Core concepts

Private network only

Prest Server has no login: any device that can reach the host can control the show. Connect stage devices only to a network your band controls. See Network and security.

Show library

The show library is one folder on the host computer. Prest Server lists every project of the host’s kind in it and in its subfolders: REAPER projects (.rpp), Live Sets (.als), or Prest projects (.prest). It opens only projects inside that folder.

You set it once per host computer, in the first-run guide or in Setup, under Data, Project Source. The path is a folder on the host computer, not on the device you are holding.

In Prest and the next release: folders named Backup are skipped, so the copies Live saves beside each Set are not listed as projects.

Songs

A song is the catalog’s record for something to play:

• A project with no song markers is one song, named after the file and as long as the project.
• A project with song markers holds one song per marker. A marker named S\Opener (or s\Opener) starts the song Opener, which runs to the next song marker or to the end of the project. In Live, locators do the same job.
• A marker named \Chorus marks a section inside a song. Prest Server checks section markers when it adds a project and reports duplicates or sections outside any song. It does not show them on stage.
• Other marker names are ignored.

A song from a project is identified by its path in the show library, without the extension: midset/Opener for a project of its own, midset/Show#Opener for the song Opener inside midset/Show. The same project in the same place gives the same song on any computer.

A song can also have no project: choose (No project file) when you create it, for a talk or a drum solo in the running order. In 0.1.1, Play on such a song plays whatever project the host has open. In Prest and the next release it opens nothing and plays nothing.

A song has a name, a length, its project, and optionally a tempo and notes. In Prest and the next release you can also give it a key, which the Show Info view shows.

Setlists

A setlist is a named, ordered list of songs with an optional date. A song can be in any number of setlists. Deleting a setlist keeps its songs.

All Songs is a list the Performance page can offer next to your setlists: every song in the catalog. Each device can hide it in Setup.

Where the catalog lives

Songs, setlists, the show library folder, and the current song are kept on the host computer and shared by every device. Change a setlist on one tablet and every screen shows the change. Each host computer has its own catalog; see Backups and data for where, and how to move it.

Each device keeps its own screen settings in its browser: text size, whether it offers All Songs, song timings, and theme, and, in Prest and the next release, its views, appearance, and lock.

The current song

When you choose a song on the Performance page, or tap one in the Editor, Prest Server asks the host to open the song’s project and move to the start of the song. Every device follows.

Save before you choose songs

REAPER opens the song’s project without asking to save the one that is open. Live switches Sets the same way: Prest Server stops playback and dismisses Live’s save prompt without saving. Unsaved changes in the open project are lost. The project files in the show library are what Prest Server plays.

• While the host plays, choosing a song does not interrupt it: the song is queued as the next one.
• At the end of a song in a project with several songs, the host stops.
• In Prest and the next release, every device shows the song the host is playing, even one started from the DAW. If the playhead runs on into the next song of the same project, the host follows it there without stopping. A song whose project is not open shows Not loaded; tap it to load it.

Lyrics and chords

Lyrics and chords are placed on beats and drawn bar by bar against the playhead. Each host reads them from the project:

Host	Lyrics	Chords
REAPER	MIDI lyrics on a track named Lyrics	Item notes on a track named Chordtrack
Ableton Live	Clip names on a track named Lyrics	Clip names on a track named Chordtrack
Prest	The project’s lyrics lane	The project’s chord lane

Track names are matched without regard to case. A lyric that starts with / begins a new line, and one that starts with \ a new paragraph; without such marks, Prest Server breaks lines at long pauses. PresTools writes both tracks in REAPER. For Prest, see the timeline.

In Prest and the next release: tracks named Score or starting with it (Score Bass) can be shown as notation; files beside a project can be shown as charts; and chords written in square brackets inside a lyric ([Am]Hel[F]lo) are drawn over their syllables. See the Performance guide.

Connection states

Every page shows the state of its connection as Runtime followed by one word: a dot in the bar at the top, and a label in Setup.

State	Meaning
Active	The page is connected and the host is answering.
Standby	The page is connected to a host that is following another host of the same rig. See Network & Redundancy.
Waiting	The page reaches Prest Server, but the host has not answered for about 3 seconds, for example while REAPER or Live shows a dialog.
Offline	The page cannot reach Prest Server.