Show Cue System

Hi all,

I am getting ready to go into tech week and am looking for some suggestions as to the best way to proceed.

First question is that I have a show that I have set up 2 time profiles for. Evening Show and Matinee show. I am anticipating that during tech week things will either not start on time or jump around in order. Is there an easy way to alter the show so that the time based cues can be made manual and I can step through the show at a slow or confused pace ?

Second question pertains to setting sound levels. I always seem to find it difficult to find the delicate balance between the loudest cue being loud enough and the least amplified que being quiet enough with out making changes to the sound board itself. For ease of the sound operator I like to make the sound board a set it and forget it thing. Any suggestions on starting with the loudest or softest cue or starting in the middle and working louder and softer. I know that Mike is working on a fix for this in 9.4 just looking for advice to make this run smoother. How does one easily accomodate the background crickets and the really loud thunderstorm? The slider does not seem to make sweeping changes in levels .....

Thanks for any and all advice.

Kevin

Time Based Cues (TBC's)
TBC's cannot be started manually, but I can see there are occasions on which you may want to do this. TBC's were designed primarily for pre-show announcements which would not be required at all during rehearsals, and to support that you could set up a Time Profile named (for example) Rehearsal and leave the Time of Day field blank for that Time Profile. This prevents the cue being run at all when the Rehearsal time profile is selected. I'll look at an enhancement to enable manual activation when required.

Sound Levels
What you could try is to run your background crickets as a playlist instead of an audio file cue. You would only have the one file in your playlist, but the advantage of this is that with a playlist you have two level controls: the Master Level and the Relative Level. This may give you better control of the level.

Mike,

Most of my TBCs are in fact pre-show announcements. What I was having trouble with was with a Time profile selected if the time had past the cue were continiously counting down and running (or getting ready to) and I could not see the rest of the list. I will try setting up another profile and selecting no times. Also, I was thinking if need be I could Save as... and call it Rehersal and make those manual cues in stead of TBC. I will try yours first it sounds easier.

Sound Levels - that sounds like a good idea I will try it if I need it. Looking forward to trim pots in 9.4!!