====== Play a Single File with QLab ======

This guide will show you how to set up QLab to play a single audio file each time a button is pressed.

You could use [[products:the_big_button|The Big Button]] or [[products:the_button|The Button]] for this, or any of the our other products with multiple buttons if you wanted to expand this to multiple sounds.


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You'll need to load the audio file into QLab.

(Make sure you save your workspace as you go!)

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If you are not in **Edit** mode click the Edit button in the bottom left corner and the click on your audio file to show the bottom pane of the window and then click on the **Triggers** tab.

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Click the checkbox for **MIDI Trigger** to enable it and make sure **Note On** is selected in the drop down menu next to the checkbox.

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Click on the **Capture** button and get ready to press...

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When you see **Waiting for MIDI...** you can press the button on the device.

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After you press the button it should show the **Note** and **Velocity** sent from the device.

//(Note: If this doesn't work we may need to check that the device is showing up properly in QLab. We'll add another guide for that.)//

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You can now change from **Edit** mode to **Show** mode using the buttons in the lower left corner.

Typically with a cue list you would need to highlight an item in the list to start things...

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But since we've created a trigger for this specific file you can just press the button to play the audio and you don't need to highlight the file first.

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You are all set! Press the button to play the sound. 

The advantage of using a device programmed for MIDI is that QLab does not need to be the frontmost application to capture keystrokes from a computer keyboard. As long as QLab is running (and configured) it will play the sound.

Don't forget to save your workspace!