Show Cue System

Hey, all

We're setting up the audio for our new black box theatre and I'm pushing for us to use SCS for the computer based system. We've not bought hardware OR software on the computer end yet - we've got 6 channels of amplifiers to plug in to, run to the standard locations (front R, front C, front L, rear R, rear L, subwoofer). I suspect we'll go with a Delta 1010 or similar as sound card.

My own personal copy of SCS is an old version 8 one, so I'm playing with the demo of 10 and looking at comments on here and the docs. The obvious way to set things up would be to have four speakers defined in SCS 10 - Front (outputs 1/2), Rear (outputs 3/4), Front Center (output 5), Subwoofer (output 6) - that'd give us perfect control over where sounds appeared to be, whether they get bass boost or not, etc.

The problem I see reading this board and such is that that means we'd have two mono speakers, which would fail on stereo wavs, etc, and that'd be unfortunate, as it'd be really nice to have those able to go to the sub and the center channel.

Is there a solution for this? What's the right way to do this?

OldGrover wrote:The problem I see reading this board and such is that that means we'd have two mono speakers, which would fail on stereo wavs, etc, and that'd be unfortunate, as it'd be really nice to have those able to go to the sub and the center channel.

Is there a solution for this? What's the right way to do this?

The next release of SCS will downmix stereo wav files (and other formats) to mono where the output is to a mono speaker. That release is probably a couple of months away. Meanwhile, you will need to convert the stereo files to mono using a separate audio editor, such as GoldWave. Note that stereo MP3 files are already downmixed when necessary.

Straight from the horse's mouth - awesome, thanks!

OldGrover wrote:Hey, all

We're setting up the audio for our new black box theatre and I'm pushing for us to use SCS for the computer based system. We've not bought hardware OR software on the computer end yet - we've got 6 channels of amplifiers to plug in to, run to the standard locations (front R, front C, front L, rear R, rear L, subwoofer). I suspect we'll go with a Delta 1010 or similar as sound card.

If you choose a Yamaha O1V96, LS9, or M7 as your audio mixer (there may be others as well), you may be able to do away with the 1010. If you install an Audinate Dante card in the Yammie, it will connect to the PC via its Ethernet port. An advantage is if the computer should fail, you can just slip another computer in its place, and not worry about the sound card.

Yeah, we're looking to use the Yamaha N12, plus a Sony surround sound switcher/mixer that was donated to us - our big need from a mixer point of view is simplicity. We're both a community theatre (so potentially a number of internal users with a wide range of skill levels) and a rental house (so an even larger number of users with an even larger range of skill levels), so the big thing is SIMPLE on our board. That meant avoiding anything with LCDs, with paged faders or similar - we really wanted something that looked and acted analog.

Basically, we'll let people swap between using the computer and the DVD for surround sound and mix in 4 channels from the mixer (main stereo outs, aux bus stereo outs), which lets us do full surround for the sound effects and lets us use most of that capability when using the mixer for sound reinforcement too, without actually having to handle surround on the mixer.

A bit complex to set up (need to programming the routing of channels on the Sony, etc), but dead simple to use - simple, clear buttons, each of which has one and exactly one purpose.

And SCS should fit beautifully in there.

I have the Delta 1010 set up on our production PC ... have 6 outs going to 6 input channels on the mixer, and the mixer individually routes to each of the six speakers in the 5.1 config. And I still have two more channels to use for FX speakers in special locations on stage.

This gives me the most flexibility in playback.
- I can play stereo files and send to LR, RR, C and Sub either by using SCS or the board. (when I use SCS and have to downmix, I just use mp3's ... hard to hear the difference between mp3 and wav in our theater)
- I can route FX wherever I want (Center speaker also available as a separate point source)
- I can also play AC3 files from SCS out to the speakers in true surround.

Other than the SCS PC, I only have stereo CD player hooked up to the board. But I like your idea of having the surround-capable DVD player available to use when appropriate.

Mike, trying to help out in another thread ('sneding a signle' in features)

Using SCS10.6.2 I've tried sending a stereo wav file to a single channel mono output using a Gigaport AG. It works and definitely down mixes it to mono.

I'm going to try the same tests with M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB,

Edit It works ok All tests are with Wav files and the latest soundcard ASIO drivers from the manufacturers.

Doh! Thanks, Boswell. Sometimes I get so involved with other issues I overlook the obvious. SCS will not downmix stereo WAV files to mono IF you have selected 'Do not use the SCS internal mixer'. But if you are using the internal mixer then downmixing will occur if required, for all file types. Since you were using ASIO you must have also been using the internal mixer, which explains why the downmix occurred.

So repeating: SCS will downmix stereo to mono if required, provided you are using the SCS Internal Mixer (which is the default). However, if you are NOT using the SCS internal mixer, then SCS will not downmix stereo to mono except for MP3 files.

Oh, that's great. Hopefully, we can use the internal mixer then. Thanks!