A few notes from a new user

[calfredson]

I recently purchased SCS, and I have now used it for several shows with great success. For one show, the live musician had to leave for personal reasons the night before opening, and we had to recreate the entire score from recorded music - it would have proved impossible to do that in the time allowed using CD playback. Here are a few things that I would like to see in the program; I realize most of these are likely addressed in other threads, or are already fixed in SCS 10, but I figure I may as well put in my two cents worth:

Cue Safe: A button on the screen (and/or keyboard) that disables all I/O functionality without stopping audio output or automation. Essentially this would allow me to leave the computer during intermission without worrying that my dumb LX technician wold hit something on the mouse or keyboard and start the next cue sequence. Ideally, this would blank or grey-out the screen except for the one button to un-cue safe. A password protect might be a nice feature too (although I wouldn't use it)

Audio Safe: Less important to me than cue safe, this would mute all the outputs, so that I could make changes during a show/rehearsal, without worrying about accidentally running a cue.

CD Import: I do a lot of shows where I'm handed a CD of sound cues, and I need to quickly burn them to computer. It would be nice if SCS had a quick and dirty way to import everything as .wav files, and then optionally set each track up as a cue.

CD Export: There's been a lot of forum talk about back-up computers, etc. But my General Manager would not approve the purchase of an audio computer, unless I promised that I would concurrently run CD back-ups of the cues for the first year (she's afraid of technology). Of course you could never get the same level of complexity of of CD playback, but it would be nice if you could export cues to CD, with all of the level presets, and start and stop points intact. That way, I could just match the gain structures of the CD decks to the computer, and not have to ride faders the whole show.

Import multiple files into playlists: I'm sure there's a way to do this, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Fade times attached to fade cues: I find it a bit frustrating that I can't adjust fade times in the fade cue itself, instead I have to go back and adjust the original cue. I've found this limiting in a few situations.

More edit features in main screen: I like that you can adjust levels of cues while they are running and then save the changes. I wish that you could do that with level change cues as well. It seems like there may be other things that would be good to change as well, but I can't think of any at the moment.

Thanks, and keep up the good work

[Mike Daniell]

Just commenting on a couple of these suggestions:

Audio Safe: Less important to me than cue safe, this would mute all the outputs, so that I could make changes during a show/rehearsal, without worrying about accidentally running a cue.

SCS 10 has a Master Volume control and one of the keyboard actions available with this is to mute the outputs. Pressing the 'mute' key again resets the Master Volume, so the 'mute' key toggles the mute state.

Import multiple files into playlists: I'm sure there's a way to do this, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Yes, there is a way to do this. You can drag-and-drop multiple files from Explorer into SCS. If you have an existing Playlist cue or sub-cue then you can drag multiple files into the list of files. If you want to create a new Playlist cue then you can drag multiple files to the Cue List in the Editor, and SCS will ask you if you want to create separate Audio File cues or one Playlist cue. This feature is available now in SCS 9.

[jkowtko]

Some of these definitely sound interesting to me, Mike:

Cue Safe -- or "console lock" ... to allow you to lock the console, much as you to the higher end Yamaha digital boards, and requires a (4 digit) code to unlock.

CD Import/Export -- could be useful, however between Goldwave and Roxio/Nero I think you have fairly convenient ways to handle this and for SCS to try to move into this area is going outside it's core competency -- not sure you would want the extra burden of supporting this.

Fade time override -- this is interesting, however since you usually fade a given cue only once, does it save you anything? If, however, you have a cue set to play on hot-key and then have different ways of ending the same cue (i.e. different fade times) then this feature would be useful. I personally haven't come across that need as of yet. Calfredson, have you needed this?

Edit on main screen -- Hmmm ... currently when you invoke the editor, it focuses on the same cue that the run-time window is focused on. I hate to see duplicate funcitonality built into the run window ... is there an issue with the overhead of invoking the editor? Or is there the perception that it will interrupt the run-time program?

Thanks. John

[Mike Daniell]

Just following on from John's comments...

Cue Safe: Yes, I can see the value of this and it shouldn't be too difficult to implement. Remember, though, that SCS is just one link in the chain. I've known people who should know better fiddle with the sound desk during intermission.

CD Import/Export: Import is much easier than export as export ideally needs to record the output after level changes and so on. I haven't provided CD import so far because it's quite easy to create files en masse using programs like Goldwave, as John has pointed out. And programs like this already have the the ability to get track titles online from freedb.org. Having created audio files for the CD tracks you can then drag them en masse into SCS to create individual cues or a playlist.

Fade Times Attached to Fade Cues: The idea of this being an 'override' (John's term) is interesting. I've sometimes wanted to set the fade attributes when specifying the fade, which is what you do with a level change. Currently, the fade out time and type are logically considered to be properties of the cue (or sub-cue), eg you have a 'rain' cue that fades in over 6 seconds, plays for a certain time, and then fades out over 4 seconds. These are all properties of this 'rain' cue, although the playing time may be manually controlled.

More edit features in main screen: Currently it's not possible to adjust a level change setting from the main screen, so that is why there is no way to save that setting. When a cue is playing it is reasonable to be able to adjust it's level or pan and save that setting, but with a level change the cue disappears from the cue panels as soon as it has completed. Unless you are suggesting that after the level change you then drag the cue's level or pan and when you save that setting then SCS should remember that the last operation was a level change and apply save the new level and pan as the target level and pan of the level change. That's a possibility, but I would need to make it clear in the Save Settings menu that this is what would be saved.

[calfredson]

I'll try and explain my need a little more clearly:

Cue Safe/console lock: I realize that many things could get tampered with, but to joe average, a sound board is very intimidating, and people tend to leave them alone. A keyboard/mouse/computer is a very familiar sight, and I could just see someone decide that they want to check their facebook and accidentally initiate a cue sequence. I think a code would be useful if a computer has to be left out in the open, but I think it should be optional.

CD import/export: This would just be an icing on the cake feature. I currently use windows media player to import CD as .wav files. Since most CDs I use are custom burnt CD's, they are saved by default in a ridiculous folder chain of unknown artist, unknown CD #...etc, unless I go and change the settings for every show. As I am new to this, I haven't had a chance to research CD ripping software and was just using what was available to me. As an aside, one time I used an older version of WMP, and I had to rip the files to WMA lossless, which SCS didn't like at all.

Fade times attached to fade cues: It has happened to me that sometimes a song has finished before I have been cued to fade it. In these circumstances, I would like the song to finish the way it was originally recorded, not how I have programmed it to fade. I have circumvented this by running a change level cue (running the volume to -96), followed by a stop cue, but it would be easier if it was all one step. I also find it nicer visually to see right there in the fade cue how long it is, instead of having that info buried up with the original cue.

Edit features in main screen: My main issue is with level changes. I have had occasions where I have not had a chance to test audio levels before running a show, and I have just ballparked levels blindly (deafly?). A couple of times I had to adjust levels way down on the fly, and then save changes - which is fine. The problem becomes that if the next cue coming up is a level change cue, it becomes a level up cue instead of a level down cue, and if I go and change it in the editor, the level instantly bumps up to the original level and then allows me to change it. Example:

Cue 25: Audio file happy birthday at level -20
Cue 25.5: Level Change of cue 25 to -30

Currently:
Cue 25: GO
file plays and it is too loud, so I slide the fader down to -40 and hit save changes.
Standby cue 25.5
I look and see that the next cue, which is supposed to take the level down, will now make it louder, and there is nothing I can do to change it.

Ideally:
Cue 25: GO
file plays and it is too loud, so I slide the fader down to -40.
Standby cue 25.5
I look and see that the next cue, which is supposed to take the level down, will now make it louder.
I take the slider on the level change cue and slide it to -50 and standby for the cue.
Cue 25.5: GO
The adjusted level (-50) is a little too low, so I slide the fader up to -45, and hit save changes.

The next time I run the show, the levels for the initial cue are saved at -40, and the level change cue at -45.

[Ian Beeby]

CD import/export: This would just be an icing on the cake feature. I currently use windows media player to import CD as .wav files. Since most CDs I use are custom burnt CD's, they are saved by default in a ridiculous folder chain of unknown artist, unknown CD #...etc, unless I go and change the settings for every show. As I am new to this, I haven't had a chance to research CD ripping software and was just using what was available to me. As an aside, one time I used an older version of WMP, and I had to rip the files to WMA lossless, which SCS didn't like at all.

Can I thorougly recommend Smart CD Ripper Pro from http://www.smartcdripper.com and Smart Audio Converter Pro from http://www.smartaudioconverter.com/I have used these two programs for a while now. They are quite cheap to buy (you can download trial versions) they are small and really quick and easy to use, with much less of a processor overhead than Microsoft media-thingy etc
Regards
Ian