[button link=”http://www.worshiptutorials.com/pads/” size=”large”]Purchase Pads here[/button]
In the above video, I walk through the process to set up ProPresenter to play any audio file (specifically Pads) during a song or any other service element.
How to set it up
The process if pretty simple and straightforward.
- Import the Pads (or other audio) into ProPresenter in the Audio section
- Click and drag the desired audio file into any slide in a playlist. For running Pads, it works well to set the audio file to start playing on the first slide of a song – typically the background slide.
- Now, when you play the song, the audio file will play automatically and it will keep playing as you advance slides. The audio file will continue to play until you set a ‘Clear audio’ action cue in a slide, or you trigger another audio file.
- In order to stop the audio, you can just pause or clear it in the audio section, you can set another slide to trigger a different audio file, or you can set a slide to clear all audio.
Notes
This process assumes that your computer running ProPresenter is sending audio out to your sound board or whatever you’re using to control Front of House (FOH).
Another note to pay attention to is the crossfade time. Under the audio section, there is a slider with timing for the crossfade. This sets the fade time that ProPresenter uses when an audio file transitions from one file to another, or when you clear the audio (it fades out). I like to set it at around 1.5 to 2 seconds.
We use this method all the time in our worship services, and it works beautifully. It’s probably the easiest way to incorporate Pads into your worship sets if you are using ProPresenter. Any other worship presentation software that allows you to run an audio file in a slide will let you accomplish pretty much the same thing.
I’ve been doing this the last couple of weeks and it seems to be a great solution but I’m having one problems still. On our mixer we have a line out from our iMac (running propresenter 4) running to our mixer. That iMac channel on our audio mixer sends not only to front of house but to our lobbies via prefader aux sends. Are you running your pro presenters aux post fader? or is there a way to specify multi channel audio out? Thanks!
Hi Nathan – We have our distributed audio (which would feed our lobby) set up as a completely separate sub-mix. We’re running a Behringer X32 at our campus, which is pretty flexible in this regard. Without knowing the specifics of your particular board it might be difficult to offer advice. If you do run it post-fader, your lobby mix should get roughly the same thing as your FOH mix, which may or may not be what you’re going for (for example, if you’d like to have something different playing in your lobby as you do for your FOH mix).
Hey Brian… I don’t want to use ProPresenter to trigger the pad. I need a musician/band member to do that. What is the most feasible way of ‘triggering’ the pad we want to play? We have Ableton, and have iPad/iPhone if need be. Right now our drummer often has Ableton due to triggering a loop we use, but we generally only have 1 loop. So if we aren’t playing a loop, how could he ‘trigger’ that in Ableton? Also, can you have the downloads in say both the computer we have Ableton in, as well as a backup on say my iPad? My main concern is triggering the pad w/o the involvement of non-musicians. thx
Hi, Brian. I purchased the 3 sets of WT Pads. They sound great! However, I need to trigger the pads using a combination of foot pedal, triggering device, tablet and software application. I have a Boss FS-6 Dual Footswitch which I plan to connect to an AirTurn BT-105 Digital Page Turner to trigger MP3 files on a Samsung Android tablet or smartphone. AirTurn lists the Android Media Player and Set List Maker as BT-105 compatible applications to queue the audio files. The BT-105 works on PC, Android, and Apple devices, but before I purchase it, I am wondering if you or anyone tried any combination of these tools? What was your experience like? For now, I am looking for a simple, direct and reliable Android solution, then move on to using an iPad or iPod later. Any recommendation? Thanks.
Is there a way to run the same pad for, let’s say, three songs (all in the same key) without having to restart it everytime I go to the next song? Because the pad is 20 minutes. If there is a way, how would I do that in ProPresenter? Do I just not apply a separate pad to the 2nd and 3rd song, assuming that the first pad won’t fade out? I appreciate the help. Thank you. 🙂