Plane fly over, how to do?

[Oddjob]

Hello all,

I want to have the sound effect of a light aircraft flying over the theatre and seemingly crashing on stage.

There are a pair of speakers at the rear of the auditorium, a pair at the front of the stage and a pair at the rear of the stage. All are 2 channel stereo through the USBX card of a Behringer X32 rack mixer.

I would like the engine noise to quickly fade in to the rear speakers then progressively continue on to the front and rear stage speakers (together) where the (loud) crash will be heard. The whole thing will only be a couple of seconds long.

Is there a way I can do this using the one audio file in one cue or do I have to use 2 cues with the 2nd auto starting after the first to create the effect?

Any guidance would be gratefully accepted.

Geoff.

[Mike Daniell]

There are two ways you can do this using a single Audio File Cue, but either way will take a bit of work to get the effect right.

Several years ago I attended a performance of Miss Saigon at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, where the sound engineers were using SCS. They had a very impressive effect of a helicopter apparently flying from the rear of the auditorium up to the stage. The sound designer used auto-start Level Change Cues to achieve the effect (or you could use Level Change Sub-Cues with appropriate relative start times). The sound designer told me that the only issue he had was having to adjust the times and levels of these cues for different venues as this was a touring show, playing in major venues around Australia.

Since then, Level Envelopes have been added to SCS Audio File Cues. This probably won't make setting up the cue any easier, but at least the whole effect will be contained within a single Audio File Cue.

[Oddjob]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your input.

I have had a thought. I am going to try running 2 identical sound files with the whole sequence on both, starting at exactly the same time, one assigned to the rear speakers and one to the stage speakers, then adjust the levels and fade in and outs of each file separately to achieve the desired effect.

By the way, a big vote of appreciation for this system, our theatre has gone ahead in leaps and bounds with the things we can achieve with SCS, it adds a great dimension to our productions; the directors and operators love it, and the audiences also. We have been using it for about 4 years now and it gets better all the time.

regards
Geoff.

Garrick Theatre WA.

[Mike Daniell]

I have had a thought. I am going to try running 2 identical sound files with the whole sequence on both, starting at exactly the same time, one assigned to the rear speakers and one to the stage speakers, then adjust the levels and fade in and outs of each file separately to achieve the desired effect.

That should be fine. From your description you should find the two files will be linked - see Linked Audio Files for more info. I recommend you use ASIO as the audio driver if you have that available.

By the way, a big vote of appreciation for this system, our theatre has gone ahead in leaps and bounds with the things we can achieve with SCS, it adds a great dimension to our productions; the directors and operators love it, and the audiences also. We have been using it for about 4 years now and it gets better all the time.

Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.

[Criterion_Earlsdon]

Oddjob, I've done similar, having a train go across the stage then down the side of the auditorium. As Mike says, Level Change (sub-)cues are the way to go. I found I had to increase the level on the next destination speaker before fading the previous, or, at least, have a faster fade up than fade down. You'll need to be sitting in the auditorium to hear when it sounds right. We use RDP and WiFi to control the PC in the Control Room. However, I'm not sure what you gain by running multiple copies of the sound file. Just play the cue to all speakers you'll need but starting with some of them at a silent level. That works for me, anyway. Hope this helps.
Dave

[Buyaicia]

Hi,
I've done this with one track sent to three audio stereo channels and editing levels on each channel.
You can see three yelow lines in the attached image.

Multichannel fade.PNG (42.02 KiB) Viewed 4181 times

This is not the real show where I used it, its only a fast setup for demo.
Regards,
Lluís

[dalx]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I achieved a great result using multiple sound files triggered at the same time but I will take on board your methods for next time.

cheers

Geoff.

[Mark Seyler]

Hi Geoff,
I do sound for a small amateur theatre in Wilmslow (England) which is a theatre "in the round". This sort of effect we use all the time. The last show to do so was "The Lady Killers", after the old Ealing Film comedy. Lots of trains passing the house where the play is set being central to the demise of all the thieves.... I used a series of 5 speakers from one side to the other, around the theatre, so the trains could start 'behind the room' and pass behind the audience to the far side.
I always used to use the "multiple tracks running together" approach, until the ability to draw the level envelopes came in to SCS. In the former, multiple auto level change Qs were used and succeeded: fading up and down in order and timed to move an effectively mono source around, but actually generating a sort of 'surround stereo'. They might be slightly easier to adjust I think for timings etc but the new ability to draw the level level changes along a timeline to various outputs seems a cleaner method and less taxing on the PC. I've also tried using 5.1 coding but find that far more difficult to control in level and even position terms, and changes get very awkward in my system.
As with many aspects of SCS, there seem to be lots of ways of doing stuff, none of which is "correct", but some will suit better than others. Hope this helps!
SCS has brought great advances to the sound and video capacities of our theatre, and is a fantastically easy program to use. In the case of the Lady Killers many audience members were heard, on leaving, saying how superb the trains were........ and the talkative parrot which had a little speaker in its cage.......!
Mark