cuelists or submasters

Yes, but not sure how I control this via midi. For example, there are midi commands "toggle cuelist 1", "toggle cuelist 2", etc, but cuelists have names and I can't figure out which cuelist is "1" vs "2", or how I assign that.

Similar questions with submasters. I can run submaster 1, 2, etc, but how do I select a cue within the submaster to run?

So the real question here is how do I automate this over midi? There are lots of midi commands available, but many of them seem to be geared for using a midi control surface for editing, not for running a fully automated pre-programmed show. Or maybe I just don't understand some of the midi commands. Is there a document that explains what the midi triggerable commands in Freestyler do?