Mic Cues

Mic cues are similar to Audio cues, except instead of targeting a track on your computer, Mic cues take in live audio from a microphone or any live source of audio plugged into your audio interface.

When a Mic cue is selected, four tabs will appear in the Inspector:

• Basics
• Audio Levels
• Trim
• Audio Effects

The Basics and Triggers tabs are the same for all cue types, and you can learn more about them from the the page on the Inspector in the General section of this documentation.

Audio Levels

Audio input & output patch. A Mic cue must use the same audio device for both its input and its output. This can be the same device used for Audio cues in the same workspace, but it must be set up separately and will appear as a separate device in QLab. If you need to use one device for input and a separate device for output, you must set up an aggregate audio device (using an Apple-supplied application called Audio MIDI Setup, found in Applications/Utilities. The process is described in this Apple support document).

The Edit button is a shortcut to open the patch editor for the selected input & output patch. Typically, this should be set up once and then left alone for the majority of a show, but during early rehearsals it can be convenient to have quick access here.

Setting Inputs

The pair of drop-down menus that looks like X inputs starting at channel: Y lets you select which input channels, and how many, you want to use for the Mic cue. Mic cues can use anywhere between 1 and 24 inputs at a time, and the total number of possible input channels depends on the audio interface that you’re using.

The first drop-down menu lets you choose the number of inputs you want to use. Letting you choose the number of inputs lets you keep your cues looking clear and simple, but it also lets you choose a specific number of inputs to allow compatibility with some Audio Effects which require a specific number of inputs. For example, AUMatrixReverb only works on cues with two input channels.

The second drop-down menu lets you choose which input channel on the audio interface will be mapped to the first input in the Mic cue. If you set the cue to use more than one channel, the channel chosen in the first drop down menu will be represented by the first row in the matrix mixer, then the following channel will be the second row, and so on.

Visible Outputs. This control allows you to set the number of output channels currently visible in the matrix mixer. Outputs which are not displayed are not disabled, they’re simply hidden from view.

Default Levels. This button sets all levels in the current Mic cue to match the Mic cue template, which can be found and adjusted to suit your needs in the Cue Templates section of Workspace Settings.

Set all silent. This button does exactly what it seems: it sets all levels for the current Audio cue to -inf.

Assign Gangs. Assigning gangs for Mic cues is exactly the same as for Audio cues; please refer to Audio Cues.

Matrix Mixer. The matrix mixer in Mic cues works the same as in Audio Cues.

Audio Trim

Audio Trim for Mic cues operates the same as Trim for Audio Cues.

Audio Effects

Effects for Mic cues operate the same as Effects for Audio Cues.

Broken Cues

Mic cues can become broken for the following reasons:

No audio device. Select one in the “Audio Levels” tab.

You may also need to visit the Audio section of Workspace Settings and connect an audio device to the desired patch.

One or more audio effects in this cue are missing.

This typically happens when a workspace that uses audio effects is moved from one computer to another, and the new computer does not have the necessary AudioUnit installed. Either choose a different audio effect, or install the necessary AudioUnit.

One or more audio effects on the cue outputs are missing.

This typically happens when a workspace that uses audio effects is moved from one computer to another, and the new computer does not have the necessary AudioUnit installed. Either choose a different audio effect, or install the necessary AudioUnit.

One or more audio effects on the device outputs are missing.

This typically happens when a workspace that uses audio effects is moved from one computer to another, and the new computer does not have the necessary AudioUnit installed. Either choose a different audio effect, or install the necessary AudioUnit.

A pro license is required to use audio effects.

You’ll need to either install a Pro Audio or Pro Bundle license, or remove the audio effects from this cue.

Timecode triggers require a Pro license.

You’ll need to either install a Pro Audio or Pro Bundle license, or remove the timecode trigger from this cue.