Decent Qlab alternative?

XENGS

Member
Greetings everyone! :)
A couple of weeks ago I discovered my macbook air had been destroyed by swollen up batteries, after having been sitting on my desk unplugged & unused for well over two weeks (trackpad popped out, bent unibody, etc) - Apple refuses to provide support via e-mail, and there are no local apple stores. Since I don't want to deal with this over the phone, I'm stuck with a broken macbook...
Thankfully I do have a Windows laptop that I normally use to control lighting with. But the thing is, I can't for the life of me find a proper piece of software for some simple audio playback. What I need is:
> Audio arranged in a list/cue form. I want to hit space and have it play back.
> Fade & stop functions.
> The ability to stop one track and start playing the next one without any audible hiccup (Qlab would sometimes be sliiiightly out of sync, no more than a couple of samples, causing a bit of a "tick" of some sort. I need this for airplane SFX playback)
That's about it. It'd be a plus if it had somewhat modern graphics (Doesn't have to look awesome like Qlab, but if it looks like it was developed before I was even born it won't inspire much confidence, lol) - but obviously it doesn't matter as long as it works properly.
It would also be great if I could control it via MA2 onPC, but again not a necessity, I could just use the venue's Palette instead.
Thanks a lot. Cheers!
 
Check out Show Cue Systems. I have been using it for years, and love it. Many others here have as well. With a cheap ENTTEC USB device it can be linked via DMX512.

~Dave
 
I'm an advocate of Venue Magic. It can do everything you describe. I'm not sure how to control it as I use it to control everything else but I'm sure it can do it.
 
Great suggestions everybody, thanks!
I'm gonna start with Multiplay since it's free, if it doesn't work out I'll check out the rest as well.
Cheers!
 
Before I moved to a Mac based Qlab setup I used "Multiplay" for many years. It is a great powerful free program with most of the features you have in the free version of Qlab. I don't think it is actively being developed anymore.
 
I tried out Multiplay on my desktop; Just as soon as I pressed go hell broke loose - White noise & screeching sounds, couldn't get it sorted. So yeeaaah, not actively developed :rolleyes:
Also tried out Show Cue Systems (demo), it crashed within 10 mins or so. o_O
Then I tried out the free version of Cue Player (I know it's nothing like the Pro or Platinum) but it wouldn't recognize any sort of I/O...
Bad luck? Dunno.
I didn't try the rest as I'd become pretty frustrated at that point.
I always take proper care of my computers, latest drivers & updates, regular formats to clean up all of the crap that builds up in the registry, yet not a single piece of software worked...
Maybe there's something wrong with my PC, but I find it difficult to believe Smaart, ProTools and various other pro audio applications work perfectly yet these don't.
I guess I'll keep trying, check out the rest as well, but atm I'm looking into creating a dual-boot Windows/Hackintosh setup running Sierra... Just for Qlab... Gonna be "fun" :lol:
 
Well, that will teach me not to ignore the free version for a couple years. I'll bring it up, but Premium is the recommended version for any serious theater work. Sorry you had that stumble. The free version is little more than a front end to Media Player. Premium has all the features you were looking for in your first post.
 
I have used Show Cue on Win XP, Win 7 and Win 10 without issue. Also, I have the Pro license.
 
Well, that will teach me not to ignore the free version for a couple years. I'll bring it up, but Premium is the recommended version for any serious theater work. Sorry you had that stumble. The free version is little more than a front end to Media Player. Premium has all the features you were looking for in your first post.
I understand - Don't worry, I'm still going to be checking out the demo for the Premium sometime later along with everything else ;)

I have used Show Cue on Win XP, Win 7 and Win 10 without issue. Also, I have the Pro license.
Also Windows 10, but the demo. I don't know, maybe it doesn't like my M-Audio C600 or something??
 
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Also Windows 10, but the demo. I don't know, maybe it doesn't like my M-Audio C600 or something??
Never used the M-Audio C600. It worked well with my M-Audio FireWire 410 (which is why I keep a couple of XP machines humming along). I often had it map to 4 or 5 discrete outputs depending on the show.

Maybe something in the settings on your local machine conflicting?
 

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