The Performance page

Performance is the stage view of Prest’s stage screens. Open it from the top of any screen connected to Prest. Each screen can show something different: the singer the lyrics, the bass player a chart, the keyboard player the mixer.

Choose the set and the song

The top bar of Performance has two pickers. Point at one to see what it is set to; each list has a search field.

The setlist picker lists All Songs (when Setup offers it) and every setlist, with its number of songs. Choosing a setlist only changes what this screen reads: nothing changes in Prest or on other screens.
The song picker lists the setlist’s songs, numbered, with their length and tempo. Choosing a song opens it in Prest, and every screen follows. While a song plays, the song you choose is queued to play next instead.

The song under the playhead

Every screen shows the song Prest is playing, whatever was chosen on it.

When Prest plays into another song of the same project, every screen switches to that song without stopping, with its lyrics, chords, and score. (A project holds several songs when it has song markers; see Choose the show library.)
Performance moves to the playing song each time it changes: into the setlist the screen is reading if that setlist has the song, else the first setlist that does, else All Songs. Between changes, anyone can browse.
Moving the playhead in Prest while it is stopped changes nothing on the screens.

A screen whose song is not the one open in Prest shows a card instead of the song:

Card	Means
Not loaded, Tap to load	Tap it to open the song in Prest
Not loaded	Another song is playing; choosing this one in the song picker queues it
Loading	Prest is opening its project
No project	A placeholder song with no project: nothing to load
Not in the library	Prest is playing a project that is not in the show library

The transport

The transport bar is at the bottom of every page: Stop, Prev, the song’s name, Next, and Play or Pause.

Play plays the song from where it is; on a song that is not open yet, it opens it and plays. Pause pauses in place.
Stop stops, and goes back to the song’s start.
Prev and Next stop and move to the song before or after in the setlist. Next goes to the queued song, if there is one.
The middle shows the song’s name, its place in the setlist (for example 3/12), and Next: with the queued song’s name. Tap it to cancel the queued song. While a song plays with another queued, the play button is Play Next.
Swipe left on the transport bar for the next song, right for the previous one.
The metronome button in the top bar turns Prest’s metronome on or off.

Above the transport, the progress bar shows the time played and the time left. It shows progress only: you cannot drag it. The stage cannot seek, rewind, or loop inside a song; with Prest, jump to a section in the song’s form instead.

Song views

The view button in the top bar (Choose this song’s view) chooses what the screen shows:

View	Shows
Lyrics & Chords	The lyrics line by line, with the chords over them and the bars and beats as ticks
Lyrics	The lyrics alone (offered when the song has lyrics)
Chords	The chords alone (offered when the song has chords)
A score part	One part of the score, named after its Score track, such as “Lead” or “Piano, upper”
An attachment	A chart or part added to the song, by its name, such as “Bass”
Show Info	The show at a glance, in tiles
Mixer	The project’s mixer, with meters

The view you choose is kept for that song on this screen. Every other song shows the screen’s Default View, set in Setup. A song that does not have the chosen view shows Lyrics & Chords. Each view has its own text size in Setup.

Lyrics and chords

The lyrics come from the track named Lyrics (Prest’s first Lyrics lane) and the chords from the Chords lane. The current bar, beat, word, and chord are lit, and the view scrolls with the song. Scroll by hand and it waits a moment before following again. A song with no lyrics says “(no MIDI lyrics found)”.

Chords written inside the lyrics in ChordPro style, such as [Am]Sun[F]shine, are drawn over the syllable after them, when the song has no chords on its Chords lane.

Score

Each Score track in the project is a view of its own, named after the track without “Score”. A part on two staves, such as piano, gives an upper and a lower view. The score is engraved to the screen’s width with bar numbers, and the bar playing is lit and kept in view. See Scores.

Attachments

PDF, PNG, JPEG, and WebP files added to a song in the Editor. Their pages are shown one under another, at the screen’s width. The next song’s pages are prepared ahead. A screen showing an attachment shows the attachment of the same name in the next song, so the bass player’s screen stays on “Bass”.

Show Info

Tile	Shows
Song	The song
Section	The section playing
Next section	The section after it, or End
Key	The song’s key, as set in the Editor
Song left	The time left in the song
Set left	The time left in the setlist, and its total
Clock	The Prest computer’s clock
Queued or Next	The song queued, else the setlist’s next, or End of set

The song’s form

With Prest, Performance shows the song’s form under the progress bar: its sections, from the Sections lane, in the order they play. The stage can change the form as the song plays, as Prest’s own form strip can. REAPER and Ableton Live projects have no form, so this strip appears only with Prest.

The section playing is lit, with its pass, such as 2/3, or 1/∞ when it is held.
A section played more than once shows ×2; a held one ∞; a skipped one is struck through.
Tap a section to play it next. It pulses and counts down to the jump: “in 2 bars”, “in 1 beat”, “now”. Tap it again, or press Esc or Delete, to let it go. With the song stopped, a tap moves Prest to that section, and Play starts there.
↓ and ↑ queue the next section, or the one before (first, the one playing again).
The Jump at switch sets when the jump happens: Section (at the end of the section playing, the default), Bar, Beat, or Now.
Hold a section for half a second, or tap its ⋯, to set how often it plays: Once, Twice, 3×, 4×, Skip, or Hold (round until let go).
Vamp (V) holds the section playing round until you press it again. Stop after (E) stops at the end of the section playing, and shows when.
Keep makes the form as it plays now the project’s form, saved when the project is saved in Prest. Reset goes back to the project’s form. Both appear once the form is changed.

Only one jump is queued at a time: a new one replaces it. Stopping lets go of a queued jump, a vamp, and a stop after; a changed form stays until you keep or reset it. Adding a repeat after a section, or moving sections, is done in Prest’s window.

The mixer

Choose Mixer as the view to mix from the stage. It shows the mix of the project in front in Prest, as its mixer does:

A strip for each track, side by side, with tracks in folders indented under their folder, and Master kept at the right. Scroll sideways for more.
On each strip: its name, M (mute) and S (solo; the master has none), a fader with the left and right meters beside it, the volume in dB, the pan (C, or L or R with an amount), and its sends, each with where it goes and its level.
Faders go up to +12 dB. The meters run green, amber, and red, and keep a red cap after clipping.

Moving a fader or a pan on the stage is heard at once, and is one undo step in Prest when you let go; mute and solo are one undo step each. Every screen, and Prest’s own mixer, shows the change. Until Prest has sent its mixer, the view says “The host has not said its mixer yet.”

Keys

A screen with a keyboard, or a page-turner pedal that sends arrow keys, can use these keys on Performance. Press ? for the list.

Key	Does
Space	Play or pause
←	Previous song
→	Next song
Enter	Play the queued song now
Delete (on a Mac keyboard, delete)	Cancel the queued section, else the queued song
↑	Queue the previous section (first, the one playing again)
↓	Queue the next section
V	Vamp: hold the section playing round until let go
E	Stop after the section playing
S	Stop
Esc	Cancel the queued section, else leave focus mode
?	Show these shortcuts

↑, ↓, V, and E work while Prest plays a song with a form. Keys do nothing while you type in a field or a dialog is open, or with Ctrl, ⌘, or Alt held. The keys cannot be changed.

Focus mode

Double-tap the song to fill the screen with the view and a thin progress line, without the transport and the form. Double-tap again, or press Esc, to leave.

Lock a screen

Lock a screen so that a stray touch cannot change the show: in Setup → This Device → Lock This Device, choose Lock.

A locked screen keeps showing the show, but its transport, setlist and song pickers, form, swipes, and keys are off. Only ?, Esc, and scrolling work.
A Locked button appears in the top bar of Performance. Press and hold it for a second to unlock, or choose Unlock in Setup.
The view picker and the mixer stay usable on a locked screen.

Locking is a safeguard, not a password: any device on the network can still connect.

Several screens at once

Every screen shows the same song: a song chosen on any screen moves them all, and the last choice wins. Choosing a setlist moves only the screen you are on. Each screen remembers its own setlist, song, view, and settings.

Next: Headless mode.