Playing a Show
Once your cues and chases are programmed, you play the show from the Group Pool and the Toolbar: start and stop cues, chases and whole rows of chases, at the tempo you set.
The Clock
Everything runs on one clock, shown in the toolbar:
| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| BPM | The tempo, in beats per minute. Cue and chase durations are in bars of 4 beats, so they follow it |
| Play state (playing, paused) | Click it, or press Space, to pause or resume the show. Paused, cues and chases freeze where they are; your lights keep their current values |
| Tap Tempo | Click it on the beat a few times to set the BPM from your taps |
Pausing is how you freeze a moving look to check it, or hold the rig during a speech, without losing your place in a chase: output keeps running, your lights keep their current values, and a fader you move is sent right away. How bars, BPM and quantize fit together: Timing and playback.
Cues
In a group's Cue Pool (Scenes describes it), click a cue's body to start it, and again to stop it. A playing cue shows its progress. A One Shot cue stops by itself at the end of its Duration; a scene's look then stays on stage. A Loop cue runs until you stop it.
Several cues of a group can play together; when they set the same channel, the last one to write it wins. In the preview, play Warm wash, then Rainbow: the heads keep Warm wash's aim and zoom, and Rainbow takes over their colour. Play Ballyhoo too and it takes the aim. Click each again to stop it.
Chases
In the group pool, click a chase's play button to start it, and again to stop it. A chase starts on its Quantize boundary (the next bar with 1/1), and starting it stops the group's other chase. The chase shows its progress while it plays.
To stop every chase of a group, click the play button of an empty slot in that group's column.
The preview plays Story to its end: 16 s at 120 BPM, a new cue every 2 bars, then stops it.
Master Rows
The Master column on the right of the group pool plays a whole row: its play button starts the chase on that row in every group at once, and a second click stops them. Put the chases that belong together on the same row (a verse look in row 1 of every group, a chorus in row 2) to change the whole rig with one click.
With one group, a master row does what the group's own play button does; it pays off with several groups. Say Heads and PARs each have a verse chase in row 0 and a chorus in row 1: row 0 of the master plays both verses together, row 1 both choruses, on the same bar.
Group Controls
Under each group's chases:
- the activity meter (five dots) shows how much the group is outputting;
- the dimmer knob, Isolate and Blackout are saved with the show.
Note: In this release, the group dimmer knob, Isolate and Blackout don't change what the group outputs yet, and the master column's knob and buttons do nothing. Stop the group's cues and chases to darken it (Known limitations).
Running a Show
A simple way to run a night:
- Program one group per kind of light, and on each, one chase per song part (intro, verse, chorus…), on the same rows across groups.
- Set the BPM from the music with Tap Tempo before the first song, and keep each chase's Quantize on 1/1.
- Start each part from its master row a little before it begins: it lands on the next bar.
- Keep a scene for the stops (a blackout, a warm wash for speeches) in each group's cue pool, to click by hand between songs.