Christmas pageant with SAC

[jlklein]

Well, we had our first two runs of our Christmas pageant on the latest SAC install today. The scenes were a major hit and made the rapid-fire changes in characters onstage much more manageable. Also, the improved EQ of a digital system enabled us to get our choir much louder, cleaner and ring-free than ever, which is quite a feat in an airplane hangar shaped room with a full 30 piece orchestra.

We're running 9 channels of wireless with orchestra and choir mics plus sound fx, using a total of 32 channels, four auxes for effects and 4 monitor feeds (L/R stage monitors, choir monitors and recording feed). EQ on all channels, comps/gates on all wireless and comps on much of the orchestra. Backup recording to 2 track via TapeIt and Multitrack recording to SAW brings the load up to just under 50% with Windows 7 (about 15% of that is SAW).

The only issue I have is the darn spacebar scene advance...double-tapped by mistake a couple times which muted a singer, then everything another time...with the keyboard on the edge of a mixer bench, the spacebar is very prone to accidental pushes...our recording guy even activated it once when his headphone coil cord bumped it. I'd disable it but a keypress is just too darn convenient!

I'd love to be able to choose what key advances scenes...and to have a "back up one scene" button, too, for those times you overshoot or accidentally activate a scene...my vote would be for the "+" and "-" buttons for "next scene" and "previous scene".

All in all, though, much improvement over the old system

[airickess]

The only issue I have is the darn spacebar scene advance...double-tapped by mistake a couple times which muted a singer, then everything another time...with the keyboard on the edge of a mixer bench, the spacebar is very prone to accidental pushes...our recording guy even activated it once when his headphone coil cord bumped it. I'd disable it but a keypress is just too darn convenient!

I'd love to be able to choose what key advances scenes...and to have a "back up one scene" button, too, for those times you overshoot or accidentally activate a scene...my vote would be for the "+" and "-" buttons for "next scene" and "previous scene".

All in all, though, much improvement over the old system

Spacebar advancing cues is standard for most (if not all) computer playback programs, so changing that would most likely just add to the list of non-standard ways of doing things on this program.
You should move your keyboard to a different spot.

[Bob L]

You might consider adjusting the keyboard repeat speed in Windows to the slowest setting... this might help with eliminating the double spacebar trigger when someone holds the key too long.

There are also many programmable usb switch devices that allow you to use any kind of physical switch to replace the spacebar.

Bob L

[jlklein]

You might consider adjusting the keyboard repeat speed in Windows to the slowest setting... this might help with eliminating the double spacebar trigger when someone holds the key too long.

Yeah, except it was my spastic thumb...I actually did press the stupid thing twice: once accidentally, then the 2nd was an "oh $%^&" hand jerk reaction. Which then had me scrambling for the mouse to back up the scenes...and why a "back one scene" button would be *really* awesome

There are also many programmable usb switch devices that allow you to use any kind of physical switch to replace the spacebar.
Bob L

True, but wouldn't the spacebar on the keyboard still be active? Yeah, I could move the keyboard, as was earlier suggested, but other than the spacebar the keyboard's in a perfect spot.

I don't suppose there'd be a possibility of having the advance key user assignable in a future release? Sure, the spacebar is 'standard', as was mentioned, but "we've always done it that way" never really satisfied me. Folks who want that can leave the spacebar default setting; others can choose another key that makes more sense to them.

Thanks,
Jeff

[RBIngraham]

Actually spacebar is a relatively new "standard" for "GO". The Richmond software which was around quite a while before SFX and before QLab was even a twinkle in the eye (which is probably what Eric is referring to) used to use F12 for GO and I still to this day reprogram my SFX and/or QLab rigs to respond that way.

Not such a good idea for SAC obviously. But F12 is the FKey I use for my "default" mixing layout in SAC. It aways returns me to where I typically want to be when mixing the show in SAC.

Jeff, what I would recommend is to use a MIDI GO button device. There are a few folks making these. And you hook it up to say Brome's MIDI Translator to convert from MIDI to a keystroke. Most of those allow for some sort of "timeout" period between GO button pushes. Or at least most of the ones I've worked with anyway. Or perhaps a better feature request, which of course shouldn't be mentioned in this forum, is to ask for a user assignable timeout period between spacebar pushes. That eliminates the issue of the user that pushes the button twice. Both SFX and QLab have built in ways of dealing with this issue, to allow a timeout period between triggering of a cue.

Or course user assignable keystrokes would be a nice thing as well. But I never expect that to happen.

Also just for the sake of debate, doing a "Back" scene button can be very problematic I think. What exactly does it go back to? Does it just trigger the scene prior to the one you just took? In my opinion that can be just as disastrous as a jumped cue. Because you usually don't have a scene recall for every mixing function. Or do you? Well at least I don't. So going back one scene can often create even more havoc.

For example:

Scene 1: I recall it. It does something for me. Then I'm mixing for a little while and I get ready to recall Scene 2, OPPPSSS... I jumped to Scene 2 early... but if I go "Back" a scene it goes back to the top of Scene 1 and that may bring up some mics for people no longer on stage or who knows...

And that is only a very simple example. When dealing with an audio playback app of any kind, it gets really complicated very quickly, so almost anything that resembles a BACK button wouldn't work. In order for those kind of features to work, they almost always have to make some assumptions and when I worked for Stage Research we put a lot of thought into this when creating SFX 6 and came to the conclusion that any assumption we did make would be a wrong assumption just as often (if not more often) that is was the correct assumption.

Basically... short explanation... audio isn't lighting. Lighting is simple... they move from look A to look B over a period of time. Even in a "fancy" light cue it's still just look A to B, it might just have several fancy steps in between A and B. It's easy to jump back to look A from B.... we don't do that in audio. There is all kinds of "messy" between A and B, more often than not. Unless the mix is totally automated, like the plastic cruise ship shows I've worked on.

[jlklein]

Even a user assignable "go" button would really help me out, which would give the user the option to assign it to whatever software he's used to...or just plain darn feels like using

A Back button wouldn't get me into trouble in most cases as I'm pretty minimal with my scene control and in most cases is finite enough not to have too much mess in between.

This last Christmas play I had over 100 scenes, 98% of which were simple mutes as characters came on and off stage, and going too far and then back one would have worked exactly how I wanted, instead of reaching for the mouse. The few scenes I had that did more than mutes would have also backed up to just what I wanted.

Not the same for everyone, sure, but the capability would have really helped.

Jeff

[RBIngraham]

Even a user assignable "go" button would really help me out, which would give the user the option to assign it to whatever software he's used to...or just plain darn feels like using

A Back button wouldn't get me into trouble in most cases as I'm pretty minimal with my scene control and in most cases is finite enough not to have too much mess in between.

This last Christmas play I had over 100 scenes, 98% of which were simple mutes as characters came on and off stage, and going too far and then back one would have worked exactly how I wanted, instead of reaching for the mouse. The few scenes I had that did more than mutes would have also backed up to just what I wanted.

Not the same for everyone, sure, but the capability would have really helped.

Jeff

I understand. Perhaps you can find an X Keys unit or similar (I'm pretty sure you can do this with X Keys but don't quote me) that has a timeout function between presses. Those also have a much better feel than most spacebars frankly.

I see where you're coming from. I guess I would just never allow an operator to mute and unmute a bunch of wireless mics. Or any mics really. To me that always sounds bad and you can hear everytime a mic is opened and closed using that method. We almost always ramp up and ramp down every mic on and off in the shows I work on. There are always exceptions of course, where you kind of have to do it to make things work and sound good. But generally the rule is all mic on and offs are done by hand by the mixer using a fader. It's much more smooth and don't notice the fact that 10 mics just got turned on or off that way as the change in sound (ussually because of the mics picking up ambiance and other spill around them) is more subtle.

Of course when I have a really good mixer on the show, I expect them to run each wireless up and down for every single line in the show. The ultimate goal is to never have a wireless open unless that actor is speaking or singing at this precise moment in time. Again, there are always exceptions... but this is the goal anyway.

Hence why simple scene recalls that mute and unmute mics are not for me.

[jlklein]

I see where you're coming from. I guess I would just never allow an operator to mute and unmute a bunch of wireless mics. Or any mics really. To me that always sounds bad and you can hear everytime a mic is opened and closed using that method. We almost always ramp up and ramp down every mic on and off in the shows I work on. There are always exceptions of course, where you kind of have to do it to make things work and sound good. But generally the rule is all mic on and offs are done by hand by the mixer using a fader. It's much more smooth and don't notice the fact that 10 mics just got turned on or off that way as the change in sound (ussually because of the mics picking up ambiance and other spill around them) is more subtle.

It works for the way we do our pageants, but we do have a few compensating workarounds...like an "audience mic" on during the recording so there's always a little ambient noise vice total silence, gating on all the mics but only with about 10-15dB of gain reduction when active, and as few mics on at a time as possible...and scenes make that part MUCH easier

Jeff

[JLepore]

Also just for the sake of debate, doing a "Back" scene button can be very problematic I think. What exactly does it go back to? Does it just trigger the scene prior to the one you just took? In my opinion that can be just as disastrous as a jumped cue. Because you usually don't have a scene recall for every mixing function. Or do you? Well at least I don't. So going back one scene can often create even more havoc.

I would assume it would work like an undo function. Before recalling a scene, snapshot the current state (just as is done in the auto-save function behind the scenes) and that would be the result of the "undo" - it puts you back to the state before you recalled the scene.

[RBIngraham]

I would assume it would work like an undo function. Before recalling a scene, snapshot the current state (just as is done in the auto-save function behind the scenes) and that would be the result of the "undo" - it puts you back to the state before you recalled the scene.

Yeah I guess, but I still see that as a potential more harm than good tool. But realistically I suspect this entire debate is a moot point anyway. You know why....