We had a recent project that brought together a few neat tricks, with SCS as the core software.
At an outdoor skating rink, the operator hits a hot key on a keyboard, which starts a cue with a playlist sub-cue in SCS. Another sub-cue starts SCS generating Midi time code from a clock value of "0 minutes". The Midi time code is read by a PC running ETC EOS Nomad software. When it sees the "0 minutes" time code , it runs a looping set of background cues, that are not specifically synced to the music.
When the ice needs to be resurfaced ( and skaters have to get off the ice ), the operator hits another Hot key which starts a specific audio track, and a new Midi time code, starting at " 100 minutes" . When the ETC system sees the " 100 minutes" time code, it starts a different cue list that is more specifically synced to the music track. The cues from that point are all synced to the time code.
This setup is done with about 4 other audio tracks, each with a unique cue list and unique time code start point.
Because SCS can start a Midi time code stream from a specific start point, we could use that as a method of randomly switching between lighting cue sections.
It took a little tweaking to get transitions from one cue section to another to work smoothly, but it was pretty easy, overall.
Craig Blackley
London, Ontario, Canada