Products
Helm is one brand across software, hardware, and cloud. Five pieces, one protocol: the desktop apps and hardware speak Helm Protocol on the show network, and Helm App gives the whole team a home for everything that happens off the clock.
Helm DJ
Section titled “Helm DJ”The deck bridge. A macOS desktop app that sits between Pioneer CDJs and the rest of your rig — it listens to Pro DJ Link on the local network, follows every deck in real time, and turns what the DJ does into signals the rest of the show can consume.
- Live Pro DJ Link tracking — deck state, BPM, beat grid, playing track
- LTC and MTC output locked to the playing deck
- Per-track cues that fire MIDI notes/CC at set points
- Track assignments mapping the DJ’s library to your show content
- Signal pipeline monitoring so you can see every hop from deck to desk
- Auto-updates served from the Helm website (how that works)
Platform/stack: macOS desktop app — Tauri, SvelteKit frontend, Rust core. Status: closed beta.
Helm Cues
Section titled “Helm Cues”The show surface. A desktop app for building cue sequences and firing them against live timecode — the session master the rest of the rig connects to.
- Cue lists organised into tracks, fired on timecode
- LTC/MTC timecode input and output — master or slave
- Session master on Helm Protocol: hardware and clients join, sync, and follow
- Bidirectional grandMA2 sync via a Lua plugin polling Cues over HTTP (default port 8765)
- MA3 track-navigation plugin in development alongside
- MIDI and OSC outputs
Platform/stack: macOS and Windows desktop app — Tauri, SvelteKit frontend, Rust core. Status: rebuild in progress; docs land as it does.
Helm Clock
Section titled “Helm Clock”The timing fabric. Dedicated hardware that generates, distributes, and monitors timecode for the whole rig — LTC/MTC in and out, audio routing, and Helm Protocol on the network.
- SMPTE LTC and MTC processing at 24/25/30 fps
- Priority-based multi-source sync with jitter suppression and re-clocking
- Separate audio paths: playback audio on RCA/minijack, LTC only on XLR
- Sub-millisecond timing owned by a Rust daemon (
helm-timekeeperd) - 7-segment timecode readout plus OLED menu and rotary encoder
- Joins the show network over Helm Protocol
Platform/stack: Raspberry Pi-based hardware; Rust timing daemon on the shared helm-timecode crate, Python control plane.
Status: prototype — first on-device deployment in progress.
Helm App
Section titled “Helm App”The cloud home. A collaboration and media-review platform for the whole production team — projects, files, track lists, timestamped feedback, and public show pages. All timecode and live playback stays on the desktop; Helm App is where the team works before and after the show.
- Projects with team roles, activity feeds, and file versioning
- Track packs and show data shared between the team and the desktop apps
- Media review with timestamped comments on video and audio
- Public read-only show pages on a shareable link
- Desktop integration — import/export bundles with Helm DJ and Helm Cues
- Downloads hub for the desktop apps and plugins
Platform/stack: web app at app.helm.show — Next.js.
Status: active development.
Helm Protocol
Section titled “Helm Protocol”The wire format that makes everything above behave as one system. A QUIC-based protocol for sub-millisecond timecode distribution, show data sync, and device management — with a Rust SDK for building your own SLP-speaking hardware.
- QUIC transport: datagrams for timecode, reliable streams for control and sync
- Zero-config discovery via mDNS, UDP broadcast fallback
- Master/client sessions with token auth and role-based permissions
- 26-byte timecode packets targeting <1ms end-to-end latency
- Rust workspace (
slp-core,slp-client) plus C FFI bindings (slp-ffi)
Platform/stack: Rust, with a C ABI for other languages. Status: pre-release; crate rename planned before first crates.io publication.