Surround Sound

General topics regarding SCS
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dsajones
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Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:18 am

Surround Sound

Post by dsajones » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:23 am

Does anyone have any advice on surround sound within the amateur theatre environment? I have a panto coming up (Jack and the Beanstalk) where I would like to be able to have the giant's footsteps appearing to walk around and above the audience. Only currently have a basic stereo sound system with four auditorium speakers and a couple back stage. So looking for advice on what equipment is needed for good surround sound, and whether it's possible to use SCS as the source for surround sound output, presumably with a fancy sound card in the PC. Any advice, tips would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
David

Mike Daniell
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Post by Mike Daniell » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:06 pm

Regarding SCS capabilities, you will be better off with SCS 8.3 than 8.2.5. I'm hoping 8.3 will be available within a week or two, based on info supplied to me by the developer of the audio driver. If required I can let you have a pre-release version of 8.3. With 8.3 you will have much better control of individual speakers on a multi-channel sound card, and if you are able to record a multi-channel sound file (eg a 6-channel OGG or WMA file) then you can even play that through all associated speakers. However, I don't know how easy it is to record a 6-channel file - maybe someone else can advise.

A simpler solution for your giant's footsteps may be:
  • Have a single mono file of the footsteps.
  • Set up two cues playing this file where the second cue starts 0.00 seconds after the start of the first.
  • Set up level change cues to change the level and pan of the cues. You may need up to 4 level change cues to handle the fading in and fading out of each audio file cue, and the auto start times should be set appropriately.
The above may take a bit of work to set up, but once set up will work perfectly everytime. To get good synchronization between the two audio file cues you need SCS 8.3 as this will link the cues together in the audio driver.

I welcome additional suggestions from other users who have experience or ideas on the subject.

dsajones
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Post by dsajones » Sat Oct 01, 2005 8:50 am

Mike,

Thanks for that. 8.3 capabilities sound interesting. At the moment I don't have a multi-channel sound card for the laptop so would be interested for any advice from others on that, nor have I had experience of recording multi-channel.

I think I follow what you're saying about the two mono cues but not sure what that gives me that I couldn't get from panning a single stereo cue. With a four speaker system that's just feeding from a stereo source surely I'll just get left and right panning which may appear to be suspended in the middle of the auditorium.

sjohnson
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Location: Livermore California

Post by sjohnson » Tue Oct 11, 2005 10:48 am

Hi David,

One of the venues that I work in is a small black box theater, which is a lot of fun because I have full control over all of the speaker placements and audio system. I have done a couple of shows now with SCS and it's great.
Now to your question. I run the shows with a laptop and in the last show a had two audio systems in the laptop (the integrated laptop audio and a Creative Audigy 2 PC Card. SCS handles this great. The Audigy I used for BOH projecting into the audience and the integrated audio was FOH projecting forward, essentially a surround system. I have done some things similar to what you want, however the previous version of SCS didn't link up the files.
I just loaded the 8.3.4 version an ran a quick experiment and it works great. I took Mark's input and actually created a sound file and cues that walked the sound around the theater (front right -> front left -> rear left -> rear right and then back. The process was as follows:
(SF1 =Sound file on BOH, SF2=Sound file on FOH)
1. Start SF1 with pan full right
2. Simultaneously start SF2 with an auto cue, 0 seconds after the start of the first cue with pan full left and level=0.
3. Auto start a pan cue for SF1 right to left (I chose for the cue to start 0 seconds after start of SF1 and 10 seconds for the pan)
4. Auto start a SF1 level change, 0 seconds after the end of 3. (This will take SF1 to 0)
5. Auto start a SF2 level change, 0 seconds after the end of 3. (This will take SF2 from 0 to the proper setting).
6. Auto start a pan cue for SF2 when appropriate (left to right).
7. Auto start a pan cue for SF1 left to right (the level should be 0 so you would not notice this)
8. Auto start a level cue to take SF2 to 0.
9. Auto start a level cue to take SF1 to the appropriate level.

This worked well for me.

Hope this helps, good luck.

*Scott*

jpudsey
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Post by jpudsey » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:45 am

I have done several small shows with a laptop with two USB sound cards (emagic A62m) and two stereo PAs - One in front of, and one behind of the audience.

By setting off teh same sound effect on both sets of speakers simultaneously, and then using the level change cues, you can very easily get things to move around. I got a helicopter to fly over the audience very effectively.

Incidentaly, I found it was most effective if you didn't start to fade down on the back speakers until the cue was at least half volume on the front. If you fade the rear speakers too early you seem to be left with a bit of a dip in the middle of the cue.

Hope this helps.

jdeull
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Multi-Channel / Speaker Selection

Post by jdeull » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:20 am

I'm confused about required system architecture to get independent control of multiple channels for "locating" sound in the space -- not true "Surround Sound." If I have a laptop running SCS running through a USB or firewire interface with 8 channels of input and output, can I send SCS signals to my choice of locations? (Outputs would be routed through an 8-bus sound board to amps/speakers.) Are there particular interfaces that work better with SCS than others? I'm looking at the new Echo AudioFire.

Jonathan

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Post by Mike Daniell » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:11 pm

Jonathan,
If I have a laptop running SCS running through a USB or firewire interface with 8 channels of input and output, can I send SCS signals to my choice of locations?
Yes, particularly with SCS 8.4.0 which enables you to select a particular speaker from a speaker pair. I don't have first-hand experience of the Echo AudioFire but I do have an old(!) Echo Gina 24/96 and I can direct an audio file to any of the 8 eight outputs. They are made available to SCS as 4 speaker pairs, so I can either send a stereo or mono file to a pair, or if required I can send a mono file to an individual output.

Note that if you want to play an audio file to an individual speaker then it must be a mono file.

jkowtko
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Post by jkowtko » Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:54 pm

I would like to play our next musical's sound tracks in 5.1 surround if possible. What format(s) can SCS support ... in other words, what format so I have to request from the folks who are providing the sound tracks?

Thanks. John
John Kowtko
Sound Designer/Engineer
Local schools and community theater
Redwood City, CA USA

Mike Daniell
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Post by Mike Daniell » Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:22 pm

There are probably others, but multi-channel WMA and OGG Vorbis are both supported.
Mike Daniell
Show Cue Systems Pty Ltd
mike@showcuesystems.com
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