Sound Cue Programs; Are they useful and feasible for a play?

[m4g1cky]

This is my first post. Warning recieved? Awesome. Commencing post now.

As I was referred here by fello techie and board member Zac850, I 've gone against my better judgement and made my first post here.

I run sound at my school. For plays, assemblies and pretty much any "event" that happens. Simply speaking, no one has any real knowledge of sound equipment. At the moment we have a PA amp, Sony MD player, and 2 5-CD disc changers collecting dust and god knows what in our closet.

A play is coming up that is in need of sound and sound cues. The problems that we are facing are the sound cues. There are not that many in a short span of time, and getting the sounds is not an issue [Though if you know of any free places, feel free to share ], the problem we face is organizing them in such a way that they are instantly available, and can be controlled in a very simple UI. At the moment we are using a G3 iBook with iTunes to control, but the main problem is, I have no clue how the UI operates on that program. Zac850 does but he is focused on lights. Lucky him.

Now as I am thinking, there are a few questions I need answered as soon as possible [Tech week starts today]:

1. Is using a program such as iTunes, Foobar, Winamp, or something similar feasible for near-instant sound playing with exstensive control?

2. Are MDs lossless? Meaning, if I press play at the time the sound is needed, will it be instantly played? I have never used MDs before. And as it is a failing market, MDs are fairly cheap.

3. Are sound cue programs such as these feasible for a live play? Or would it be better to have them mapped out in time with the actors' "acting" [So to speak :P]?

I hope you guys live up to zac850's praise, he said to come here for help. Thanks in advance. [/b]

[spiwak2005]

My vote is for the MD.

Controls for recording are virtually the same as recording to a cassette.

Controls for playback are virtually the same as a CD. To "cue" up a sound, play/pause and go to the track you will need next. As soon as you hit play again, the sound will be there. You asked if it was lossless - lossless refers to sound quality, not the ability to cue up the next track you will need. MD is NOT lossless - unless you are sending a digital source digitally into the MD (ie: using an optical cable from a CD player) it's not true digital. This should not be a problem for you guys though - sound quality should be plenty fine for playback. Make sure when you record the sounds to the MD, you leave a few seconds of silence at the end of the track. That way when you playback, you will have a couple seconds to hit pause again before the next track begins. If you have a "pro" model player, it may even have a function to play just the selected track, then stop. I use my portable MD all the time for this very purpose...it does NOT automatically stop, but it's not too hard to hit pause yourself, then just move to the next track you need and it's already paused and cued up for that track. Any other questions, PM or e-mail me anytime.

Chris Spiwak

[OldGrover]

I know we've gone completely to sound cue programs using laptops - various people around here use different ones. They're pretty easy, especially if other people are running sound then set it up - for Caesar, they just stuck sticky notes '1' '2' '3' over the keys, corresponding to
the cue numbers in the script. Press the number when you see it in the script - programmable people

-OG

[m4g1cky]

Well, we decided to go with the Minidisc idea for the music tracks, but for now we are sticking with the iTunes for sound effects. As of now, recording and testing each track from Cd to Md is a little over-the-top, the final quality is great, and it seems to be perfect for what we need.

As for the cue programs you mentioned OldGrover, is it free?

[ccfan213]

what i do is i either get an unsuspecting tech, or for the last show i had the teacher who was the assistant director sitting next to me doing effects. basically i just put them on a CD in order of how they go and just hit the play button. when i have time to rehearse, i will do it myself and just have someone by me doing "standby" basically someone to hit cues for me if i need it or fix a wireless mic problem etc. if i dont have enough rehearsal time i have someone just do cues for me. anyway i have never felt the need to use a cue program, especially if your cd player has a remote and you have time to make a cd with the effects in the order you need them.

[mbenonis]

For our last show, I burned all cues to CD (two CD's that could be used in parallel, actually), and had operators cue and run them. This was the most reliable system (CD players don't crash) and it also delivered really good sound quality. And it's not complicated to press play. :-)

[Calc]

Go with the dual players (CD, MD), if you can. This is what i did for our last show. I made 2 CD's: one with music, and one with sound effects. I ran the board, and did the levels for them, along with the mics we were using.

Listen to the other guys here: If you have the person to do it, it's the easiest way to go with the least hassle.

[zac850]

Here is an update:
We're using the mini disk for any music, and iTunes for sound effects (xylophone sounds mostly). The mini disk wasn't that horrible, judging by the fact that we learned how to use it in maybe half an hour during tech week. We have 3 Mini disks, one for each act. We will also be using CD's for preset and intermission house music.

iTunes is fairly close to being instant (as long as my laptop hard drive doesn't spin down). One of the problems we were facing was that the guy who recorded the sound effects onto the CD put about 1 second of blank time before the cue, so you would push play and have 1 second of nothing, very annoying. Using iTunes I chopped this off, so it responds much better.

[Nephilim]

Once again I have to plug Q-Manager (www.hammerandtong.com) - the free version will do everything you need for basic FX playback, and if you need more than 2 channels or cue-able fades, the limited version isn't that expensive.

[tjbaudio]

I have done many shows on just MD. At this point if I am in a bind and need a show edited and ready to go fast I edit the ques on a computer and burn to CD. The other option (especialy when it is really last minut and the PC just crashed is to use the MD for both editing and play back. The move and edit funtions on an MD are good enough for most cues. Also on the remote look for a button called "A space/ A pause" A pause is "auto pause" it will play a track and que up the next one and sit in pause till you hit play. then it will play it and que up the next track.