Settings

Ctrl/⌘ + ,, or Cuerunner ▾ → Settings…, whose sidebar splits them by where they are kept: this show travels in the .cuerunner file, this computer stays on the machine. The window's own place stays on the machine too: it opens at the size and position you left it, maximised if it was, and on the primary display when the monitor it was on is no longer connected.

General

Setting	Default	What it does
Repeat guard	300 ms	Ignores a second GO arriving this soon after the first, from the space bar, a trigger or a console. 0 turns it off.
STOP fade	0 ms	How long STOP — `Esc`, the button, a remote's `/stop` — fades everything over. 0 cuts at once. With a fade, the show lets go at once and the sound fades; a second STOP during the fade cuts what is left. Saved with the show.

Audio

Setting	Default	What it does
Audio system	the platform's own	Which audio system drives the show: the platform's own, or ASIO® on Windows, which drives an interface through its own driver rather than the system mixer.
Output device	system default	Where the show plays.
Sample rate	device default	What the engine runs at. Files at other rates are resampled.
Buffer	engine default	Frames per block: lower is tighter, higher is safer.
Channels	device default	How many outputs the device offers the routing matrix.
Exclusive	off	Keeps other apps off the device, for every channel it has and steadier timing. A driver that refuses says why.
Output patches	none	Named sets of outputs — "Mains" is `1-2`, "Foldback" `5, 6` — that cues play through by name. Each has a name, the device it plays on and its outputs; Add patch takes the next free pair. The device is the show's own or any other output device on the machine: the engine plays every device the show's patches name at once, each opened when the show loads and kept open, each held to the show's device's clock (see Output devices). A patch whose device this machine has not got, or one lost mid-show, plays on the show's device's outputs of the same numbers; the window says which patch, where to and why, across the top and in the log, and the patch keeps its device, so the show taken back to the machine it was made on plays as made. Look for devices lists them again and reopens any that came back. Up to 16. Saved with the show.
Output devices	the show's own	A line for each device the show plays on: the show's own device, whose clock the others follow, then each one a patch names — Playing, its rate and channels, how far its clock runs from the show's device in parts per million as the engine measures it, and how far behind the show's device it sounds (the buffer the engine holds plus the device's own) — or Lost and why, with Reconnect beside it. Two devices never share a clock, and a few hundred parts per million apart is ordinary: left alone, a cue sent to both would drift 18 ms apart a minute. The engine resamples each extra device to the show's device's timeline instead and holds it there: the engine's own test fails if, over five minutes of a 300 ppm clock error, the two devices move more than a tenth of a millisecond either side of where the engine holds them. A cue on two devices stays in phase for the whole show. A lost device ends only the cues on its patches; everything else plays on.
Audition output	none	The patch Audition plays on — headphones at the desk, a booth monitor. With none chosen, audition is off rather than playing into the house.
Normalize to	−23 LUFS	The integrated loudness (EBU R128) Normalize sets a cue's trim for. −23 is broadcast; −16 to −18 suits a show's music.
True-peak ceiling	−1 dBTP	A normalised cue is never set louder than its true peak allows under this.
Trim silence	off	A default for new audio cues, not a switch over the show. Cues already in the list keep the trim they were made with.

ASIO Compatible ASIO is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

Under them, what the engine is actually doing: backend, rate, device, latency, voices playing, media memory, and any dropouts. That block is a reading, not a setting. The Mixer, beside the master in the transport, has a strip for every output patch and every device output — each a fader (double-click for 0 dB), a mute and a meter read after them — and the master. The patch and output faders are saved with the show; the master is this computer's. Under the engine reading sits Reconnect device, which sends the show's settings to the engine again so a device it lost is reopened — a no-op while the device is already running them, and the way back once the interface is plugged in again. It is disabled while the engine runs a backend with no device at all, where a device request can only be refused.

MIDI

Setting	Default	What it does
Send on	none	The port MIDI cues use unless they name their own.
Listen to MIDI	off	Opens the input ports you tick — all of them if you tick none — so cues can fire from notes and controllers.

Network

Setting	Default	What it does
OSC control	on, port 53000	Takes cues and commands from consoles, desks and tablets. The port is Cuerunner's alone: one another program holds — QLab, a second Cuerunner — is refused and said here and once in the log (`EADDRINUSE`), rather than shared with it in silence. It is a status, not an alarm: a second show on the machine is not the stage going wrong.
↳ Network interface	any	This machine's, not the show's. Listen on binds the port to one interface; Send from sends OSC cues out of one. An interface that has gone is said, and the port opens on every interface until it is back.
↳ Feedback	off, 127.0.0.1:53001, 10 Hz	Push state sends the playhead, what is running and its progress to Send to : Port, progress Progress (Hz) times a second (0–30). Remotes can also ask for it themselves. See feedback.
↳ OSC patches	none	Named destinations — a name, a host, a port — that an OSC cue's messages choose by name, so a show moved to another venue changes one address. Removing one that cues send through asks first.
↳ Remote	on	Answers the transport addresses — `/go`, `/stop`, `/cue/12/start` and the rest, in Cuerunner's namespace and QLab's. See the remote.
↳ Allow from	anyone	Addresses or IPv4 ranges (`10.0.0.5, 192.168.1.0/24`). Anyone else's datagrams are dropped before a trigger, the remote or the Monitor sees them, and each refused sender is named once in the log.
Find devices	off	Lists gear that announces itself on the network — Dante endpoints among them — in the Monitor, and warns when one drops off.
↳ Service types	`_netaudio-arc._udp.local`, `_netaudio-cmc._udp.local`	Under Advanced. What to browse for.
↳ Gone after	30 s	Under Advanced. How long a device can go unseen before it counts as gone.
Tablet view	off, port 53100	Serves a read-only view of the show on the local network. An access code is required; anyone without it is refused.

Wireless

Setting	Default	What it does
Sources	none	Where readings come from: a Sennheiser EW-DX receiver, an HTTP address, a file on disk, or the demo rack. An EW-DX source takes the receiver's address and its password, receivers on the network are found and offered, and a receiver whose address changes is found again by its serial; the others read the document format.
Battery below	25%	Warns at this level.
Battery urgent	10%	Raises an alarm at this level.
Signal below	−75 dBm	Warns when RF is weaker than this.
Pack silent for	6 s	How long a pack that has reported can go quiet before it counts as offline.

Backup machine

Kept on the computer, not in the show. The walkthrough has the whole thing.

Setting	Default	What it does
Redundant playback	off	Pairs this computer with another running the same show.
This computer is	Live	Live runs the show; Standby follows it.
Called	machine name	What the pair calls this computer in its status and log lines.
If the other one stops	Tell me	Or take the show over by itself.
↳ Ports, address, access code	53110	Under Advanced. The access code must match on both computers; without one, any machine that finds the port can claim the pair.
↳ Gone after	3000 ms	Under Advanced. Silence before the partner counts as gone.

Outputs

In the dock's Outputs tab. What an output is is kept with this show; where it goes is kept on this computer, by output, so a show opened on another machine keeps its outputs and finds them places of that machine's own.

Setting	Kept	Default	What it does
Name	show	Output 1, 2…	What the cues and the card call it, and what Identify draws.
Display	computer	A window	A window you can move and size, or one of this computer's displays. A display that is not connected opens it as a window with a banner saying which.
Fullscreen	computer	off	Fills the display chosen. A fullscreen output never takes the keyboard.
Size	show	1920 × 1080	The size it composes at in a window, or when its display cannot say. Fullscreen, the display's own pixels are used.
Timer	show	No timer	Time of day, the show clock (from the first GO), or the time left on the cue with an end that started last — and where on the output.
Test pattern	—	off	Grid, centre, corners and colour bars over the output, at its own resolution.
Corner pin	show	0%	Moves each corner of the finished frame by a share of the output; the frame is laid on that shape in perspective. Needs the GPU.
Soft edge	show	0%	Fades each edge to black over a share of the frame, for overlapping projectors. Edge curve (1) bends the ramp.
Identify	—	—	Draws every output's name across it for three seconds.
Floating timer	computer	Off	A small always-on-top window counting the time of day, the show clock or the cue remaining.
Shows	show	Its own pictures	Or the same as another output: a mirror, showing that output's pictures as it composes them, at its size — a confidence monitor, a stacked projector. It keeps its own display, timer and corner pin; a picture cue cannot name a mirror.
Mask	show	none	An image laid over the output's pictures, stretched to it: Mask reads its brightness (white shows) or its transparency (opaque shows), and Invert turns it round. Drawn before the corner pin, under the timer and test pattern. A mirror with no mask of its own shows its source's. Its file is kept by its path, and is not carried into a bundle.
Next GO	show	off	On, every picture whose cue leaves it to the show is taken down on the next GO.

Timecode

Two halves. Source and where it arrives — the MIDI input, the audio input and channel, the UDP port — are kept on the computer: which port the clock is on is a fact about this rack. Everything under This show — rate, freewheel, chase, what happens when it stops, offset and tolerance — is saved in the show file, so the show follows its clock the same way on any machine that opens it; a show that leaves them all at their defaults carries nothing for them, and an edit to them goes back with undo. The guide shows it in use.

Setting	Default	What it does
Source	None	Where the clock comes from: MTC on a MIDI input (the first one there is, if none is chosen; a port MIDI input already has open is shared with it), LTC on a channel of an audio input, read by the audio engine, or Art-Net ArtTimeCode on a UDP port (6454).
Rate	Detect from the stream	Takes the rate MTC and ArtTimeCode declare, and measures the rest: 29.97 non-drop is told from 30 by timing the stream (a few seconds of it), and LTC's 24, 25 and 30 by its frame numbers. A fixed rate reads every label at that rate instead.
Freewheel	1000 ms	How long a clock that stops arriving is carried on at its own rate before it counts as lost (0–10000). A cue on a frame inside the gap still fires.
Chase	off	The cue list goes where the clock goes: a locate starts each audio or wait cue whose trigger is behind the clock and whose length reaches past it, that far into itself, and stops what the clock started and has left behind. Off, a locate only arms again what the clock is now before.
When it stops	Hold	With chase on, what the cues the clock started do when it stops or is lost: Hold stops them and picks them up again where the clock comes back; Stop stops them; Let them run on.
Offset	00:00:00:00	Added to the incoming clock before any cue reads it, written in 30 fps labels; a leading minus subtracts. How a show written at 10:00:00:00 runs against a clock that starts at 01:00:00:00.
Tolerance	10 frames	How far the clock may skip forward and still fire the triggers it skipped (0–300). A jump further than that is a locate.

The panel under the source reads back the clock as it is heard: position, Locked, Freewheel, Stopped, Lost or Waiting, the rate and whether it was detected, and what the timecode cues are sending. The same readout is in the transport bar and the show monitor.

Updates

Newer versions of Cuerunner, and when this machine may look for them. Kept on the computer, not in the show, and free. A check only asks whether there is something newer; nothing is downloaded until you press Download, nothing is installed until you press Restart now or quit, and neither happens while anything in the show is running. The guide walks it through.

Setting	Default	What it does
This version	—	The version running, and how it was installed: Windows installer, macOS app, AppImage, .deb package, or a development build run from source.
Check now	—	Asks the update feed now, and says what it found beside the button: up to date, a newer version with its notes, or that the server could not be reached. Refused, with the reason, during the show hours or in Show Mode with a show open.
Check automatically	on	Checks twenty seconds after launch and then once a day. A check that cannot reach the server says nothing at all — a show machine with no network is an ordinary machine. Off, only Check now checks.
Show hours	off, 18:00–23:30	No checks and no downloads between From and To, by this computer's clock. A window that ends before it starts runs past midnight.
In Show Mode	on	No checks while a show file is open in Show Mode.

What an update offered on this machine can say:

It says	What it means
Cuerunner x.y.z is available.	A newer release is published. Release notes shows every version between this one and it; Download fetches it; Later puts the bar away until the next launch. The bar is never drawn in Show Mode.
Held: something in the show is running.	A download or a restart was asked for while a cue was running, paused or waiting, or while sound or a MIDI file was playing. Nothing was fetched or installed; ask again once the show is idle. A cue started while a download is under way stops the download the same way.
Refused: the download did not match the checksum its release published…	The bytes that arrived are not the bytes the release's feed names (SHA-512). They were deleted, and nothing was installed.
Refused: the update is not signed by the publisher…	Windows checks that the new installer is signed by the publisher this copy was signed by, and macOS that the new app carries a valid signature. A download that fails either is deleted, and nothing was installed.
Cuerunner x.y.z is ready.	Downloaded and checked. It installs when Cuerunner quits — the one thing that happens without a press — or now with Restart now, which asks you to save the show first. The installer runs silently and starts the new version.
…installed from the .deb package, which cannot replace itself	A `.deb` belongs to the package manager that installed it: the app says when there is a newer version and Open the download page takes you to it. Install the new `.deb` over the old one; your settings stay.

The feed is pub.cuerunner.app/latest/ — latest.yml for Windows, latest-mac.yml for macOS (a Mac updates from a zip of the app rather than the dmg) and latest-linux.yml for the AppImage — and each one names the release's own files under versions/. The settings and the version this machine last ran are kept in updates.json in the app's data folder.

After an update, the first launch shows What's new: the notes of every version installed since this machine last ran Cuerunner, newest first — skip two releases and you read both. It is shown once.

Show Settings

The settings under Cuerunner ▾ → Show Settings… are the show's own, and travel in the file.

Tab	What is on it
Channels	The desk connection — OSC, MIDI or MIDI over TCP, with its address, the MIDI-over-TCP port being 51325 as an SQ and an Avantis both serve it — the channel strips on the console and the faders the show drives, each with a Count beside its heading that sizes the list. An SQ is opened on its own control service as well — TCP 51326 outbound, kept alive with a datagram to the desk's UDP 51324 — because its MIDI service carries the mutes and nothing else: the membership has no route there. A shorter strip count drops the last strips, which leaves every scene and unpatches whoever was on them; a shorter fader count drops the last faders and takes every scene's row for those places with them, and unpatches nobody. A strip is a name and a number — the per-channel fader select this tab used to carry is deleted, not deprecated — and which fader it rides is the scene's decision, made in the Scenes grid, so a show sets up its channels and its faders here and places them scene by scene. Each fader carries one desk number, for a desk that counts its DCAs differently from the show. Under the faders, Allow a channel to ride more than one fader is the rule the grid follows: off, placing a strip on a row takes it off that scene's other rows, and a recall folds whatever a file still carries down to the lowest-numbered fader. Beside it, Highest fader wins — an SQ over the network only — keeps a channel on several faders on the highest of them: Cuerunner reads the SQ's DCA masters on the MIDI service, 51325, asks where they stand when it first needs them, and moves the channel's membership as one fader overtakes another, between recalls as well as at them. Changes made at the desk to a channel's DCA assignment are not seen, so a show using it leaves assignment to Cuerunner. The line under the connection reads back exactly what will be sent, and names a show larger than the desk model states, with the number of inputs it exceeded. A recall that fails says which failure it was: nothing answered at that address, or the desk took the connection and reset it. The second is what a desk whose MIDI port another program is holding does, and there the address is right.
Cast	Performers, their parts, the channel each is on, and any note. Groups are built in the Scenes view, from the strips a row should carry.
Mic plot	Packs, the channel each is patched to, and who is wearing it. Changing a performer on a pack records a swap.

The Channels tab's own controls, in the order the tab shows them:

Control	What it sets
Model	Which desk this is — any desk's note on and note off, an SQ, or an Avantis — and so what the desk takes as an open and a close.
Host	The desk's address, the one thing nobody can guess.
Port	The desk's MIDI-over-TCP port, 51325 on an SQ and on an Avantis, or the port an OSC desk's addresses are sent to.
Address	The OSC address a fader is sent to, with `{n}` standing for its number.
Channel	The MIDI channel the desk's own MIDI is set to — Utility → General → MIDI on an SQ.
GO button	The mute group the operator's GO key is assigned to at the desk, or no GO button for a show run from the window.
BACK button	The mute group the operator's BACK key is assigned to.
GO note	The MIDI note the operator's GO key transmits, for a soft key set to MIDI Note — a press that steps the show once and leaves nothing lit. Offered on an SQ, whose own traffic cannot be a note.
BACK note	The MIDI note the operator's BACK key transmits.
Count	Sizes the list beside it: the strips under the Channels heading, the faders under the DCAs one. A shorter count drops the last of them.
Allow a channel to ride more than one fader	The rule the Scenes grid follows: on, a strip rides as many faders as a scene places it on; off, the grid keeps one fader per channel and a recall folds a leftover down to the lowest-numbered one.
Highest fader wins	An SQ adds every DCA a channel is on, so one of its faders at -inf silences it. On, a channel a scene places on several faders rides only the highest of them, and Cuerunner moves it as the faders cross; a muted DCA counts as -inf. Offered on an SQ over the network with the rule above on, and off until asked for.

The desk's own buttons are read from the same connection, so they are set up with it: the two groups above are the mute groups the operator's GO and BACK keys are assigned to at the desk, and the two notes are for soft keys set to MIDI Note — offered on an SQ, whose own traffic cannot be a note. An Avantis answers for its keys four channels above its own, so a desk set to MIDI channel 13 or higher leaves them past what MIDI has: the fields are not drawn there, the show is run from the window, and a recall still sends.