Master volume fader change?

[Ian Beeby]

Hi Mike
Love the idea of a master fader control in Ver10, it is really moving us to a 'sound desk free' working environment, but a request, can it be made BIG and vertical up the RH side of the screen, as a real master fader would be?
The current one is too small to grab quickly with the mouse when everything goes horribly wrong, and left/right operation is not too intuitive!
Other than that everything appears to be close to perfect with v10!
Best regards
Ian

[Boswell]

Perhaps Mike should ask how many of his user base want to move to a 'sound desk free' working environment!

I think SCS needs to decide wether it is meant to be a 'Sound Cue System' or a software mixing desk.
As some of the functions already in and requested are covered by using a sound mixing desk and are therefore redundant. These all help to make SCS bloated and less reliable 'aka MS Windows'

There might be a case for 2 stand alone products which could interact if required, ie SCS and a software mixer.

In a theatre, unless it is a play/fashion/dance show with SFX & recorded music only, microphones are required, either radio or wired, which means you have a sound desk anyway.
So why duplicate the sound desk functions in SCS!

KISS rules !!

[jkowtko]

My first inclination also was to have the master fader be vertically oriented, but since all other faders are horizontal I think it would be out of place, and would not be consistent with the left/right keystroke operation of hte "selected" fader.

I could see if we turned all faders vertical and changed the entire layout it might look correct, but as Mike mentioned, this is not a digital mixer ....

[Ian Beeby]

Sorry, it's a bit of a verbose reply but I felt I must support my arguments!
I take the point, well made by Boswell about the dangers of 'bloatware' and SCS becoming too complex for it's own good. I wholeheartedly agree with him, and have made the identical observation myself in the past. However, the point I would wish to make is that this would not be a coding addition, the 'grand master' fader is already there in V10 and can of course be deselected if not required (just like the hot keys box, an option I rarely usemyself) All I am suggesting is a change to the display layout to make it easier (in my 'umble view) to use!

As for the 'bloating', I personally cannot see any point whatsoever to the video add-ons on V10 but that doesn't mean they should be discounted, obviously SOMEONE wanted them!!!

I think SCS needs to decide wether it is meant to be a 'Sound Cue System' or a software mixing desk.

.....or a video player???

I have suggested in the past that perhaps some of the facilities might be offered as 'plug-ins' to download and add only if you wanted them, this would allow users the chance to to leave out stuff they are not going to use and thereby simplify the program and the display!
I take on board the comments expressed here, but this particular forum is a 'feature request' page, some of the features requested are brilliantly obvious, some are franky plain daft, but they are all just 'requests' based on how different people in wildly different environments decide to utilise the software (I for instance would NEVER consider running a show from a laptop!) but at the end of the day it is up to Mike to sift through and decide what is POSSIBLY and what is DESIRABLE, based on what the users say they would LIKE to have.
What is so wrong about running a Deskfree environment?
Boswell has correctly suggested that radical simplification of the screen information is helpful to operators with limited experience or skills, I agree and want to implement a similar philosophy by removing a complex piece of hardware which scares the hell out of novices and is in some cases, frankly just a big expensive volume control!
That, (and the fantastically lively feedback in the forums, as seen here! ) is what makes SCS so damned good!

For the record, I am not exactly a 'newbie' to sound systems, having had 35 years experience, and 15 years in the same theatre, but still find I have so much left to learn!!!
We have been running fully 'software' based now for about 5 or 6 years, producing approx 10 productions a year on two different stages, we cover everything from small intimate plays to large musicals and even outdoor productions! We started by using the somewhat 'over-priced' Q-Manager software before it hit a developement wall and we moved to SCS two years ago.
We run SCS on two dedicated hi-end computers with M-Audio 16 channel sound cards and the XP-Pro operating system 'stripped-down' to the bare minimum, and with NO anti-virus or firewall software (and of course, no internet connection on these machines!)

[john-tapas]

Hi Mike

Could we also have the 'Next manual Cue' box expand to fill the space available when master is turned off?

As all our productions use mics then as Boswell says the master fader is of no use to us.
Some times Cue lines need to be long to avoid mistakes where words are repeated in the script!

Cheers

John