Getting Started

Each time you open CueConductor you’ll be initially presented with a blank show. This show has no cues, no sinks, and no sources - it’s a blank slate. This guide is designed to get you from that blank state to a point where you can begin to program your show’s cues.

Show Title

For ease of tracking different versions of a showfile, CueConductor stores a Show Title in each showfile. This acts a second means of naming (besides the filename on disk) that is not as easily changeable as the name of the file on-disk. To set it, click the icon in the bottom left-hand corner then click Show Options. You can also reach this dialog using the keybind ⌘, (Cmd + Comma).

This field can be as simple or as complicated as you want - we don’t specify any kind of convention for it. If versioning your showfiles makes sense for your use case, it’s a great place to do that. Otherwise, a sentence-case version of your show name is perfectly acceptable. Once your showfile is saved the show name will always appear in the header of the CueConductor window.

Sinks

Sinks are the basis of all show control output from CueConductor, and are generally the first thing you should set up in a new CueConductor showfile. To create your first sink, click the icon in the bottom left-hand corner then click Sinks & Sources. You can also reach the this dialog using the keybind ⌘I.

Within the Sinks & Sources dialog, you can select either Sinks or Sources on the left, and manipulate the relevant data on the right. To add your first sink, click Add Sink in the bottom right corner. This will add an unconfigured OSC sink to your show. You can change the driver for a sink using the relevant dropdown, and each sink should be given name that is short and descriptive, as this is how it will appear in the cuelist. All sinks also require some amount of configuration, which can be accessed by clicking on the icon next to the relevant sink.

A sink will not become active until its configuration is in a valid state, with errors being indicated by a flashing red column on invalid sinks in the cuelist.

Sources

Unlike sinks, sources are not required for CueConductor to operate. That said, they are strongly recommended. If you’re content to use CueConductor’s built in playback keybinds you can skip this section, but for most use cases it makes sense to have some kind of source.

Sources are set up from the same dialog as sinks - click the icon in the bottom left-hand corner then click Sinks & Sources, then Sources on the left. To add a source, click Add Source in the bottom right corner. Give your source a name and select a driver, then click the icon to open the configuration.

Configuration for most sources is fairly simple, as they simply receive data from other devices. Most drivers should “just work” once configured correctly, however it’s worth consulting the sources documentation for information on generic drivers like OSC and MIDI.

Danger

While using more than one source is possible, it should be done with extreme caution. Having multiple external devices recalling scenes simultaneously is likely to cause problems without extremely thorough planning and careful execution. Proceed at your own risk!

Next Steps

That’s kind of it! Check out our programming guide to start getting your cues ready.