Show Cue System

Hi all, I've used SCS for one show now, along with a laptop and an M-audio firewire 410. Seeing as that show had only used the two standard FOH left and right speakers, I really didn't get into anything fancy RE: assigning individual speakers (speaker pairs?), etc. Everything worked great!

For my next show opening in 3 weeks or so, I need to create several effects, but am unclear on a number of things and can't get things working.

Here's our setup:
- M-Audio firewire 410
- Dell Latitude
-5 speakers and a subwoofer: two fronts L & R, two rear self-powered L & R, and one speaker and subwoofer UNDER the audience risers.

Here's what I want to do and what I don't quite understand.

1. Hear shouts, sirens, air raid sounds etc coming from different speakers, moving between lefts rights fronts backs etc.

2. Have a train start at the back right speaker, pan to the back left, then front left, then front right.

My problem is that I fundamentally don't understand the M-Audio software mixer, as well as the speaker assignments in SCS. I know this is a forum for SCS and not M-Audio, but I also know several people use the 410 and am looking for help. Without using SCS could I even assign different sounds to come through different speakers with the 410 alone? How?

For SCS, do I need to set the M-audio on my main audio device driver screen to Mulit? What does this actually mean, vs 1/2. If everything, including my options on the options > device sounds screen of SCS is in 1/2 or 3/4, does that mean I cannot separate the pairs? Do I want to? Ugg...I feel like an idiot with this stuff. I have read about doubling cues up with start time of zero, and moving the sound around that way, but still don't really get this 'speaker assignment' thing.

I also realize, now that I'm back home for the weekend and can do more research, that one of our problems was we tried to get PAN working, but had the options > device sounds > speakers set to FRONT and not left blank. What do these many 'speaker' options mean exactly, and how come panning is disabled with them? Do I want/need to use them? Forgive me if I'm a bit of a dunce, but I'm new to this side of it. Any and all advice welcome.

Chris

Chris,

You should be able to do what you want as follows:

In SCS under the Sound Devices option, set up your devices something like this:
Front: M-Audio 1/2
Rear: M-Audio 3/4
Aud/Sub: M-Audio 5/6

Leave the Speakers field blank for all devices.

With this arrangement you can pan between left and right for Front and also for Rear. To send output to the main speaker under the audience riser send the output to Aud/Sub panned left (assuming you connect this speaker to output 5). How are you planning to use the sub?

Don't use the M-Audio 'multi' output with this arrangement. Multi is good if you have a multi-channel audio file of more than two channels, but with SCS it is easier (currently) to use the 1/2, 3/4, etc outputs.

To move a sound from left to right in either the front or rear speakers you can just use a single Level Change cue.

To move a sound front back to front or vice versa you will need to follow the recommendations you have seen elsewhere on this forum, such as
here.

On the subject of panning being disabled if you select anything at all under 'Speakers', this is due to a limitation in the audio library used by SCS. However, I have been testing some changes that will implement panning with speaker selection, and hope to be able to make this available shortly.

A slight correction to my previous posting. For the main speaker under the audience riser, since this is a mono speaker and pan is not therefore a requirement you could assign this to M-Audio 5/6 Speaker Front Left (for output 5). (Speaker Pair 1 Left is the same as Front Left.)

I have a speaker setup almost identical to yours in one of the theatres I work in and my computer setup is the same Dell and Firewire 410 so if you are still having problems feel free to pm me or post here and I will check back

Kevin