[Temp mod in 11.3.0] Enable/Disable cue Cue

[techniekhofplein]

Sometimes I work with different casts in the same production. Therefore there are also different audiofiles for let's say cast A and cast B (in another key for example). It would be very helpful to enable/disable a cue, or a set of cues, prior to the start of the show, just by pressing a cue Preset A or Preset B.
Also I would see use in this in combination with a GoTo-cue. In this way you could play a "loop" but skip some cue you want to play only the first time.

Woud this be possible in a future release?

With Kind regards,
Jaap Schledorn
sound designer

[mookai1973]

+1 for this feature.

Regards,
Kai

[hitnekey]

Hi Both

I believe that this be done on current versions using the 'time profiles' feature under 'production properties'.

Regards

Peter

[techniekhofplein]

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the tip, but time profiles work only when the activation of a cue is set to Time Based. I'm talking about manual cues:

Q1 PRESET Cast A -> Enable Q12, Disable Q13
Q2 PRESET Cast B -> Enable Q13, Disable Q12
...
Q12 Song in the key of A
Q13 Song in the key of B

Also:

Q1 audio
Q2 fade out Q1
Q3<1>goto Q1
Q3<2> disable Q2
Q4 auto-start 1 second after end Q3: disable Q3

This would make the audio play, manually fade out, go back to the same audio Q1 and escape the loop. (I'm aware this is a very simple example and this particular one could be done in a million other ways, but I'm trying to explain the principle )

[Theatre III Sound]

Another way to do this is to have two cue files, one for Cast A and the other for Cast B, each with the appropriate audio files. To make this easy for the operator, you could create two shortcuts, one to start SCS with the A cue file and the other for the B cue file. Following is the text from the SCS help file describing this method:

Starting SCS

Overview

Most users will have a shortcut on their Windows desktop for starting SCS, and by default SCS opens the last-used cue file. However, if you are regularly running different cue files then you can have several SCS shortcuts, each one specifying the cue file to be run.

Command line Parameters

If you start SCS from the command line or a shortcut, etc, then you may add the name of the cue file as a parameter (or 'argument'), eg:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\SCS 11\scs11.exe" "C:\Users\Mike\Documents\SCS Files\Show_Monday.scs11"

When scs11.exe is started using the above command line, then the Show_Monday.scs11 cue file will be opened instead of the last-used cue file.

Note that where file names or file paths contain spaces then the complete file name must be enclosed in quotes.

Hope this is of use for you.

[Mike Daniell]

There's a undocumented feature in SCS 11.3.0 which may help. This was originally added for Nick Reich for a project at an Art Gallery. Nick required a way of temporarily disabling certain cues during start-up, to 'allow a gallery attendant to walk away from the equipment cupboard, past the display, without setting off the soundtrack'.

I implemented a temporary mod in SCS 11.3.0 which provides a cue type for enabling/disabling another cue or a range of cues. This is a 'temporary' mod as it uses a technique I used in SCS 10 and that is that the 'cue type' is implemented using a special format of a Note cue.

If you want to enable a cue or a range of cues, set up a Note cue with the description:

Code: Select all

$enable <first cue> - <last cue>

For example, to enable cues Q90 to Q94 inclusive, set the Note cue's description to:

Code: Select all

$enable Q90 - Q94

If you only want to enable a single cue then the format is

Code: Select all

$enable <cue>

For example, to enable Q123 only, set the Note cue's description to

Code: Select all

$enable Q123

There must be exactly one space character between the fields, and the '-' is mandatory if specifying a range of cues. Cue numbers are case-sensitive, so for Q90 you must enter Q90, not q90.

Disabling cues is exactly the same except the command is $disable instead of $enable.

The enabling and disabling of cues using this new 'cue type' does not affect the 'Enabled' checkbox in the Editor. If an enabled cue is disabled by an instance of this new cue type, the cue will still appear as enabled in the editor. However, in the main window the disabled cues will disappear from the list, and if those disabled cues are hot key cues then they will no longer respond to those hot keys. If the cue(s) are subsequently enabled, they will again be displayed, and if they are hot key cues then they will respond to hot keys.

[Tewkesound]

Thanks Mike - That looks like a very useful feature. Any chance of it being included in the documentation, or even becoming a proper cue type?

For this week's production I had lots of thunder crashes triggered by the lighting operator via DMX (to keep the light flash and sound synchronised). Since these were all in Act 2 it would have been nice to have a safety so that they wouldn't operate until the right place. I have previously dealt with this by using a dedicated output for triggered effects, but this time I as running out of outputs!

[Mike Daniell]

Any chance of it being included in the documentation, or even becoming a proper cue type?

Both. The temporary implementation will be documented in the Help for 11.3.0, and a full implementation will be added later (hopefully 11.3.1).

[techniekhofplein]

For this week's production I had lots of thunder crashes triggered by the lighting operator via DMX (to keep the light flash and sound synchronised). Since these were all in Act 2 it would have been nice to have a safety so that they wouldn't operate until the right place. I have previously dealt with this by using a dedicated output for triggered effects, but this time I as running out of outputs!

Exactly! You also have these situations where the trigger "B for Bombardment" is just a bit too close to your spacebar