Set up the network

One WiFi network for the Mac and every screen — the part of the rig that is not on the Mac.

The Mac is the rig. Each musician's iPad or iPhone (BarBeatCue Satellite) and each Apple TV (BarBeatCue Display) finds it on the local network and follows its clock. Nothing goes through the internet.

What you need

• One network that the Mac and every screen are on, at the same time. A router of your own is best (see below).
• The Mac's rig link switched on — it is by default.
• On the first launch, each app asks to use the local network. Say yes: without it a screen cannot see the Mac. If someone said no, switch it on in the device's own settings under Privacy & Security, Local Network (System Settings on a Mac).

Bring your own router

A venue's WiFi is the wrong network for a stage: guests share it, it often keeps devices apart on purpose, and a login page can sit in the way. A small travel router or any WiFi router, with nothing else on it, is the rig's network.

• Put the Mac and the screens on the same network name. A Mac on the router's cable and the iPads on its WiFi is fine, as long as they are on the same router.
• Switch off client isolation (also called AP isolation or "guest mode") — it forbids devices on the WiFi from seeing each other, which is exactly what the rig needs.
• Do not use a network with a login page (a captive portal). A screen cannot get past it, and neither can the rig.
• Keep the router within sight of the stage. The traffic is small — a position clock, and the scores and charts once per song — so a plain router is enough; what matters is a steady signal, not speed.
• Give the Mac a cable if it has a way to plug in. It is the one device every screen depends on.

Name the rig

Setlist ▸ Show Settings… opens the show's settings; its Band page holds the rig's Rig name — the name the screens list when they look for the Mac — and Remote, whether the iPads may control the transport. Both are saved with the show, so a show opened on another Mac brings its rig name along. Two Macs on one network need two names.

The port and the passphrase belong to the Mac, not the show: BarBeatCue ▸ Settings…, the Network page. The port is UDP 9000 unless you change it; the page says "Listening on UDP 9000" when the link is up. Screens find the Mac by themselves (Bonjour), so nobody types an address.

The passphrase

With Remote on and no passphrase, any device on the network that sends the rig's commands may play and stop the show. A passphrase (Settings › Network) closes that: only a screen that proves it knows the passphrase may control; the passphrase itself never travels over the WiFi. The displays — what a musician's iPad shows — stay read-only either way, and with Remote off every screen only reads.

If anyone you do not know can reach your network, set one.

Connect a screen

1. On the Mac, open the show. The Band list has a row for each player (and for each Screen, the Apple TV's player: add one with Band ▸ Add Screen). Band ▸ Add Player adds a musician.
2. On the iPad or iPhone open BarBeatCue Satellite. It lists the rigs it finds — pick yours, then pick who it is. On an Apple TV open BarBeatCue Display and pick the Screen the same way.
3. The player's row on the Mac shows a dot for each screen that picked it.

A screen that connected but picked nobody appears under the list as an unassigned device. Choose Assign beside it and pick the player — the Mac tells the device. (A device on an older build ignores it; pick on the device.)

What the dots mean

In the Band list, each player's row ends in a small dot for its screens:

Everything else about the link — each screen's round-trip time and clock offset — is in Window ▸ Diagnostics (⇧⌘D), for when something is wrong.

Before the gig

• Run File ▸ Preflight…: it lists the Screens nobody shows and what else the show needs (each finding is explained here).
• Join the screens at the soundcheck, not at the downbeat.

When a screen will not appear, see no screens found.