Setting up QLab

Below are some of the settings I apply to Figure 53’s QLab and to Mac computers to optimise them for how I use them.

Setting up your computer

If you have not used your Mac to run sound for a show before, do all of this! The instructions below refer to QLab v4 and MacOS 12 Monterey. Everything below applies to other versions but the exact text quoted below might vary slightly.

Setting up QLab

If you’re completely new to QLab, there’s a great guide to the gerneal user interface of QLab here.

There is a Preferences window for QLab in QLab > QLab Preferences menu, which is applied to every QLab file you open. But actually very little to do with how QLab is set up is altered from there. Instead, most settings are in Workspace Settings, which you can access from Window > Workspace Settings (or by pressing Command-comma). The settings you alter here only affect the QLab file you currently have opened. This includes some settings that you might consider you want to set for every show, such as the audio interface you are using. Consequently, what many people do is open up a new QLab workspace, adjust all the settings then use File > Save As Template. Then each time you create a new show in QLab rather than using File > New Workspace, you instead use File > New From Template. Below are the settings I have in my template

General settings for QLab

Below are the general settings I use for QLab. QLab’s helpful labelling makes it largely self-explanatory!

Selecting your sound card / audio interface and playing audio

• open Workspace Settings (Window > Workspace Settings or by pressing Command-comma)

• Click the Audio tab on the far left side of the Workspace Settings window

• For most shows you’ll oinly have one sound card attached, which we’ll connect to Audio Patch 1.

• Click on the drop-down selection box to the right of Audio Patch 1 and select your sound card from this drop down selection box.

• Click Done in the bottom right of the Workspace Settings window.

For some newer computers, if you plug some headphones in, QLab won’t automatically change it’s output to the headphones, and vice versa. You’ll need to change this in Workspace Settings

Be aware, if you are using the headphone output or on certain sound cards, the volume of everything you play can be adjusted using the volume keys on the top of your keyboard. Make sure the volume is always at the same level whenever you are playing back sound. I normally turn it up to full using the keyboard volume buttons, then turn it down 3 button presses. (Having it at full can cause the sound to distort)

In the screenshot below, the top section (Audio Patch) relates to QLab’s audio output. The bottom section (Mic Patch) is where you configure any microphones that are being fed into QLab, it’s inputs. Whilst you’re there, set QLab’s Minimum Volume to -80dB, which will give you smoother fade outs of quieter sound cues.

If you’ve got a relatively simple sound system, or a relatively simple show, you can skip below to the “Adding Audio Cues” section. Otherwise the tips below can help you deal with the added complexity of your show and really speed up programming.

We can click on “Edit Patch 1”, where we can name our audio outputs. This is really helpful with large sound systems.

QLab allows you to set a “cue template”, a series of settings for each type of cue that you drag in or create, accessible via the Workspace Settings.

The default settings are not very useful, I’ve found. It routes audio to everywhere at maximum volume, which is a great way to blow up your speaker system!

Well done on getting this far! We can now start adding some audio files

Adding Audio Cues

We can most easily add an audio cue to QLab by dragging an audio file on to the QLab workspace.

When we drag in an audio file it will copy the settings from the Cue Template we set up above to the new file.

Stereo and mono files

Something that can often trip people up is when they drag a mono (single channel) sound file into QLab. With both the default audio cue levels and the ones I use, you may get unexpected results with a mono file: often you will only get audio coming out of just the left channels. Look at the input cross points in the image below, and compare it to the image of the stereo file, and you can see the mono file is missing what would’ve been the right channel. We can fix this easily by adding extra numbers into the input crosspoints for the mono file.

Controlling other devices using a MIDI interface

We might often use a MIDI interface to send MIDI (or MSC) to other devices or applications in order to control them. The MIDI interface may be a separate hardware device (or it might be part of a sound card / audio interface)

Note, these settings configure the MIDI output of QLab

• open Workspace Settings (Window > Workspace Settings or by pressing Command-comma)

• Click the MIDI tab on the far left side of the Workspace Settings window

• For most shows you’ll only have one MIDI interface attached, which we’ll connect to MIDI Patch 1. Or you might use the IAC bus to send MIDI to another application on the same computer, and perhaps connect a MIDI device to control a lighting desk to MIDI Patch 2.

• Click on the drop-down selection box to the right of MIDI Patch 1 and select your MIDI interface from this drop down selection box.

• Click Done in the bottom right of the Workspace Settings window.

Having done this you can then add MIDI Command cues to your cue list. These cues might be regular MIDI cues or MSC cues.

Controlling QLab from other devices using MIDI

We might often send MIDI to QLab from a Go Box or a lighting desk. This allows these devices to control QLab. The MIDI interface may be a separate hardware device (or it might be part of a sound card / audio interface).

Whilst you can select which MIDI interface QLab sends to, it actually listens to every MIDI interface connected to your computer, as well as the IAC bus (which is a way to send MIDI between applications running on the same computer). You can then choose which MIDI commands have an effect, and how.

• open Workspace Settings (Window > Workspace Settings or by pressing Command-comma)

• Click the MIDI Controls tab on the far left side of the Workspace Settings window

• If you are using MIDI Show Control (MSC) to control QLab, make sure that tick box is ticked, and that you match the Device ID number to whatever is sending MSC to QLab (a video server or lighting desk, for example). In this scenario the “Listen on MIDI Channel” box is irrelevant.

• If you are using regular MIDI to control QLab, make sure that tick box is ticked, and that you match the “Listen on MIDI Channel” number to whatever is sending MIDI to QLab

• You can then type in the various types of MIDI command that you want QLab to respond to. In the screenshot below, QLab has been setup to work with a MIDI Go box

You can also trigger individual cues (or groups of cues) in your cue list too. A good example of this is if you have a sound effect that can happen at unpredictable times compared to other cues in your cue list. You might use something like a spare button on a Go Box, or a Novation Launchpad for this.

In the screen shot below, we have an audio cue we want to trigger. It is in a separate cue list called Hot keys. When we click on the cue:

• select the Triggers tab

• tick the MIDI trigger tick tox

• Select which type of MIDI command and on what channel the MIDI command will be sent. Or press the Capture button and send the MIDI command to QLab and it will itself with what you’ve just sent

• If you are sending a MIDI Note On, from a device that is velocity sensitive like a MIDI keyboard, set the Velocity to 0 to have the cue be triggered by any velocity.

When you start using lots of MIDI triggers it can become tricky to keep track of which ones you are using, and which ones are free to use. Fortunately, QLab can show you a list of which triggers are in use. This is really useful to check that there aren’t two cues responding to the same trigger.

• Open Workspace Status (Window > Workspace Status

• Click on the Triggers tab

Control other devices using OSC

We might often use OSC (Open Sound Control), which is a computer network command system, to control other devices or applications. Our computer needs to be connected to a computer network (or multiple networks) that also have the other devices attached to them. We can also control other computer running QLab too.

Note, these settings configure the OSC output of QLab

• open Workspace Settings (Window > Workspace Settings or by pressing Command-comma)

• Click the Network tab on the far left side of the Workspace Settings window

• Often Network Patch 1 is used for QLab to control itself (using a variety of script cues). It is set with the Destination “localhost” and port 53000.

• Add another Patch if only one is visible by using the “New Patch” button in the top right of the window.

• Type anything meaningful to you in the name field, it really doesn’t matter what it says. For example, Lighting Desk

• You can often leave the Network Port on Automatic unless you have multiple computer networks connected to your computer.

• You then need to find out the IP address of the computer you need to control, and enter that into the Destination field. The second part of the destination field (where it says 53000 in the screenshot below) is the port number, which is equivalent to the MIDI channel that the other device will monitor for incoming OSC commands.

• Click Done in the bottom right of the Workspace Settings window.

It’s important to note, that the IP addresses of the computers you are controlling must now remain static - if they change, QLab will lost control of those devices.

The IP address of your computer, and other Mac computers is defined in System Preferences > Network and by clicking on the network port of your computer that is attached to the network, Ensure that “Configure IPv4” is set to Manually on your machine and any others, and that your IP addresses are set suitably.

Having done all this you can then add Network Command cues to your cue list. These cues might be regular OSC cues or QLab control cues.

Controlling QLab from other devices using OSC / QLab messages

We might often send OSC to QLab from a lighting desk or video server. This allows these devices to control QLab. OSC is a computer network command system, to control other devices or applications. Our computer needs to be connected to a computer network (or multiple networks) that also have the other devices attached to them.

Whilst you can select which network interface QLab sends to, it actually listens to every network interface (Ethernet ports, WIFI) connected to your computer. You can then choose which OSC commands have an effect, and how.

• open Workspace Settings (Window > Workspace Settings or by pressing Command-comma)

• Click the OSC Controls tab on the far left side of the Workspace Settings window

• Make sure the “Use OSC Controls” tick box is ticked

• That’s all you need to do! QLab will now respond to whatever commands are sent to it on your IP address using port 5300. These might be commands like Go selected cue, or commands like Cue 7 Go.

It’s important to note, that the IP address of your computer must now remain static - if it changes, QLab will not be able to be controlled by the other device.

The IP address of your computer, and other Mac computers is defined in System Preferences > Network and by clicking on the network port of your computer that is attached to the network, Ensure that “Configure IPv4” is set to Manually on your machine and any others, and that your IP addresses are set suitably.

You can now select cues and click the Go button (or press Space) and you should hear sounds. You can press the Escape key on your keyboard to stop all sounds. A lot of these keyboard shortcuts are customisable - have a look at Workspace Preferences > Key Map to see what they are.

• If you don’t need WiFi on during the show, turn it off

• Quit any other applications you don’t need