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PREGONERO

the town crier

Solo en inglés

Pregonero puts the line I am singing on the wall behind me, in the language the room speaks, and then gets out of the way. It runs on stage, during the show, for the length of the show.

IN USE · BOMFESTIVAL · PC HOEGAARDEN · DE KOERmacOSMITv0.10.0
Open Studio Day, De Koer, Ghent — the animation carries the song and the line rides on top of it; the room reads it without anyone stopping to explain.
THREE WAYS TO DRIVE IT

PEDAL-DRIVEN

Most songs have no film behind them, so nothing external knows where I am. I advance each line with a pedal at my feet. Live tempo is not a metronome — verses stretch, a line waits for the room — and a foot handles that better than any clock. The words move when I move.

BOMfestival, Ghent — a screen on an easel carrying one line at a time, with nothing behind the words. This is the mode running on its own.

CLOCK-DRIVEN

Some songs have no film behind them but do carry their timings in the file. Then the pedal is a starting gun rather than a metronome: one press to begin, and from there the song's own clock moves the lines while both my hands stay on the guitar. One more press takes it back and hands me the pedal again for the rest of that song — the manual way is always underneath the automatic one, and it always wins. A live show does not get a second take.

ANIMATION-DRIVEN

When a song plays against one of my animation films, the film is the clock. The timings come from a file, the video starts, and every line lands on its own without me touching anything — because my hands are on the guitar and the film will not wait for them. That file is what Bombista is for.

TWO WINDOWS

There are two windows: one I look at and one the audience looks at. Mine sits on the laptop and shows the current line, the next line, and the controls. The other goes out to the projector and shows nothing but the words. They are separate on purpose — the audience should never see me searching for a line, and I should never have to guess what is on the wall behind me.

WHAT IT EXPECTS

  • A Mac, and a projector or second screen the audience can see.
  • A USB or Bluetooth foot pedal that sends a key press — any of them will do; there is no special hardware.
  • For the two modes that aren't pedal-driven, a song file carrying its timings — plus the film itself, for an animation-driven one.

BUILDING IT

There is no packaged download. It is a desktop app you build from the source, which is on GitHub under the MIT licence — clone it, install the dependencies, and run the build.

SOURCE ON GITHUB →
THE INTERFACE
Loading a song and choosing which language goes on the wall, before the set starts.
Loading a song and choosing which language goes on the wall, before the set starts.
What I see while playing: the line that is up, the one coming, and nothing competing for attention.
What I see while playing: the line that is up, the one coming, and nothing competing for attention.
What the audience sees: one line, and no interface around it.
What the audience sees: one line, and no interface around it.