Set up the audio

The interface, the outputs, the click to the drummer — the internal routing of the rig.

BarBeatCue plays through one audio device. Which of its outputs each sound leaves by is up to you: stems to the front of house, the click to the drummer's in-ears, a spoken guide to whoever wants it. This page walks the routing from the device outward.

The device

BarBeatCue ▸ Settings…, the Audio page:

• Output device — the interface the engine plays through. An aggregate device works too. Rescan reads the list again after you plug something in. Changing it reloads the song on the new device. If the device you chose is not connected, the system's default output plays until it is — and the preflight says so.
• Sample rate — set it to the rate your stems were made at. If the device runs at another rate, the stems are converted once at load; the page shows the difference and a Switch device to… button.
• IO buffer — an armed start, a footswitch or incoming timecode lands within one buffer. Changing it restarts the engine, so the transport stops.

These three are this Mac's, not the show's: a show opened on another Mac plays through that Mac's device. The click and guide outputs and the master volumes below are the show's: Setlist ▸ Show Settings…, the Audio page.

Groups and tracks to outputs

In the Mixer every track and every group has an Output menu:

• Inherit — plays where its group plays; with no group above it, on outputs 1–2.
• A pair (3–4, 5–6, …) or one channel.

An orange dot on the menu means the route points past the device's outputs — the sound then plays on 1–2 instead, which is the front of house, so fix it before the show.

The click to the drummer

Show Settings › Audio › Click output picks the pair the click leaves by — "the drummer's ears on this rig". It lives in the show's own settings (Setlist ▸ Show Settings…), not this Mac's, so a show on a rig with the drummer on outputs 3–4 always puts the click there. The click itself is switched on and off with Click on the control bar (K).

A click routed past the device's outputs plays on 1–2 — in the front of house. The preflight calls that a problem, because it is the one routing mistake the audience hears.

The spoken guide

The Guide is a voice that says each part's name ahead of it and counts the count-in aloud. In Show Settings › Audio it has its own Guide output and Guide level, and a choice of how early it says the part. For a much better voice than the default, download a Premium one in System Settings › Accessibility › Spoken Content › System Voice › Manage Voices…

Sound check

Band ▸ Sound Check… walks every output the song uses, one after the other: the click's, the guide's when it has its own, then each group and track as the Mixer lists them. On each it plays a second of pink noise and a second of a 1 kHz tone at −18 dBFS — on that output alone — and the guide's voice says what it is: "Kick, outputs 3 and 4". The Mixer strip lights meanwhile, and the band's screens say "Sound check: Kick". It goes on by itself; untick Go on by itself to stay on each output while the desk sets a gain (Repeat ⌥⌘↩, Next ⌥⌘→, Previous ⌥⌘←, Stop ⌥⌘S). An output past the device's outputs is listed with a dot and not played. Never while playing — Play ends it.

Master volumes

The master section of the Mixer has a volume and a meter for the output pair you choose in its menu — one pair at a time. They are the rig's monitoring, not the song's: ⌥-click a volume to put it back to 0 dB.

One more thing: a DAW on the same Mac

If a DAW (Ableton Live, Logic, Pro Tools…) runs on the same Mac and provides the timecode, the rig plays through an aggregate device that holds your interface and BlackHole 2ch. BarBeatCue makes it for you; see timecode and sync.

Check it

Play a song and watch the meters in the Mixer. File ▸ Preflight… also checks, for every song, that its routes exist on the current device. Bring the audio interface to the soundcheck on the same Mac you will play from — the device is the one thing the show file does not carry.