Manual
The complete reference — every window, card, warning and shortcut. If you are setting the rig up for the first time, start with the Setup Guide instead: it is the same material as chapters 2 to 4, arranged as a ten-minute run-through. This page is what you come back to.
01 — What Prossible Is
Prossible follows a Pro Tools live playback session in real time and puts a stage display in front of the band. It reads the memory locations you already have — song number, title, tempo, key, song end — and the clips on a track named Sections, builds a setlist from them, and shows the players which song is running, which section they are in, and how many bars are left before the next one.
It adds nothing to your session. No plug-in, no script, no file to keep in sync, and it never writes back.
Two windows
| Window | What it is for |
|---|---|
Prossible — Stage Display |
The screen the band sees. Song title, song-form timeline, bars remaining, next song. Send it to an external monitor and run it full screen. Players look at this and nothing else. |
Prossible — Control Panel |
Your surface. A narrow window that stands next to the Pro Tools session: connection status, PLAY / STOP / NEXT, the setlist, quick messages and Settings. Settings and Setlist Appearance replace the contents of this same window — they never open a second one. |
Both windows share one engine, so anything you do in the Control Panel lands on the stage immediately.
SOURCE to Real (PTSL+MTC) once chapters 3 and 4 are done.02 — Install
Requirements
- macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon.
- Pro Tools 2023.6 or later with PTSL, running on the same Mac. (The one exception is the backup console in chapter 11, which runs its own Pro Tools on its own Mac.)
- An external display for the stage screen — optional, but that is the point of the app.
Installing
Download from the Mac App Store. There is nothing else to install: PTSL communication is built into the app over gRPC, and no helper, sidecar or Python environment is involved.
On first launch, allow Local Network access when macOS asks. LAN View and console pairing both need it; the rest of the app works without it.
03 — Pro Tools (PTSL)
PTSL is Pro Tools' own scripting interface. Prossible uses it to read the memory locations and the track list, and to send guarded transport commands.
On the Pro Tools side
- Pro Tools running, with the show session open. PTSL attaches to a live session, not to a file — with no session open there is nothing to connect to.
- MTC output configured as in chapter 4, so position follows as well as structure.
Switching to the real source
- Control Panel → ⚙ (top right) to open Settings.
CONNECTIONcard →SOURCE→Real (PTSL+MTC).- Pick your IAC port in the
MIDI Inputdropdown that appears. Not listed? PressRefresh. - Press
Reconnect. SESSION SYNCcard →RESYNC. The card reports how many markers it parsed.
Reading the status
Two dots sit in the Control Panel status bar at all times; the CONNECTION card carries the detail.
| Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|
Pro Tools: Connected (green) | PTSL is attached. The session name and the time of the last poll appear underneath. |
Pro Tools: Disconnected (red) | Pro Tools is not running, or no session is open. Work through chapter 12. |
MTC: Normal (green) | Timecode is arriving. |
MTC: Stale | No timecode for a while. Check chapter 4 — but note that a stopped Pro Tools sends MTC only when it locates. Stale while stopped is normal. |
04 — MTC
MIDI Time Code is how Pro Tools tells Prossible where the playhead is. It travels over the IAC bus built into macOS. Set once per Mac; it stays set.
macOS — bring the IAC driver online
⌘Space→Audio MIDI Setup→ Return.- Menu bar →
Window → Show MIDI Studio. - Double-click
IAC Driverand tickDevice is online. - The default
Bus 1is enough. Add a port with+if the list is empty.
Pro Tools — point the generator at it
Setup → Peripherals…→Synchronizationtab.- In
MTC Reader And Generator, setMTC Generator Portto your IAC bus. Pro Tools names it device-then-port, soBus 1reads asIAC Driver, Bus 1. - Leave
MTC Reader Portalone — that is Pro Tools listening, and Prossible has no use for it.
Prossible — listen to the same bus
- Settings →
CONNECTION→ confirmSOURCEisReal (PTSL+MTC). MIDI Input→ the same IAC port you just set in Pro Tools.Reconnect, then roll Pro Tools and check thatMTC: Normalcomes up and the stage playhead moves.
If the selected
MIDI Input is a macOS Network session, the SOURCE card shows a warning and the Pre-Show Check flags MTC Source. Nothing is blocked — but a backup Mac listening to the main Mac's MTC over a network session freezes the moment the main Mac stops. Give every Mac its own local MTC: an IAC bus fed by its own Pro Tools.
Refresh. Still nothing, and it is almost always the Device is online tick.Screenshots of the Pro Tools window are in the Setup Guide.
05 — Songs & Sections
Everything on both screens comes from your session. Songs are memory locations. Sections are clips on an audio track named Sections. That split is deliberate: two names per song keeps the Memory Locations window auditable, and the section map ends up somewhere you can see it.
Marker syntax
| Marker name | What it does |
|---|---|
03.Runaway/120/Am |
Song start. NN.Title/BPM/KEY — exactly two digits (00–99) and a period, then title, tempo and key separated by slashes. One digit (3.) or three (100.) is not a song. |
07.Ballad/96 | Song with tempo only — the display shows ♩96 and no key. |
12.Jam | Title alone is valid. Tempo and key are optional; omitted fields simply don't appear. |
12.Jam//Am | Empty fields are allowed — two slashes give you a key with no tempo. |
SongEnd |
Song end. Case-insensitive. Put one on every song: song length, the auto-stop and the ■/↓ behaviour all key off it. |
Pause |
Mid-song stop. Case-insensitive, as many per song as you need, placed between a song marker and its SongEnd. Playback stops there and waits on the same song — see Pause markers. |
| (unnamed marker) | Ignored silently. Cue markers left over from production do no harm. |
| anything else | Ignored, and listed as an Unrecognized warning so you can spot a typo. |
- Slashes, not spaces.
03.Runaway 120makes "Runaway 120" the whole title. - A non-numeric tempo field is dropped rather than guessed at.
- Whatever you type in a marker's comments field is read as that song's note and shown on the ready screen.
- Marker colour is yours to use as you like — Prossible does not read it, and the session behaves identically without it.
The Sections track
Add one audio track named Sections. Drop a short silent clip at the start of every section and rename each clip to the section name. That is the whole convention:
- Track name. Matched case-insensitively, ignoring leading and trailing spaces —
sectionsandSECTIONSboth count. It has to be that one word. - Audio, not MIDI. Pro Tools' session-info export never lists MIDI tracks, so a MIDI
Sectionstrack reads to Prossible as no track at all. This is not a preference; it is the only thing that works. - Clip length is ignored. Only the start matters — a section runs until the next one starts, or until the song ends.
- Stay inside the song. Every clip must sit between a song marker and that song's
SongEnd(or, with noSongEnd, the next song marker). A clip in the gap between songs belongs to nobody, so it is dropped and reported. - Name every clip. An unnamed clip has no section name to show, so it is skipped and reported.
- Section colours are automatic — assigned by role and position, not inherited from Pro Tools. Nothing to configure.
> SYNTAX IS GONEMarkers whose names begin with
> used to make sections. They no longer do anything. If a session still contains them, Prossible says '>' markers are no longer used for sections — Prossible now reads the 'Sections' track once per resync. Rebuild those sections as clips and delete the markers.
A correct session, end to end
| In the session | On screen |
|---|---|
Marker 01.Midnight Run/107 | Setlist song 1, ♩107. Entering this range puts the title, tempo and song form on the stage. |
Sections clip "Intro" | First segment of the song-form timeline; during playback, Intro · N BARS LEFT. |
Sections clip "Chorus 1" | Second segment. |
Marker SongEnd | End of song 1 — song length, and the target for ■/↓. |
Marker 02.Glass Houses/128/Am | Setlist song 2, ♩128, key Am. |
Marker SongEnd | End of song 2. |
SongEnd and the next song, the stage screen goes quiet on its own and previews what's next. If you want a visible row in the setlist for it, use Add Note Below (chapter 6).Warnings, and what each one means
When something looks wrong, a ⚠︎ N chip appears in the Control Panel status bar; clicking it opens the SESSION SYNC card with the list. The app keeps working with warnings outstanding — but clear them before the doors open.
| Warning | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
'…' has no SongEnd marker |
A song start with no SongEnd before the next song. Add one on the downbeat where playback should stop, then resync. |
'Pause' marker outside any song / on a song boundary |
A Pause before the first song, in the gap after a SongEnd, or sitting exactly on a song marker or its SongEnd. It belongs to no song, so it is ignored. Move it inside the song. |
Duplicate song title |
Two song markers with the same title. Make them distinguishable — otherwise "the ballad" is ambiguous on comms. |
Duplicate track number |
Two markers claim the same NN.. Renumber: the number is how the band talks to you. |
'>' markers are no longer used for sections |
Legacy section markers found and ignored. Move those sections onto the Sections track and delete the markers. |
No 'Sections' track found |
No audio track by that name. Expected and harmless if you don't use sections; otherwise check the spelling and that it is an audio track. |
Track data unavailable from this session export |
Prossible could not read the track list at all, so whether a Sections track exists is unknown — different from "there isn't one". Resync; if it persists, confirm the session actually has audio tracks. |
Sections track: N clips outside any song range |
A clip is stranded in a gap, or starts a few samples ahead of its song marker after a nudge. Move it between the song marker and its SongEnd. |
Sections track: N unnamed clips skipped |
The clip name is the section name, so an unnamed clip has nothing to show. Rename or delete it. |
Unrecognized marker |
A name that matches nothing — a typo, a decorative marker, or an old-convention leftover such as End or ENC.. Ignored; worth a look. |
BPM mismatch |
The tempo written on the marker disagrees with the tempo measured across the song by more than 5%. Either the number is a typo or a marker moved. |
Marker excluded during resync |
The name parsed but the position didn't. Usually clears on a second RESYNC; if the message asks you to set the Pro Tools main counter to Samples or Bars|Beats, do that and resync. Prossible never changes your counter itself. |
Flagged: … |
Not an error — you flagged that song yourself with Flag for Review. Clear it from the same right-click menu. |
RESYNC
- After editing markers or section clips in Pro Tools, stop the transport, then Settings →
SESSION SYNC→RESYNC. - While stopped, Prossible also polls for changes on its own and catches up within seconds.
RESYNCis the "now, and definitely" button. - Resync does nothing during playback. That is deliberate — the drummer's screen must not reshuffle mid-song. It lands at the next stop.
- Resync reads the session without moving your cursor, counter or playhead, so it is safe between songs.
RESYNCis locked in SHOW mode (chapter 6).- Your running order and per-song settings are reconciled onto the new markers, not thrown away.
Mistakes people actually make
| Mistake | What happens |
|---|---|
3.Runaway / 03 Runaway | Not a song. Exactly two digits and a period: 03.Runaway. |
03.Runaway 120 | Tempo never appears — the title becomes "Runaway 120". Use a slash. |
No SongEnd | Warning, plus inaccurate song length and an auto-stop with nothing to fire on. |
Two 03. markers | Duplicate-number warning, and "song three" stops meaning one thing. |
| Section clips on a MIDI track | Reads as no Sections track at all — the export omits MIDI. Use an audio track. |
| A section clip left in a gap | Dropped, with a warning. Move it inside the song. |
| Editing without resyncing, or resyncing mid-playback | The setlist stays as it was. Stop, then resync. |
06 — Running a Show
PLAY / STOP / NEXT
The transport row carries three equal buttons: PLAY (green and reading PLAYING while rolling), a square STOP, and NEXT. They are one-way, not toggles — pressing PLAY while playing, or STOP while stopped, does nothing at all. Alongside them: the current title, Section · N BARS LEFT, and elapsed / total time.
NEXT targets the next song in the running order. Stopped, it jumps there and stands by as READY. Playing, it leaves the current song alone and books that song as where the next stop lands — a blue NEXT badge marks it. At the end of the set the button greys out.
Clicking a setlist row while playing does nothing. It does not jump and it does not book a next song; the Control Panel flashes
Playback is sacred — use NEXT or stop first. and carries on. The only way to change what comes next mid-song is the NEXT button. Decide the order before you start, in the setlist.
PLAY/STOP/NEXT/jump makes the second press bounce and the button flash red. Settings → SAFETY → Minimum interval between PLAY/STOP/jump sets the window; 0 turns it off.The spacebar
With the setlist focused — which it is when the window opens — Space does exactly what PLAY/STOP do. It is deliberately dead while you are typing: in the quick-message field, in song search (⌘K), while renaming a note, and whenever Settings, Setlist Appearance or a dialog is open. If the spacebar stops responding after you send a message, click any setlist row to hand focus back.
The setlist
| State | Clicking a song, or cursor + Return |
|---|---|
| Stopped | Jumps straight there and stands by as READY. |
| Playing | Nothing happens, by design. See the banner above. |
The list is fully keyboard-operable, and the hint line under it says so: ␣ Play/Stop · ↑↓ Move · ⏎ Select · Right-click for more.
↑↓move the cursor ring one visible row at a time, skipping the sections of collapsed songs. At either end it stops rather than wrapping — nobody wants the cursor back at song 1 mid-show.Returnfires the row under the cursor, by the rules in the table. On a note row it does nothing (there is nowhere to jump to).⌘Kor the magnifier searches titles.- Right-click a song for
Song Color,Flag for Review,Skip This Song(struck through for tonight),Count-In Bars,Play From…(REHEARSAL, stopped only),Move Up/Move Down,Add Note Below. - Turning off
Click to jump(chapter 7) makes row clicks view-only while leaving the right-click menu live.
Reordering
- In REHEARSAL, every song row carries a faint
☰handle at its left edge. Drag the handle to move the song. The handle exists precisely so that dragging is never something you do by accident while aiming for a jump. Move Up/Move Downin the right-click menu do the same thing one row at a time.- Reordering changes Prossible's order only. Your markers, numbering and audio positions are untouched, and the order survives a resync and a restart.
- In SHOW mode the handles disappear entirely — the column is reclaimed — and
Move Up/Move Downgrey out.
Sections in the list
- Rows show titles only until you click the
▸arrow on a song that has sections. - Stopped, clicking an expanded section jumps to it. Playing, it does nothing — same rule as songs.
- While playing, the section you are actually in is highlighted, and repeated section names inside one song are told apart by position.
Song end behaviour — ■ / ↓
- The button at the right edge of each row decides what happens at that song's
SongEnd:■stop (default) or↓run straight into the next song. - It toggles on click and is remembered per song across restarts.
- A song set to
■raises anAUTO-STOP in N…countdown five seconds out, with aCANCELbeside it that skips the stop this once. The arming resets every pass, so the next time through the same song it stops again.
Pause markers
New in v1.2. A Pause marker stops the show in the middle of a song — a speech over a held chord, a costume change, a bit that runs as long as it runs — without splitting the song in two. The setlist keeps it as one song.
- Syntax. A memory location named
Pause(any case), anywhere between the song marker and itsSongEnd. Use as many as the song needs. - Approaching one works exactly like the song-end auto-stop: a
PAUSE in N…countdown with the same lead time as the song-end countdown (5 s by default), withCANCEL. On stage, the Bar/Beat count and Next Section readPAUSEas the next thing coming, and the song-form timeline carries a thin mark at each pause. Setlist rows with pauses show a⏸badge. CANCELpasses through that pause and keeps playing. The rest of the song is untouched.- Not canceled, transport stops at the pause and the panel goes to
READYon the same song, at that position — not the next song. PLAYor the spacebar resumes from the pause, still inside the song.- An armed
NEXTis kept. If you queued the next song during the song, the pause still stops on the same song; the blueNEXTbadge stays, and the reservation applies after you resume — at the song end or your nextSTOP, as usual. - Independent of
■/↓. Those decide what happens at the song's end; a pause is mid-song. A song set to↓still stops at its pauses. - Jumping past a pause — a section click, a locate,
NEXT— never triggers it after the fact. Going back before it (a rewind, aSTOPthat returns to the song top) arms it again. - A pause is not a section or a song boundary: bar counts, song length, the timeline and the Track Lane are all unchanged by it. Both events appear in the show log.
Count-in bars
Right-click a song → Count-In Bars → 0 to 4 (default Off). Fixed choices rather than a text field, because this gets adjusted mid-rehearsal with a drummer waiting. Songs with a count-in wear a grey −N badge — grey and not amber, because a count-in is preparation, not a hazard.
Note rows
- Right-click →
Add Note Belowinserts a free-text row (defaultMENT) for talk breaks, encore standbys and running notes. - Notes are not playable, are not counted as songs, and survive a resync.
- Click the text to edit; right-click for
Move Up,Move Down,Delete Note.
REHEARSAL / SHOW
Settings → the MODE card at the very top. The current mode is always visible at the right of the status bar.
| Mode | Behaviour |
|---|---|
REHEARSAL |
Everything available. Reordering only happens here, and Play From… — a rehearsal-only right-click item — starts a few bars early with a count-in. |
SHOW |
Locked against accidents. Layout editing, RESYNC, source switching, safety settings and setlist reordering all freeze. Jumping, PLAY/STOP/NEXT, the dimmer and quick messages stay live. Switching into SHOW runs a Pre-Show Check (connection, MTC source, marker warnings, dimmer, auto-stop, displays); anything it dislikes raises a confirmation you have to clear with Proceed to SHOW. |
The way out is the same card — it never locks. A standby console in a redundant pair carries similar locks for a different reason; see chapter 11.
Dimmer
Settings → STAGE DISPLAY → DIMMER, 15% to 100%, with 100 / 70 / 40 / 15 snap buttons. It will not go below 15%, so the stage screen can never be dimmed to nothing by accident. Available in SHOW mode.
Quick messages
- The only place to type one is the bar under the setlist in the Control Panel: a field,
SEND, and aBIGtoggle. Maximum 20 characters. - Settings →
QUICK MESSAGEholds exactly one control — the toggle that shows or hides that bar. There is no input field in Settings, on purpose. Hiding the bar removes the ability to send. - On stage the message appears as a
MEMObanner and clears itself: 4 seconds for short text, 8 for long. BIGputs it across the middle of the screen for 8 seconds, for when it has to land.
Presets and windows
- Two presets ship: Timeline Focus (
⌘1) and Drummer Focus (⌘2), from theLayoutmenu or Settings →STAGE DISPLAY→Preset. Your own saved presets join the same list. Switching cross-fades rather than cutting. - The stage window is windowed by default;
⌘Fmakes it full screen. Window → Show/Hide Stage Display(⌘⇧D) brings it back if you closed it. If you never want it, turn offOpen Stage Display at launch— every operator feature works without it.- Settings →
STAGE DISPLAY→OUTPUTmoves the stage window to a chosen display and goes full screen in one action. - Settings →
DISPLAY→Auto-move stage to external display(on by default) does that automatically the moment a monitor is connected, and returns to a window when it is unplugged — built for moving one cable to the backup Mac mid-show.
07 — Setlist Appearance
Type size and state colours for the Control Panel's setlist. These are per-Mac display settings — nothing here touches your session, and a paired backup console does not inherit them.
Open it from the slider icon at the right of the SETLIST header — a different control from the ⚙ Settings button. It replaces the contents of the Control Panel window; ✕ at the top right goes back.
Text size
Five steps, applying to the setlist only. Row height and padding scale with the type. Titles and state badges are never truncated: when space runs short, tags give way first, then durations.
| Step | 1 | 2 | 3 (default) | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scale | 1.00× | 1.08× | 1.18× | 1.38× | 1.62× |
State colours
PLAYING, READY and NEXT can each be left on AUTO or set to one of eight hues. Only the hue changes — lightness and saturation stay fixed by the app, so no combination can make two states hard to tell apart. Warning and caution colours are not customisable.
The cursor ring (SELECTED) offers AUTO or three brightness steps and no hue at all — it is deliberately neutral so it can never be mistaken for a transport state.
Preview and reset
A live three-row sample, unrelated to the loaded session, updates as you change things — cursor ring included. Reset Colors & Text Size resets this card only; song colours, flags, skips and count-ins are stored separately and are not touched.
Setlist options
Show song notes— marker comments in the setlist.Show song durations— per-song length.
Panel options
Click to jump— off makes setlist rows view-only. The right-click menu keeps working.Show progress bar (transport row)Show timecode (transport row)
08 — Edit Layout
Everything on the stage screen is a widget you can move, resize, recolour or switch off. Open the editor with ⌘E, or Settings → STAGE DISPLAY → EDIT LAYOUT. The stage screen holds its last frame while you edit and cross-fades to the new layout on APPLY. Locked in SHOW mode — build layouts at rehearsal.
Handling
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Select / multi-select | Click, Shift-click, or drag a marquee on empty canvas. |
| Move | Drag. Snaps to an 8pt grid, with blue smart guides when edges line up. |
| Resize | Drag any of the eight handles — type inside the widget scales with it. |
| Align / distribute | Inspector, with 2+ (align) or 3+ (distribute) selected. |
| Undo / redo | ⌘Z / ⇧⌘Z |
| Modifiers | ⌥ bypasses snapping · ⇧ keeps the aspect ratio while resizing. |
| Finish | APPLY pushes to the stage · CANCEL discards the whole session of edits after a confirmation. |
Widgets
The inspector's WIDGETS list holds every widget, each with an eye icon for show/hide.
- Available: Song Title · Song Form Timeline · Bar/Beat Count · Elapsed Time · Remaining Time · Tempo · Next Song · Current Section · Next Section · BPM Pulse Dot · Count Stem Lane · Track Lane · Custom Text · Custom Image · Lyrics (in development, disabled).
- Bar/Beat Count has a
Displaysegment —BAR(bars remaining),BEAT(beat only) orBOTH— and aLarge Countdownoption that promotes the number to hero size. - BPM Pulse Dot is a visual metronome, hidden by default.
- Labels:
Show LabelandLabel Sizeper widget. - Colour: with one widget selected,
Colorchanges its text or numbers andAutorestores it. Per-song palette colours and warning colours are fixed in meaning and cannot be recoloured. - Custom Text / Custom Image: add as many as you like from
+ ADD.
Track Lane
New in v1.1. A Track Lane draws one Pro Tools track's clips across the whole current song, on the same time axis as the song-form timeline — which recreates, on the stage screen, what a drummer already knows how to read from watching the click and count tracks in the Edit Window.
- Add one from
+ ADD. You can place as many as you want — a click lane and a count lane, sized and positioned independently, is the common setup. - With a lane selected, pick its
Source trackin the inspector. Any audio track in the session is eligible; likely candidates (names containing "click" or "count", plusSectionsitself) float to the top of the list as suggestions, and the choice is always yours. - The list row names the lane by its track —
Track Lane: BAND CLICK— so multiple lanes stay identifiable. - Size and position are free, like any other widget. A lane stacked directly under the song-form timeline lines up with it exactly, because both derive x from the same song time axis.
- The source-track choice is stored per session, alongside the Count Stem Lane's, rather than inside the layout preset — track names belong to the session, not the layout. It follows that the pick is not part of undo, and that a preset carried to another rig arrives with the lane empty until you choose a track.
- Lanes draw inside a song. In a gap between songs, or in a song with no confirmed
SongEnd, the lane stays empty rather than inventing an axis.
Presets
- Toolbar
PRESETarea:SAVE(overwrite),Save As New…,Rename…. Saved presets appear in Settings →STAGE DISPLAY→Preset. EXPORT/IMPORTmove a layout between Macs as a JSON file. Two things do not travel with it: image files used by Custom Image widgets, and Track Lane source-track picks — both live outside the preset.
09 — Purchase & Licensing
Prossible starts as a trial and unlocks in two tiers, Stage and Pro. One-time in-app purchases — a perpetual licence, no renewal, no licence server at the gig. Current prices are on the Pricing page and in the app.
The trial
Every feature is open; the setlist shows the first 3 songs of each session — first by position in the session, not a choice of which three. Song four onwards is simply absent from the list rather than shown as a locked row. Settings → SESSION SYNC carries a chip: Trial: N of M songs shown.
Buying
Settings → UNLOCK, directly under SESSION SYNC.
| Product | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
Stage | Unlimited songs and sessions on this Mac. |
Pro | Everything in Stage, plus LAN View (chapter 10) and main/backup redundancy (chapter 11). |
Pro Upgrade | Shown only to owners of Stage — a discounted step up that adds LAN View and redundancy. |
Prices are fetched live from the App Store. With no internet you get Prices unavailable — purchasing needs an internet connection. and a Retry button. BUY hands off to the standard macOS purchase sheet; a family-approval hold reports Purchase pending approval — it unlocks automatically once approved.
Restore
New Mac, or a reinstall: Restore Purchases in the same card. Needs the same Apple Account and an internet connection.
10 — LAN View (PRO)
The stage display served to every phone and tablet on the local network, with nothing for the band to install. Local only — this is not remote access over the internet — and it works on a router with no uplink at all.
Requires the Pro unlock. Without it the LAN VIEW toggle is locked with an explanatory line, and the REDUNDANCY card does not appear in Settings at all.
Starting the server
- Settings →
LAN VIEW→ turn onLAN view server. It stops when the app quits, so it belongs in your show-day routine. - The card shows the port (with a note if it had to fall back from the default), Bonjour status, a QR code and the plain address. On a network that blocks Bonjour the QR and address still work.
- If the Mac is on no network, you get
No usable network address — connect this Mac to Wi-Fi or Ethernet.Join a network first.
Connecting a phone
- Scan the QR in Safari or Chrome on the same network, or type the address. With
Require PINon (the default) the QR carries the PIN, so scanning is enough; typing the address asks for it once. - Pick a view — the stage mirror by default, or any other preset, with the one currently on stage marked. The device remembers its choice.
- Leave it as a browser tab rather than a home-screen icon: some iOS versions do not hold the screen awake reliably from a saved icon.
The page updates live, with position interpolated smoothly between updates. If the network drops it freezes on the last frame and shows RECONNECTING…, then picks up on its own — the same principle as the stage window.
Up to 24 devices at once; beyond that a new connection is told Maximum viewers reached.
Controlling from a phone
Viewers are read-only. One device — in practice your own phone — can be promoted to run the transport.
- The phone presses
CONTROL, bottom left; the button goes toREQUESTING…. - A
LAN Controller Requestalert appears on the Mac, naming the device. If another device already holds control, the alert says so. - You press
Approve(orApprove and Switch). Unanswered requests expire after 60 seconds;Denyends it. - The phone gains
PLAY/STOP/NEXTand nothing else. They run down exactly the same path as the Control Panel's — same double-trigger protection, same "playback is sacred" rule, same logging.
One controller at a time; approving a new device demotes the old one to view-only. Transport is not locked in SHOW mode, so requests and control both work mid-show.
Security
| Control | Behaviour |
|---|---|
Require PIN | On by default. Off, anyone on the network can view, and the card warns you so. |
Regenerate PIN | Issues a new PIN. Confirming with Regenerate & Disconnect All drops every connected device and revokes control — everyone reconnects with the new PIN. |
| Device list | Name, chosen view, CONTROLLER badge and last activity. |
Revoke | Takes control back from that device instantly; it keeps viewing. |
Revoke is never locked: it is an emergency control.In practice
- House Wi-Fi is house Wi-Fi. Carry your own small router if the show depends on this.
- Same network only. There is no path in from outside.
- Some widgets do not render on a phone — see the note in chapter 8.
11 — Redundancy (PRO)
Two Macs, one show. Each runs its own Pro Tools and chases its own timecode; the pairing syncs your decisions — running order, colours, skips, mode, dimmer — so the backup mirrors the operator, not the playback. Audio and MIDI redundancy stay with your existing failover rig.
Both Macs on the same network. Both with the same session open, markers identical. Both on
SOURCE = Real showing Pro Tools: Connected and MTC: Normal — each reading its own Pro Tools' MTC on a local IAC bus, never the other Mac's over a Network MIDI session. Both with LAN view server on, because pairing and reconnection run over it. Miss one and you do not have redundancy, you have two Macs.
Pairing
- On the main Mac: Settings →
REDUNDANCY→Pair Consoles…→Show Code. A one-time six-digit code, valid five minutes. - On the backup: same card →
Pair Consoles…→Enter Code→ pick the main Mac from the list, type the six digits,Pair. - Both cards show the other console and
CONNECTED. The Mac that showed the code becomesPRIMARY, the one that entered itBACKUP. Swap them with thePRIMARY / BACKUPsegment if that landed the wrong way round.
Pairing survives reboots and re-finds the partner over Bonjour even when IP addresses change.
Role badges
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
ACTIVE | This console holds the controls. Normal. |
STANDBY (linked) | Standby, link healthy — plays its own session, editing locked. |
STANDBY — LINK LOST | Lost contact with the active console. Promote to Active is emphasised. |
SPLIT BRAIN | Both consoles claim Active. Rare — see below. |
On standby
| Still works | PLAY / STOP / NEXT and RESYNC. Its playback is its own — it follows its own Pro Tools, which is why the music does not stop when the main Mac does. |
| Locked | Setlist reordering (the drag handles are simply absent), the colour/skip/move right-click items, the master dimmer and the MODE segment. All greyed, with a line explaining that editing belongs to the active console. |
Reorders, colours, skips, dimmer and mode changes on the active console reach the standby within about a second.
Failover
- If the main Mac dies, the backup's badge flips to
STANDBY — LINK LOSTwithin five seconds. Music and stage display never stop — it was already following its own session. - Press
Promote to Active. The badge becomesACTIVEand editing, dimmer and mode unlock. - Promotion is never automatic, and it is never locked — not even in SHOW mode. It ranks with
STOPas a recovery action.
When the old main comes back it reconnects and settles quietly into STANDBY (linked) with no popup, inheriting whatever changed while it was gone.
Split brain
If both consoles were promoted while disconnected from each other, neither is demoted automatically on reconnection: both show a red SPLIT BRAIN badge and a line saying both claim Active. Press Promote to Active once more on the console that should lead; the other stands down quietly. The ordinary case — one side promoted — resolves itself silently.
Push State Now / Unpair
Push State Nowforces a full state resend from the active console. It does not touch playback; it is there for peace of mind.Unpairbreaks the pairing, needs confirmation, and is locked in SHOW mode. Leave the pair intact until the run is over.
12 — Troubleshooting
Nothing connects — check in this order
- Is Pro Tools running with a session open? Without one there is nothing to attach to.
- Is Prossible on the same Mac as Pro Tools?
- Is
SOURCEset toReal (PTSL+MTC), and did you pressReconnect? - PTSL fine but no timecode? Walk chapter 4 in order: IAC online,
MTC Generator Port, thenMIDI Input. - Still stuck: capture the red error line under the
CONNECTIONcard and send it to us.
Common questions
| Symptom | Answer |
|---|---|
Disconnected after pressing Reconnect |
Nine times out of ten, no session is open. Then the checklist above. |
Connected but MTC: Stale |
Check MTC Generator Port really names the IAC bus Prossible is listening on — then check Pro Tools is actually rolling. Stopped, it only emits MTC when it locates. |
| The backup Mac's display freezes whenever the main Mac stops | The backup is listening to the main Mac's MTC over a Network MIDI session (the SOURCE card warns about this). Point its MIDI Input at its own IAC bus, fed by its own Pro Tools. |
No IAC port in MIDI Input |
Refresh. Still missing: the Device is online tick in Audio MIDI Setup. |
RESYNC changes nothing |
Pro Tools must be stopped — resync is disabled during playback by design. Also check you are not in SHOW mode, where it is locked. |
Settings, RESYNC or SOURCE do not respond |
You are in SHOW mode. Settings → the MODE card at the very top → REHEARSAL. (If it is a standby console instead, see chapter 11.) |
| Clicking a song mid-playback books nothing | By design. The Playback is sacred banner is the explanation; use NEXT. |
| Clicking a song does nothing at all | Click to jump is off (chapter 7). Or you double-tapped and double-trigger protection bounced the second press — the row flashes red. Wait a beat. |
| Only some of the session's songs appear | You are on the trial: first 3 songs per session. See the chip on the SESSION SYNC card and chapter 9. |
| Song form is empty, or no section names | No Sections track was read. Check that the track is audio, named Sections, and that its clips sit inside a song's range — the warning list will say which of those it is. |
| A section vanished after being fine yesterday | Its clip was probably nudged out of the song's range, or lost its name. Both raise a warning on the SESSION SYNC card naming the count. |
| A Track Lane is blank | No source track picked yet (the pick does not travel inside an exported preset), or the playhead is in a gap between songs, or the song has no SongEnd so the lane has no axis to draw on. |
LAN VIEW won't toggle · no REDUNDANCY card |
Both need the Pro unlock. LAN View shows a locked note; the redundancy card is hidden entirely until you own Pro. |
Red SPLIT BRAIN badge |
Both consoles were promoted while disconnected. Press Promote to Active once on the console that should lead (chapter 11). |
| The stage window disappeared | Window → Show/Hide Stage Display, or ⌘⇧D. |
| The stage screen is frozen | Intended. On disconnect the last frame is held and only the corner status light turns red — check the Control Panel and work the checklist above. The stage also freezes while the layout editor is open, and resumes on APPLY or CANCEL. |
Send us your macOS and Pro Tools versions, a screenshot of the
CONNECTION and SESSION SYNC cards, and the session if you can spare it — sound.shs@gmail.com. Show weeks get answered first.