CuePoints

A CuePoint is a marked moment on a track: "lights change here", "sound effect here", "video starts here".

Every cue belongs to a CuePoint Type. Types are how you keep departments apart: Lighting, Sound, Video, Standby. Each type can be shown, hidden, synced and exported on its own, so the lighting operator sees lighting cues and isn't buried in everyone else's.

Adding Cues

Put the playhead where you want the cue and either click the CuePoint Type, or press its keyboard shortcut, which is much faster and the only sensible way during a live run. See Keyboard Shortcuts.

A new project comes with some generic types to get you going. Change them to suit your show.

If Label CuePoints at creation is on, a naming box opens the moment you drop a cue. Press Enter to keep the name, Escape to cancel. Whether the show carries on while that box is open is Playback behaviour when labelling. Both are under Settings.

Managing CuePoint Types

Click the three dots next to CuePoints. From there you can reorder types, show or hide them, lock one so you can't change it by accident, and + New Type to add one.

Each type has a name, a colour and a point. Save a set of types as a template and every future project starts with them already there. See Templates.

Locking Is Personal

Locking a cue type only locks it for you. On a shared project, locking Lighting so you don't nudge it does not stop the lighting operator working. This changed in version 2; it used to lock the type for everybody.

Solo Mode

Solo narrows the show down to one or two cue types for a minute, then puts it back exactly as it was. Nothing you do in Solo Mode is saved: your real show/hide settings sit underneath, untouched.

To turn it on: Alt-click a cue type. That's the only way in. You go straight into Solo Mode with that type soloed.

To add or remove types while you're in it: Alt-click them. Alt-click a second type and you're seeing two. Alt-click one again and it drops out.

Everything not soloed is dimmed rather than hidden, so you can still see which types exist and which you've picked. Their cues come off the timeline and out of the cue list. Clicking a dimmed cue type does nothing, so you can't create a cue you wouldn't be able to see.

Getting Out

An S button appears next to the cue types while Solo Mode is running.

• Click S to come out. Everything returns to how it was.

• Alt-click S to clear your selection but stay in Solo Mode, ready to Alt-click a fresh set.

• Alt-click the last soloed type off and you leave Solo Mode too.

CuePoints also drops you out on its own when you change track or open the cue type editor, since both are about your real visibility settings.

Visibility Per Track

Track > Enable CuePoint Type Visibilities Per Track lets each track remember its own shown/hidden types, so hiding Sound on the video track doesn't hide it everywhere.

Reset CuePoint Type Visibilities To > Used Types In Each Track sets every track to show exactly the types it contains. On a big project this saves a lot of clicking. Visibilities can also be copied from one track to another.

The default for new projects is on the Tracks & Media pane.

Follow-On Cues

Normally a cue sits at a fixed timecode. A follow-on cue doesn't: it hangs off the cue before it and moves whenever that one moves.

Use it when two cues belong together: a cue and its restore, a hit and its release, a chase that always starts two seconds after the state it follows. Retime the first one and the rest come along.

Setting One Up

The TRIGGER column sets how a cue fires. Three values:

• TC: fires at its own timecode. The normal one, and what every cue starts as.

• F/O With: fires a set time after the cue before it starts.

• F/O After: fires a set time after the cue before it has finished fading.

The TRIGDELAY column is the gap. Set it to 0 and the cue lands exactly on its trigger point; set it to 2 and it lands two seconds later.

Both columns are switched on together under Settings; they're one entry in the column list, because neither is much use without the other.

Which Cue It Follows

The cue before it of the same cue type. Not the cue above it in the list; the previous Lighting cue, if it's a Lighting cue. That's what makes this usable on a busy show: a Lighting cue follows the Lighting cue before it and ignores everything Sound and Video are doing in between.

With, Or After

The difference is what they measure from.

• F/O With counts from the moment the previous cue starts. A F/O With of 0 fires at the same instant.

• F/O After counts from the moment the previous cue has finished: CuePoints uses the longer of that cue's fade in and fade out. A F/O After of 0 fires the moment the fade lands.

So a 5-second fade with a follow-on at 0: F/O With fires immediately, F/O After fires five seconds later. Change the fade to 8 seconds and the F/O After cue moves out to match, on its own.

What Happens When You Move Things

A follow-on cue stores the gap, not the time. Its position is worked out from whatever it's following, and re-worked every time anything changes.

• Move the cue it follows and it moves with it, keeping the gap. Move a cue with three follow-ons behind it and all four travel together.

• You can watch it while you drag. The followers track live, so you see the whole chain land where you want it.

• Change the fade on a cue with an F/O After behind it and the follow-on repositions itself.

• Positions are rounded to the frame, so a chain never ends up half a frame off.

• A follow-on can't overtake the next cue of its own type. If the numbers would push it past, CuePoints stops it one frame short and keeps the order intact.

If You Delete The Cue It Was Following

The follow-on has nothing to hang off any more, so it goes back to TC and stays exactly where it is. Its TRIGGER and TRIGDELAY cells update as it happens. Nothing moves and nothing is lost; you have a normal cue at that timecode, which you can leave or re-link.

Shared Projects And Permissions

On a shared project, cue types can be restricted per person.

• Cue types you don't have access to are hidden completely: not on the timeline, not in the list, not in the type manager.

• Numeric keyboard shortcuts number from 1 over the types you can see, so your keys stay sensible even when half the show is somebody else's.

• Creating a new type needs permission. If you don't have it, CuePoints tells you clearly.

• If someone changes your permissions, or renames, adds or deletes a type, the cue type editor updates while you're looking at it.

See Collaboration.

The Cue List

Every cue in the current track appears in the cue list.

• Click a cue's time to jump the playhead there.

• Up and down arrows step through the cues one at a time.

• Cmd+G opens Go to Cue: type a cue number and go straight to it.

Auto-scroll CuePoints list, under Settings, keeps the list following the show so the cue that's playing is always on screen.

Columns

Three columns are always there: TIME, where the cue sits; CUE TYPE, in that type's colour; and LABEL, the cue's name, which absorbs the space when you switch others on and off.

The rest you choose, under Settings:

• CUE: your own cue numbers, matching the desk. Decimals work, so 5.1 can sit between 5 and 6. Its position is fixed at the front of the list, but you can switch it off.

• FADE: the cue's fade time.

• NOTE: a free-text field for anything the label doesn't cover.

• OSC: the OSC message this cue sends when it fires, overriding the default for its type. See OSC.

• COMMAND: a command for the receiving console, carried through to your exports.

• Trigger / TrigDelay: one entry, two columns. TRIGGER is how the cue fires and TRIGDELAY is the gap. See Follow-On Cues.

Most people run CUE, FADE and NOTE and leave the rest off. Turn on OSC and COMMAND when you're driving a console, and Trigger / TrigDelay when you start using follow-on cues.

Drag a column edge to resize it. Your widths are remembered, and they survive changing track.

Cue ID

Tools > Toggle Cue ID Display turns on your own cue numbering.

• Type a number to set one.

• Type 10+1 to renumber from that point on, in steps of 1: the fast way to insert a cue into the middle of a numbered list.

• Select several cues, right-click, and choose Sequential Cue IDs from selection… to number them all at once.

Fade Time

Tools > Toggle Fade Time Display turns on fade times. The starting value is Default fade timing under Settings.

Two shortcuts worth knowing:

• Type +: the fade becomes exactly the gap to the next cue, so one cue runs seamlessly into the next.

• Type 1/2: a 1-second fade up and a 2-second fade down.

Moving Cues Around

Copy, paste and alt-drag all work, including on shared projects, and every copied cue gets its own identity, so duplicating a track doesn't create two cues that the sync engine thinks are the same one.

Update playhead when moving cue points, under Settings, makes the playhead follow a cue you're dragging, so you hear exactly where you're putting it.

Importing And Exporting

• Import a cue list from a CSV file, including cues that sit right at 00:00:00:00.

• Export your cues to grandMA2, grandMA3 and ETC Eos.

See Importing & Exporting.

Settings

CuePoints > Settings… > CuePoints

Making And Naming Cues

• Label CuePoints at creation: a naming box opens the moment you drop a cue. Turn it off to drop cues fast during a run and name them all later.

• Playback behaviour when labelling: what the show does while that box is open. Keep Playing for a live run, because the show doesn't wait for you. Pause for building a cue list at your desk.

• Default fade timing: the fade a brand-new cue starts with, in seconds. Set it to the fade you use most; any individual cue can still be changed.

While The Show Runs

• Countdown to next / prev cue point: a live counter of how long until the next cue, and how long since the last. Handy for calling a show, because you can see the cue coming.

• Loopback to start point on pause: pressing pause sends the playhead back to where you started playing. Good for rehearsing one section over and over.

• Auto-scroll CuePoints list: keeps the list scrolled to the cue that's playing. Always unless Control-down is the useful setting: it follows the show, but stops the moment you hold Control to look at something else, and catches up when you let go.

• Update playhead when moving cue points: dragging a cue to a new time takes the playhead with it, so you hear where you've put it.

The Look Of The List

• CuePoints list row height: Medium suits most people. Taller if you're reading from a distance in a dark room; shorter for more cues on screen at once.

Choosing Your Columns

The bottom of the pane is the column editor: show, hide, and drag to reorder the columns in the CuePoints list.

• Tick a column to show it, untick to hide it.

• Drag a column up or down to change where it appears.

• Reset order puts the columns back to FADE, NOTE, OSC, COMMAND, Trigger / TrigDelay.

• Reset widths puts the column widths back to normal, for when you've dragged one so narrow you can't grab it.

Each button does only what it says: resetting the order leaves your widths and your on/off choices alone, and vice versa. A mis-click costs you one drag, not your whole setup.

TIME, CUE TYPE and LABEL aren't in this list because they are always shown. CUE is, but its position is fixed at the front. Trigger / TrigDelay is one entry covering two columns. What each column holds is under Columns.