1
Choose your device
Under Device, pick your audio interface from the list. That is the box
your microphones are plugged into. The list shows how many channels each one
has.
2
Choose the channel the lead singer is on
Under Vocal channel, pick the channel the lead vocal arrives on. The
meter beside it moves when someone sings into that microphone.On a big desk, look at the line underneath. It tells you which channels have
anything arriving at all, something like Signal on channels 1, 2 and 3,
and says when the rest are silent. That turns twenty-four channels into a
handful worth trying.
3
Prove it
Press Check. The screen dims and asks you to sing a line of a well known
hymn into that channel.Sing it. The words light up as they arrive. When it says That channel
carries the voice, the Check button becomes a green tick, and that is
how you know you picked the right one.Stop gives up on a channel so you can try another.
More than one singer
If two or three people lead together, press Add another vocal channel for each of them and check each one. ScreenShepherd follows whoever is singing. Three is the most. The button tells you why when it cannot add another, usually because the interface has no spare channels. To change a channel later, use its own picker. To remove one, press the × beside it.Checking a microphone during a service
Click the meter on the Control Panel. Every vocal channel gets a row, with its own level, so you can see at a glance which microphone has gone quiet.
When it stops hearing anything
Can't hear the audio input
Can't hear the audio input
Under Audio input it says the input cannot be heard, and the Device
box says the interface is not here.Unplugging the interface, or moving it to a different socket, can leave the
saved choice pointing at nothing. Pick the interface again from the list.
Stopping and starting will not fix it.
macOS is blocking the microphone
macOS is blocking the microphone
Account button in the top right → Settings. Under Microphone
access, press Open system settings and allow ScreenShepherd.
Nothing is arriving on any channel of this input
Nothing is arriving on any channel of this input
The interface is there but silent. Check the cable, the phantom power, and
that the desk is actually sending to this output.
When the check will not pass
The words never light up
The words never light up
Try each channel in turn. It is nearly always the wrong channel rather than
a broken input. Make sure someone really is singing into that microphone
while you check.
Some words lit up, but it never confirmed the channel
Some words lit up, but it never confirmed the channel
Sing the whole line, clearly, into that microphone, then check again.
It follows one person but not the band
It follows one person but not the band
You are probably on a main mix rather than a vocal channel. Or your second
leader’s microphone has not been added yet.
Check is greyed out
Check is greyed out
You cannot check while it is listening. Press Stop on the Control Panel
first.
The green ticks last for this session only. A tick that outlives the cable it
was earned with would be worse than no tick, and checking again costs one line
of singing.