Show Cue System

Hi everyone,

Im upgrading the system in our theater this weekend and wanted to poll the forum...I, like many, am using a Dell laptop with a Firewire 410. I plan on biting the bullet and balancing the outputs with DI's in any scenario, so we can get that out of the way.

The main question is this...there is an existing Mackie mixer (4 or 8 bus, one of the bigger ones) in the booth. It has always been a pain to route to discreet speakers so my thought was to totally bypass the mixer. We rarely mic the stage or the actors, but we'll keep the board in case we have to eventually. We have L/R FOH, L/R rear (same speakers) and a big ole sub hanging in the middle. Each pair has an amp, and the sub has its own amp. We have a couple of powered monitors that we can use for specials on the stage, hide in the house, etc.

I guess my main question is: In order to keep the most flexibility...How do I hook up the Firewire 410 to the amps in order to A) Be able to access or bypass the sub when using either of the main speaker pairs. B) be able to bypass the sub when using the specials, etc.

Is it as simple as hooking up the outputs to the amps like this?

1/2 = FOH
3/4 = REARS
5/6 = SUB
7/8 = specials?

So if i want to play music out of the FOH with the sub kickin' I would assign 1/2 and 5/6 to a given cue? Does any of this make any sense?

Any input is greatly appreciated. I love the software and as soon as I commandeer the credit card from the big boss, we are going for the standard version.

Thank you in advance,
Matt Corey
GableStage, Coral Gables FL

PS As far as cd/minidisc goes I am just going to hook the inputs of the 410 to our patchbay, and patch in whatever deck is needed. With SCS installed, we won't need to use them much. Happily!

There are probably several ways of hooking up your gear, but the approach I would start with is to stay with the Mackie. Feed your 410 into 8 channels on the Mackie and assign each channel to a corresponding aux send. Then feed each aux send to left or right of one of the amps. With FOH the amp is probably already connected to the main outputs of the Mackie, so you might want to stay with that for channels 1/2. Using this approach enables you to easily mute any channel you are not using, and also to apply any necessary EQ (if your aux sends are post-EQ).

btw, if you want to use more than two output devices in SCS you'll need SCS-Professional. This provides for up to 8 devices overall, with up to 4 devices per audio sub-cue. Check the Features page on the Web site or 'Registering the Sound Cue System' in the Help file for more details.