Show Cue System

So, I ran a show this week with your software...and there were a ton of cues that went well. But sometimes I had a cue that I started a bit early and people were stuck in the dark while the music was finished. I'm hoping that you can add a hold button(and preferrably a key on the keyboard could have the same function) that would stop the fade out or cross fade but not stop the music and start it all over again and look like crap.

-matt

If it is just a single file that's playing at the time then what you can do is click the pause button in the multimedia controls. I agree this is not something you would do in a panic situation as it would take too long to line up the mouse on the button, but at least it's a temporary solution. If you have your SCS computer alongside the sound board then your panic reaction can be to hit the mute buttons on the sound board.

Providing a 'freeze/unfreeze everything' button is a reasonable request, but in addition to pausing / resuming audio files the 'freeze' action would need to suspend any count downs in progress, and I would also need to consider what should happen to the freeze if another cue is activated while the freeze is current.

Matt doesn't really want a FREEZE everything button. I watched him and the rest of the crew do that enough times and die standing there while watching the inevitable completion of the fade come too soon while laughing at the fact I have a hold and back button. He simply wants to be able to Freeze a fade at its current level just like I can hold the fade of a lighting cue without blacking out . Therefore clicking pause would not provide the desired results because it would pause the file and you would no longer hear audio playing from that file. The only difference between that and ESC would be that it would just start where it stopped instead of the beginning. This feature should not affect anything else. If you want a cue so many seconds after the beginning of a cue, that will still occur at the same time. If you want it so many seconds after the end of the cue, the end of the cue won't actually occur until it gets to the end after resuming. As for activating another cue: if you pause another cue and play the next cue, the paused file just sits there until you do something with it. After all, you are just pausing a cue - just at a certain percentage of the completion of a level change instead of the percentage of completion of the sound file. My only pondering would be how easy it would be to make the same thing work for a stop cue with a fade out time. While it doesn't show its completion seperately as a duration slider like a level change cue does, I of course don't know if the underlying code may be almost the same.

OK, I didn't get the scenario correct. I thought the issue was that a cue had been started too soon so you wanted to just hold it and the resume at the right time. This was based on the assumption that this was a single cue. I see now that we are talking about a cross-fade between two cues, so you obviously don't want to stop the audio.

To make sure I'm getting this right, can you provide a summary of the actual audio file cues including fade-in and fade-out times, and details of level change cues in this sequence as well? In fact, it would help if you email me your .scs file.

Mike,

I ended up ruining a near perfect run last night, as the laptop i was using clicked early on the fade out button. (Sweaty fingers on a touchpad) If there was a hold fades button or something similar it would save the opp in this condition. yes the level would drop slightly, but there is nothing worse than knowing something has gone wrong and there is nothing that can be done! (other than restart the cue from the start)

Is there any hope in something like this?

To be clear I am only talking of freezing running fades and countdowns, not audio.

RobK

Mike, that sounds like a real interesting feature (fade pause/resume) -- and it could also potentially pause delay countdowns for any timed cues or subcues that are following. However I don't know what you would do if one of those timed cues started playing the audio file. You couldn't really just pause the audio file -- that would be pretty noticable.

RobK, I would suggest you use the spacebar for cue firing and not rely on a mount click -- especially if you're using a touchpad for the mouse! ... that sounds way too error-prone. Better yet, get one of the new Dell keyboards with the huge spacebar. That's what I have, and they cost $10-15. You can plug that into your laptop and it will give you much better ergonomic control.

-- John

I agree with jkowtko, using a touchpad for a live show is asking for problems

The other way is a usb/PS2 (depending on your laptop) numeric keypad and reprogramme the keys (It's easy to do)
I have the double size keys for Go, Up, Down and the others are hot keys, ESC, etc

That, (possibly in conjuction with an optical mouse if you want to move screen faders)) gives all you need for running a show and does not take up desk space.
For rehearsals, plug in a full size keyboard

rob_keeling wrote:Mike,

I ended up ruining a near perfect run last night, as the laptop i was using clicked early on the fade out button. (Sweaty fingers on a touchpad) If there was a hold fades button or something similar it would save the opp in this condition. yes the level would drop slightly, but there is nothing worse than knowing something has gone wrong and there is nothing that can be done! (other than restart the cue from the start)

Is there any hope in something like this?

To be clear I am only talking of freezing running fades and countdowns, not audio.

RobK

Could I just clarify something here, RobK? You mentioned that you "clicked early on the fade out button." So this was a case of clicking on the transport control's fade out button, and it wasn't a separate SFR cue that you activated early?

Sounds like the "Stop/Back" button on the Strand lighting consoles (could be on all, but all I get to use is Strand). Minus the back feature. Just something to stop and hold everything where its at to continue at the right time. Am I right?

Mike Daniell wrote: Could I just clarify something here, RobK? You mentioned that you "clicked early on the fade out button." So this was a case of clicking on the transport control's fade out button, and it wasn't a separate SFR cue that you activated early?

Yes in this instance it was the transport control (the cues on the show kept changing so didn't have a fade cue programmed).

I have also in the past ended up triggering fade cues too early (actor jumped to end of text and then went back on themselves).

On the lighting desks I use you can pause or slowdown timed fades in progress to get you out of this.

Robk

jkowtko wrote:
RobK, I would suggest you use the spacebar for cue firing and not rely on a mount click -- especially if you're using a touchpad for the mouse! ... that sounds way too error-prone. Better yet, get one of the new Dell keyboards with the huge spacebar. That's what I have, and they cost $10-15. You can plug that into your laptop and it will give you much better ergonomic control.

-- John

Yes, I normally use the space bar, upgraded scs and installed on a new system, didn't change the options. Normally disable clicking on the touchpad as well.....

Though I do remember one time at a festival the house sound guy dropped his script, hit the space bar on my laptop and triggered a big crossfade from a dance to a drama sequence, it was a 20 sec fade, but once started I could only watch as 20 teenagers realized and moved to their next positions. Hold would have been great then as well....

RobK

SimnaWeb wrote:Sounds like the "Stop/Back" button on the Strand lighting consoles (could be on all, but all I get to use is Strand). Minus the back feature. Just something to stop and hold everything where its at to continue at the right time. Am I right?

This seems to summarise the requirements quite well. So the request is for a button that will:

• Hold any fades or level changes at their current levels
• Hold any countdowns at their current position - this would apply both to subcue relative start times and to cue activation start times
• Any currently playing cues would continue to play at their current levels

The next issue that arises is what happens when a cue ends and there is another cue that is set to start a set time after (or before) the end of that cue? I suggest that if this new button is 'down' and fades, etc are being held, then new auto-start cues should also be held until the button is 'up'.

Since we already have a 'Stop Everything' button and a 'Pause/Resume' button, we need to have a clear definition and indication of what this new button is for. When any of these buttons is to be used it is likely to be a panic situation, especially during performances (rather than rehearsals), so the operator must know instinctively which button to activate for the immediate need. If this new button were labelled 'Hold Fades and Timer' (switching to 'Resume Fades and Timer' when 'down') then do you think this suitable labelling?

Whatever labelling we decide on, I will look at including this new button in SCS 10. Feel free to add to or comment on the dot points listed above.

Mike,

That sounds perfect, the only suggestion I could add is to make it available as a keyboard shortcut as well (like stop all is on esc) as it seems most people trigger from the keyboard so would have a hand on it in the event of a miss cue.

Thanks

RobK

Mike, I agree with all of your proposed behavior. Just to confirm that last item:
* currently playing audio cues will continue to play
* looped cues that are still in the process of looping will continue to play and loop
* audio cues that have not started yet will hold up until "resume fade" is pushed.

Also, if you decide to implement this on a per-cue basis on the transport controls, you could just reuse the fade button, create one more icon:
* when you select fade, the icon changes to a "hold fade" icon.
* when you select "hold fade", the icon changes back to the regular fade icon.
this would be similar in behavior to the way play/pause control buttons work.

Thanks. John

This seems to summarise the requirements quite well. So the request is for a button that will:
Hold any fades or level changes at their current levels
Hold any countdowns at their current position - this would apply both to subcue relative start times and to cue activation start times
Any currently playing cues would continue to play at their current levels

I can see the 'law of unexpected consequences' kicking in here!!!