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Thread: Scenes

  1. #11
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    Default Re: Scenes

    Hello,

    Here I thought that I was getting a handle on Scenes and now I find out that I really do not know what I thought that I knew! I must admit, I still find "Partial" scene changes confusing to say the least. I hope that the following does not make this post go too far "south", but the following points may help if clarified.

    Note: The following is from the SAC Help file for V3.1:

    New Button
    "You can see and adjust these options by [Right-Clicking] on a scene in the Scene View window also. Once in the dialog you can click OK or use the Enter key to exit and save the changes or click Cancel or use the ESC key to exit and cancel any changes."
    Q: I am not at all sure what the difference is here between [Right-Clicking] on a scene and selecting the Updt button?

    "If you press the [Ctrl-Key] when closing the Scene Properties Dialog, the selected partial chans will not be cleared, making it easy to create more scenes for the same partial chans back to back. You can then clear the selections afterward by [Right-Clicking] in the mixer chan selection zone at the top of any mixer view."
    Q: Never "saw" this one....but am not too sure what to do with it?

    Updt Button
    "[Left-Clicking] the Updt button allows you to update an existing Scene. The selected Scene is overwritten with the current state of all 25 mixers. You will be asked whether you want to update the partial channel info or not. If you elect to do so, the current selected chans will be used to change the original channel selection. You will still have the option inside the Properties Dialog window to alter the partial channel info again before saving the the updated properties."
    Note: Still having difficulty in understanding this one...so I have simply avoided using it?
    Q: Where is this "option" inside the Properties Dialog window?

    Changing Scene Properties
    "The next top option, Select Partial Chans, if lighted, will select the channels that are active into a temporary group when the scene is recalled, thereby allowing you to create unlimited special group combinations with scene recalls that then allow you to control multiple selected channels of controls using any one channel as the master."
    Note: As with the Updt Button, I still have difficulty in understanding this one...so I have simply avoided using it?

    What may help is a few simple tutorials on just how these "things" actually "work".
    Last edited by mr_es335; 12-08-2015 at 10:36 AM.

  2. Default Re: Scenes

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob L View Post
    The prompt gives you the power and ability to choose between presetting the partial chan info to a completely new chan list before entering the scene properties page (overwriting the old) or having the old partial list being reselected for you, letting you keep the original... once inside the scene properties dialog, you can now add or subtract to that already selected list and use the update partial button on the properties page to change the list, or leave the list as it was.

    Bob L
    So if i understand this selecting yes creates completely new data from mixer settings, selecting no keeps existing data and ads only your changes to it?

  3. #13

    Default Re: Scenes

    I'm not sure why this is so difficult for so many... let's try again.

    A scene will save all mixer control values, for all 25 mixers... that means all the knob and switch settings... routing assignments etc.

    When a scene is created or updated, it captures all the current knob and switch values and saves them.

    OK... simple enough... but now comes an amazing extra power that allows you to control which of those values will be altered when a scene is recalled. This allows you to select which mixer channels and mixers will be affected by the scene recall as well as which knobs and switch values will also be affected... meaning a scene can be told to change only a single fader on chan 20 or it can be told to change all faders on chans 1-34... or it can be told to change only the mute switches on certain chans on certain mixers... etc... etc.

    The scene properties dialog is where you set this information. Each of the many different sections of a chan strip module are broken out into selection options where you decide what knobs and switches are affected by a scene recall. You also select a chan and mixer list (which I have termed as a partial list) which is referencing channel numbers and mixer numbers... not knob and switch values. If you do not select individual chans (blacken a chan number by left-click selecting it) then the partial list contains ALL channels. If you select certain channels only, then the partial list is comprised of only those selected channels on specific mixers.... VERY POWERFUL!

    You are also given the power to alter the scene values as well as the scene property values after the fact... so after a scene has been saved you can alter both the knob and switch values as well as the selected options and channels and mixers affected by the scene recall. The scene update option updates the current scene knob and switch values... the scene properties option updates the selected options and chan and mixer selections. The right-click scene option is a special way of just getting directly to the scene properties dialog and changing those properties without worrying about affecting the actual scene knob and switch values... this offers a powerful way to alter the characteristics of a scene recall directly without affecting the actual knob and switch values.

    If you read slowly my last reply and follow its direction, the process is pretty simply explained.... to update a scenes konb and switch settings, I suggest first recalling the scene so the mixers are all set to the current scene values... now change whatever controls you want to change... now click the update button... at that point the mixer values themselves have all been captured and the scene data now reflects the current settings of all controls of all mixers.

    You are now being asked whether you also wish to update the actual chan and mixer list of which chans and mixers should be affected by the scene when it is recalled... if you answer YES, then whatever chans on whichever mixers are currently selected (blackened) will become the new chan partial list and overwrite the original list that was currently saved with the scene... if you answer NO, then the original list of chans and mixers will be automatically selected for you and those chans will be blackened so you can see them... if no selected chans are involved, then the list becomes ALL chans.

    Now you will see the scene properties dialog with all of the selected options and the actual partial (or ALL) chan list. If you want these options to stay the same, simply click OK... otherwise change what you want, then click OK.

    While in the scene properties dialog, and all of the partial chans involved are selected and blackened for you, you also have the option of adding or removing chans to and from the list... simply blacken new ones or un-blacken old ones... then click the Update button in the dialog at the top left corner next to the actual channel list... this updates the list to include the changes.

    The special scene right-click option offers you the power to simply modify any scene's property selections as well as its chan partial list or mixer selection without making any changes to the actual knob and switch values... simply altering what will be affected on which chans and which mixers when the scene is recalled... very powerful indeed... for instance...

    I am doing a show repeatedly each night... at the end of the night I save a scene named with the date... perhaps "Wed-02-12-15". I don't care what properties settings are selected... I leave the scene include all chans and save it... which by the way saves everything on every mixer at the end of the night's performance. I do this for Thur and Fri... etc.... now... tonight, the guitar player comes to me before the show and says... my monitor mix has drifted considerably with all the subtle adjustments we have made during the week... actually... it was the best last Wed night... so... I can right-click the Wed scene and select all parameters (or just what I want to affect) and select just mixer number 5 (the guitar players mixer) and then click OK to exit the scene properties dialog... this did not yet affect any other setting on any other console... now if I recall that scene... even though everybody's settings are saved in the scene, only the guitar players mixer settings will be recalled... and his monitor mix is now set exactly as it was last Wed... all other adjustments made during the week for all other mixes remain intact.

    Bob L

  4. #14
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Scenes

    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh J View Post
    So if i understand this selecting yes creates completely new data from mixer settings, selecting no keeps existing data and ads only your changes to it?
    The short version is that whenever you create a new scene or you update a scene, every setting of every mixer within SAC is captured and either stored in that new scene or it over writes ALL the previously captured data when you click Update.

    Think of all the settings in the Scene Properties as a sort of selective recall of that data capture. That is really a better way to think of it than the "partial data" term SAC uses. Those settings in the Scene Settings box act as a kind of filter for what data is recalled when you recall that scene. So if ALL is selected in the Partial settings every control point will be recalled when you perform the scene recall. The opposite of "all" would be a single control point on a single channel on a single mixer. And of course you can chose any number of options in between.

    Frankly from what is sounds like you're trying to do I would highly suggest you just break things up into multiple scenes. I would just write myself a series of scenes that only recall settings on vocal A and another complete set of scenes that only recall vocal B. Yes it would be more work to recall those as it won't all be contained in a single scene, but it would keep you from screwing up vocal A while trying to change Vocal B.

    Just create new scenes with the settings you want for each vocalist. Then edit the Scene properties so they only change the specific channel settings for that one person. Make sure all other channels and settings are not selected. (by selected I'm talking about the partial scene data here)

    Good luck and hope that makes sense and doesn't confuse more.

    For what it's worth this is pretty much how all digital consoles operate their scenes and what data is recalled. They all seem to use their own terminology for the same basic functions but they all operate pretty much the same. Write a scene or update it and all data is stored or replaced. Then there is some setting for only recalling specific parts of that data. The differences are mainly in the design of the UI to accomplish this same basic concept.
    Richard B. Ingraham
    RBI Sound
    http://www.rbisound.com
    Email Based User List: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sac_users/

  5. Default Re: Scenes

    So still not much wiser on this, as far as I can tell there is no way of recalling mutes on all channels and all mixers, and just faders and pans on three channels on two mixers in "one scene"?

  6. #16
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    Default Re: Scenes

    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh J View Post
    So still not much wiser on this, as far as I can tell there is no way of recalling mutes on all channels and all mixers, and just faders and pans on three channels on two mixers in "one scene"?
    You are correct. There is no way to do that within a single scene unless the faders and pans are for one channel type (inputs, aux, output) and the mutes are all in another type.

    In other words, if you wanted to recall mutes only on input channels and faders and pans in say output channels (just as an example) you could do that in a single scene by setting the recall parameters correctly in the scene properties dialog. But if you want to recall mutes on all inputs and faders and pans on other inputs, you're out of luck. The only way to do it in a single scene would be let all mutes, faders and pans be recalled for any channel you wish to recall and then make sure you store the settings for all those channels into each and every scene.

    The best solution for what you want to do is to break it up into multiple scene recalls. I used this method a lot with SAC. It makes it a lot easier to manage since you only have to worry about a handful of parameters being recalled per scene. It does mean sometimes I would require my sound op to recall 2 or even 3 scenes in a row. If that was problematic, I would use SAW to create a sequence of SAC scene recalls and then have the sound op fire off that SAW edl instead. Yeah... it means you need to have SAW to accomplish that.

    This is actually a pretty common limitation, just to be fair to SAC. Most of the budget consoles don't even give you anywhere near the level of flexibility in recall parameters. You have to step up to at least the $20K+ range of consoles until you get that level of control. Although the el cheapo Behringer with it's snippets might be an exception to that... I don't know as I've never dug down that deep into those little desks. Some other products get around this by letting you link multiple scene recalls together, creating a sequence of scenes that get recalled all with a single button press.

    Anyway just trust me... break up all that into multiple scenes. You'll thank yourself latter.
    Richard B. Ingraham
    RBI Sound
    http://www.rbisound.com
    Email Based User List: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sac_users/

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