Auto play cues

[Neil Macmillan]

Been using my S24 mainly for events so far but I'm heading towards getting more ambitous. Planning to light a music video later this month and I'd like to be able to have three beeps before the audio track starts at 1 second intervals then the song plays. The plan is that I get the timing off the first two beeps, then hit the go button on the third beep. This would trigger a 1 second cue then move on to the next cue which would run for the required number of seconds before moving to the next cue and so on till the end of the audio track.

I would like to be able to programme 32 different lighting setups with colours, effects etc. onto 32 different playbacks, which style the look of the lighting for quiet parts, verses, chorus etc.

The plan is then have these 32 different lighting setups play in the required order (with repeats of some setups as similar parts of music play).

Having made up these 32 different playbacks, I would then work through bringing up a playback, then recording it to a cue in the main playback which by the end will have the entire cue list for the song. If I need to change anything, I can update the playback for that section, then again bring it up and replace the relevant cues that use that lighting setup.

First question is that it is possible for me to make this happen as I expect? When I hit the big go button, these cues will fire one after the other and show my different setups throughout the song at the right times?

Second question is how do I get the big go button to play the cues initially? Go doesn't seem to work until the fader is up, but I would like the timing accuracy of just hitting a button on the beep and the cue starts playing similar to pressing "Flash". If it isn't possible I may just have to ramp up the slider fast.

Third question is how do I get the cues to automatically go to the next cue at precise time intervals? For example, my first cue is 0.6 seconds long, then the next is 6.8 seconds long etc. and they need to change to the next cue precisely on these marks to stay in time with the song.

Last question is how do fades affect my cue timings. If I want hard cuts, my fade in and fade out will be 0.0 and 0.0 respectively, so my 1 second long cue would be 1 second long. If I made the fade in and fade out 0.1 seconds, will my cue stay 1 second long but be fully active for 0.8 seconds or does it become 1.2 seconds? Any advice as to how this would knock off my timing and do I need to adjust the length my cue plays for to factor in the fade times?

Sorry for the barrage of questions!

Thanks

Neil

[kgallen]

Use a new playback and create a cue stack to trigger each of your preprogrammed playbacks. You can set the auto cues to trigger from the beginning or end of the current cue with a wait time offset so you can use the style to suit how you set up your fades.

This is in the manual. You can also trigger multiple playbacks with an offset if you so wish then your lighting moves can overlap in creative ways. 

[Neil Macmillan]

Thank you kgallen!

Just the right amount of information with the keywords for me to go away and learn, as I was lost in the manual a touch. I came across being able to trigger and release cue stacks which is amazing as it means if I need to adjust any of the individual looks, I just update that playback and the whole thing updates, rather than having to save multiple cues over again. That's going to be a huge time saver on this when I need a small adjustment on one section.

I think my mental block which I have overcome now is that the auto cues time doesn't relate to the cue it is in, but it relates to the previous cue, which instantly makes sense.

I can also see the benefit of triggering multiple cues to get things to come in at the same or slightly delayed times. It's a powerful system once you get your head around it!

[kgallen]

Ok cool. Well done for making some sense from my rather poorly worded phone reply!

See p50 of the manual. Also note that you will probably need to release the triggered playback in a later cue - say you have a chase running, you would trigger it from a cue when you want it to start then in some later cue release it when you want it to stop.

Drop us another line here if you can’t find the info you need. 
 

Kevin

[Neil Macmillan]

Yes each cue has to release the previous and trigger the next. Seems to be working pretty well.

Any sneaky tips for duplicating cues en mass? I was looking for a way to "Copy 1 to 2 thru 45" but I think that might be a flx level feature. The copy screen on the s24 doesn't have any thru option that I can see.

[Edward Z88]

Hi Neil,

26 minutes ago, Neil Macmillan said:

I was looking for a way to "Copy 1 to 2 thru 45" but I think that might be a flx level feature. The copy screen on the s24 doesn't have any thru option that I can see.

If you plug a USB keyboard into FLX S, you can use the ">" key for Thru. This allows you to type COPY, type 1>45 in the "From" field, and in the "To" field type the first cue you wish this range to be pasted to.

Hope this helps,

Edward

[Neil Macmillan]

9 hours ago, Edward- Z88 said:

Hi Neil,

If you plug a USB keyboard into FLX S, you can use the ">" key for Thru. This allows you to type COPY, type 1>45 in the "From" field, and in the "To" field type the first cue you wish this range to be pasted to.

Hope this helps,

Edward

Thanks Edward, that sounds a good time saver for the future!