Newbee looking from a program to make life easier

[loki]

Hey, i am new at real audio, up till now i have been doing amature shows and stuff for school, im trying to do diagrams of where mics will be positioned on the stage and what mics they will be, up till now i have been using paint to accomplish somthing similar to the attached file, but i am looking for somthing a bit more presentable, i was rather hopeing that there was a program out there that would help, if anyone know of such a program please let me know?

Thanks, Loki

[Hughesie]

Hello Again, Loki

the closest to sound desk cad software you will find would be stardraw audio

but it isn't really for mic layouts, more rack layouts but might be worth a try.

[loki]

Hmm, seems im having issues uploading, here it is again



I have tried stardraw and yeh, it is a bit to desk orientated, i need somthing stage based

[avare]

It is not application oriented, but Sketchup looks like it would do what you want. Set up templates with models, and copy and paste. Of course the price is right (free).

Andre

[mnfreelancer]

For quick things like this without buying a specific software package I'd probably just use MS Word's drawing features. It's object oriented so it's easy to move objects around and copy/paste is a wonderful thing. I usually end up turning off the "drawing canvis" feature in options-->general so you can draw on a whole page. If you want to print the drawing it's already formatted for 8.5x11 and if you want to e-mail it most people use word, otherwise you can print to a PDF using one of many free applications designed for that purpose.

[gpdesigner]

Loki, you know what you should do is pick a brogram you know well and build an inventory of the production gear you use, this may take a while to put together but when you are done you will have a bunch of objects in an inventory to use . . .

I have been building a small production inventory of my own in 3D, so when I or someone needs a conceptual/visual layout of a venue I can through something 3d at them to give them an idea. here is an model od the HP600 I built a few months ago.


This was done in Lightwave 3D so the renders I can do are photo-real ..
gp

[philhaney]

Originally Posted by avare

It is not application oriented, but Sketchup looks like it would do what you want. Set up templates with models, and copy and paste. Of course the price is right (free).

I have always used Visio myself (even before it was bought by Microsoft). Yeah, you have to pay for it, but I think it's worth it. Right now, I'm using Visio 2003.

I have several libraries of shapes I've created. They can be programmed to change when you double click on them. For example, we have a custom control panel for an in-house lighting system we designed that has over 100 switches on it. The configuration of these switches changes several times during the show. I make up a sheet for the tech operating the panel for each configuration. By using a switch shape I designed in Visio I can double-click on a "switch" in my drawing and it will toggle between on and off.

[derekleffew]

Have a look at MicPlot, a piece of software from AU! Lots of interesting things on the site: CH Sound Design.

[loki]

Originally Posted by derekleffew

Have a look at MicPlot, a piece of software from AU! Lots of interesting things on the site: CH Sound Design.

WOW, they have some real nice programs, i whish i had micplot for my last show (would have done in hours what took me 5 weeks to get right) But most of that stuff is wireless and who has it, im currently looking more for wired and where it goes.