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Every key can have a light of its own, on every layer, and every layer except Default can have a colour. Keep Play / Pause orange all the time, colour your Lightroom profile blue, or switch off the keys you don’t use on a layer. The pad keeps them, like your keys and the dial, so they work without Studio and on any computer.

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Light a key

1

Pick the layer

Select it in the sidebar: Default, a profile, or a pad layer such as Connections & LEDs.
2

Select the key

Click it on the drawn pad. To light several keys at once, ⌘-click to add or remove one, ⇧-click to select a run of keys, or press ⌘A for all 16.
3

Open the Light tab

In the inspector, click Light, beside Action. It stays open as you move from key to key. While it’s open, the drawn pad shows each key’s light round its edge.
4

Choose a light

Click a tile. The pad changes straight away.
The line under the grid says where Layer gets its light from: the layer, a layer below it such as Default, or the pad’s own lighting. There’s nothing to save, and ⌘Z takes a change back, however many keys it covered. To start a layer over, click Clear key lights on this layer at the bottom of the tab: every key on it goes back to Layer. The dial has no light under it. Selected with keys, it’s left out.

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Give a layer a colour

Every layer except Default has Colour in the bar above the drawn pad, next to Dial. The layer’s keys show that colour while the layer is on, apart from keys with a light of their own.
1

Select the layer

A profile, one of an app’s layers if it has several, or a pad layer such as Connections & LEDs.
2

Click Colour

It’s in the bar above the drawn pad.
3

Pick a colour

The pad changes straight away, and ⌘Z takes it back.
A profile’s colour shows while its app is in front, and an app’s layer shows its own while the pad is on it. A pad layer’s shows while you hold or switch to it. The square next to each layer in the sidebar, and on each of an app’s tabs, shows its colour. Profiles you made before firmware 0.8.0 keep their colour. Studio moves it onto the pad the first time it meets the new firmware.

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Default’s colour is Lights

Default has no Colour. Its colour is the pad’s own lighting, which also shows under every layer without a colour of its own. Set it with Lights in Default’s bar: see Lights. From any other layer, Open Lights on Default at the bottom of the Colour menu takes you there.

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Brightness

A key or layer light has no brightness of its own. Every colour shows at the brightness set in Lights, so the dial, the brightness keys and the menu bar slider dim and brighten it too. It fades out with the rest of the pad when the pad is idle, and comes back with your next key press. If you switched the pad’s lights off, no colour shows. A key or layer light never switches them on.

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What each key shows

For each key, the pad goes down this list and stops at the first answer:
  1. The lights are off, or resting. The key is dark.
  2. You’re changing the pad’s own lighting. While Lights is open in Studio, and for about 3 seconds after you change the colour, effect or speed with the pad’s keys or the dial, every key shows the pad’s own lighting, so you see what you change.
  3. The top layer that’s on. The key’s own light on that layer, then the layer’s colour. Layer, Same as below and Pad lighting pass the question to the layer below.
  4. The pad’s own lighting, when no layer sets a light for the key.
Some examples:

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Without Studio

The pad keeps every light about 2 seconds after your last change. Default’s and a pad layer’s lights work on any computer, with nothing running. A profile’s lights show only while Studio has the pad on that profile, like the profile’s keys: quit Studio, or move the pad to another computer, and the pad goes back to Default.
Key and layer lights need MinimalPad firmware 0.8.0 or newer. On older firmware the Light tab asks you to update, and a profile has Pad colour instead of Colour: a colour Studio sends with each app switch, with a brightness of its own. Studio for Mac installs the newer firmware for you.