Support for audio playback

[Bob L]

Using the SAC-Link with Lite or Full, you can playback as many tracks as you want in a full blown multitrack session... and still use the Ctrl Track for cue points which can all be midi triggered.

You may want to read about the Ctrl Track features and operation in the helpfile Control Track chapter.

I have set up numerous shows this way, and SS controls the lighting board, fog machines on stage... projection screens... etc... all triggered by midi cues or an operator using the spacebar as a GO switch.

Bob L

[Tony Marone]

Hi Bob,

I appreciate the suggestions that you gave concerning audio playback in SAC. Unfortunately, Loopazoid is not useable. Although it is a cool plug-in that works well with SAC, it has some problems that would make it unusable for live playback of anything but samples. When you press the play button for a sample, it plays -- with no way to stop it -- and if you hit the same play button again it starts a new instance of the track on top of the playing one Maybe this is good for sample playback, but not for live show use.

As far as using SAW-SAC together, this seems to work fine but . . . What a kludge to just play pack a simple stereo track! I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be playing back my multi-track mixes at a show! Everything I play back will be a simple finished and mastered stereo wav file. This just seems safer to me. I gather that if I take this route, I will have to create an edl file for each seperate wav file in order to use them with show control. Is this correct? Wouldn't it be simple enough to make the show control accept wav files as well as edls?

You know, I have watched your recording of a live band videos about 8 times now and you are a true master at work! My question is, why don't you record some more of those videos where you explain every step of what you are doing and how you are doing it? I know you probably don't have time, but you are the MAN when it comes to making this software look easy!

Do you have any printed manuals available for SAC like I got with my SAW years ago? I read that thing from front to back many times and when I finished each time, I put it away in that cool plastic case for safe keeping. Software like yours that has so many little nuances is quite different from a standard win program and takes a long time to learn thoroughly.

I am really just nervous about this big show I have coming up on Feb 7. Someone else will be running the SAC remotely from FOH and she is not so friendly with computers. I swear I would put a CD machine up there with her but that is ridiculous when there is a perfectly good hard drive to play back from. Also, there is no audio path from FOH to backstage.

Sorry to ramble, but PLEASE help me think of something!

Tony

[Bob L]

Loopazoid can be made to stop by adding a small blank wav file to the last button for example and setting all buttons to group mute 1... then when you start playback on any button, it automatically stops any that are currently playing... meaning only one file plays at a time... that includes the use of the blank wav file button to stop anything midway and create silence.

In this manner it is exactly like using a CD player with instant cue ability... click any button to instantly jump to and play any file... click the last button to stop playback at any time.

In many of the large production shows I have done here, I just layout the final stereo files back to back on the timeline for the whole show... then I use the Ctrl Track cues to stop and cue and preload to the next song... I leave some space between songs for easy visual cueing. Works great... all in one edl... this also allows the video track to easily be involved for perfect sync video... this also makes it easy to handle lighting cues and so forth.

If you will be altering your show setlist all the time... then you can use the Show Control view to handle things... and yes... you would create a separate edl for each song... then you can easily build a show setlist on the fly... even re-arrange the song order within the list.

An advantage to using the SAWStudio MultiTrack is that you can easily have click tracks on separate outs and even have multiple tracks of vocals and other effects that can be used or muted on the fly if performers are sick or singers have a cold one night... much more flexible than a simple stereo file playback.

Bob L

[Tony Marone]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the info - how do I make the Control Track window persistent over SAC?

Tony

[Bob L]

Tony,

Right-Click the Blue Pyramid Options Icon at the top of the Ctrl-Track view.

I always recommend setting up one or two F-Key workspaces with the Ctrl-Track window in place... with no other windows overtop of it.

When using it with SAC... create a space for it in the corner of the SAC workspaces... that way it will not interfere with other views.

Bob L

[dbarrow]

Using the SCA-Link with Lite or Full, you can playback as many tracks as you want in a full blown multitrack session... and still use the Ctrl Track for cue points which can all be midi triggered.

You may want to read about the Ctrl Track features and operation in the helpfile Control Track chapter.

I have set up numerous shows this way, and SS controls the lighting board, fog machines on stage... projection screens... etc... all triggered by midi cues or an operator using the spacebar as a GO switch.

Bob L

What would be the best way for someone on stage to trigger the backing tracks and still have the FOH engineer out front controlling the overall mix?

Also, what would be the best way to load up multiple songs (backing tracks) and cue them at the beginning of each song? One of the bands I currently work with uses Cakewalk Sonar's playlist feature, which preloads each song file (multitrack) on the list and starts playing with the spacebar and then stops with the next song on the list cued up. Is there a playlist-typ feature in SS? I don't have it yet, so I don't know. Forgive my ignorance. They are getting ready to purchase SAC and I am just now beginning to see the possibilities for integration with SS, so I can then sell them on that.

[Bob L]

You can use the Control Track with its cues to start and stop songs or you can use the Show-Control feature which is setup to load separate edls for live multitrack playback... and with version 4.6 coming any day now, you can control the Show-Control view from a remote.

Bob L

[dbarrow]

You can use the Control Track with its cues to start and stop songs or you can use the Show-Control feature which is setup to load separate edls for live multitrack playback... and with version 4.6 coming any day now, you can control the Show-Control view from a remote.

Bob L

So, could a musician on stage control backing tracks using the Show-Control Feature remotely, while also controlling his personal monitor mix, meanwhile having the FOH engineer controlling the main mix from a separate FOH remote? I can barely get my head around this, especially because we haven't even started using SAC yet, but my head is starting to swim with all the possibilities. Also, the more interlinking and cross-application implementation we use, the more reliability and backup plan A, B, C, etc. issues start to become considerations.

As I said in another post, it might be better to have the backing tracks originate on another computer, but it would certainly be cool to have them available via SAC-link without patching the cables in the analog world - ANDp I could record multitrack, if I so choose.

[Bob L]

The possiblities are mind boggluing and growing more every update.

Yes... I have the Hilton show now being controlled completely on a netbook using wireless remote... the show control view is being used to play many track backing tracks which can be completely controlled from the remote as to muting and so forth... live during the show.

You can actually use one remote machine to remotely control both SAC and SAWStudio on the same host... it gets pretty crazy.

Bob L

[dbarrow]

Loopazoid can be made to stop by adding a small blank wav file to the last button for example and setting all buttons to group mute 1... then when you start playback on any button, it automatically stops any that are currently playing... meaning only one file plays at a time... that includes the use of the blank wav file button to stop anything midway and create silence.

In this manner it is exactly like using a CD player with instant cue ability... click any button to instantly jump to and play any file... click the last button to stop playback at any time.

In many of the large production shows I have done here, I just layout the final stereo files back to back on the timeline for the whole show... then I use the Ctrl Track cues to stop and cue and preload to the next song... I leave some space between songs for easy visual cueing. Works great... all in one edl... this also allows the video track to easily be involved for perfect sync video... this also makes it easy to handle lighting cues and so forth.

If you will be altering your show setlist all the time... then you can use the Show Control view to handle things... and yes... you would create a separate edl for each song... then you can easily build a show setlist on the fly... even re-arrange the song order within the list.

An advantage to using the SAWStudio MultiTrack is that you can easily have click tracks on separate outs and even have multiple tracks of vocals and other effects that can be used or muted on the fly if performers are sick or singers have a cold one night... much more flexible than a simple stereo file playback.

Bob L

Isn't there a plugin or some other way to virtueally route the output from Windows Media Player, WinAMP or some such to SAC? Would the Totalmix Matrix work for this?