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 The Big Button or The Button for this, or any of the our other products with multiple buttons if you wanted to expand this to multiple sounds.

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

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

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.

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.

Click on the Capture button and get ready to press…

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

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.)

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…

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.

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!