Hi everyone.

Im kinda new round here, found your link on stagelink.com, along with the links I'd like to ask you about. I do alot of amdram, and have looked at invested in some sound software for myself and my group, the vale players. Ive seen two pieces at the moment, http://www.soundcuesystem.com and http://www.csmd.co.uk. I like both of them, but would like some advice on which other think is good. SCS seems to be more advanced, but doesnt look quite as userfriendly. CSMD has a demo which a bonus, and looks nice and easy to use. Id be very intrested to hear your comments which will hopefully help me make an informed decision.

Regards

SM

Rambo asked a very similar question (see this Post)
Why don't you PM him?
If CSMD offer a free download, then please download it and report back to us on how you found it.

I do however find it very odd that two people who have only posted either once or twice, somehow ask very similar questions.
I don't normally like to play the riveting game of spot the similarities but due to being very bored;

1) Rambo spelling mistake: intrested
SoundMan spelling mistake: intrested

2) Both posters seem to have a problem with punctuation I.e. Im, Id etc etc


Ho hum,

Piers

Thanks Piers,

Spelling has never been a strong point of mine, thats for sure. Ill download it and report back, and PM the other member that you mentioned. Well I saw the link was new on Stagelink.com, and thought Id ask here. Guess I should have looked at the forum more and seen there was already a post. Sorry if ive caused a repeat post.

Ill let you know soon.

SM

SCS supports MIDI in and MIDI out as triggers. I'm currently playing with it controlling an LX desk and being controlled by external devices. I also have a plan to make a MIDI interface for external CD players. SCS also seems to show more info in the cue window.


So does SCS (have a demo that is).

Following the thread I started in February, I purchased an M-Audio Firewire 410 and SCS, which can address its eight analogue outs as four stereo pairs, in the Professional version.

I used SCS for a play in April and found it very effective and its interface easy to use. I personally don't find the CSMD interface, which simulates two CD/MD desks, particularly helpful and believe it could be confusing. (I found a similar interface, used by Adsono, confusing in a play last year.) SCS can run up to 10 sound files simultaneously.

SCS is being continuously developed and has just gone to version 8.3.0 in the last couple of days (EDIT: now 8.3.1) and version 9.0 is being planned. The current version now uses a different sound driver and can now, for example, address individual speakers through a surround sound card (subject to certain provisos).

Mike Daniell, the writer, is very open to suggestions for improvements and has robust testing support.

SCS is apparently preferred by many professionals over SFX, which costs many times more.

I hope this helps your decision.

Yes Mike has been great to deal with, I had a problem which Mike dealt with swiftly, even providing a different version that corrected the problem. Highly recommended!

Assuming ‘amdram’ means low (or no) budget, how about some great freebies; for preparing audio, try ‘Audacity’ as a sound editing program. It’s a free download from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
For play out, try ‘Soundplant’ downloadable from http://www.soundplant.org/about.htm
It allows you to ‘map’ sounds onto your computer keyboard and trigger them from there.
Both great programs, completely free, no catches (that I've found anyway!)

I'd second Soundplant. Worth the small upgrade fee to get mp3 capability. It has been rock solid, stability wise.

On the basis of this and other posts, as well as seeing it in action elsewhere, I've now converted to using Sound Cue System as our main playback. Seems to work fine so far; the main problems being due to our "busy" network system on which I'm currently having to run the software and keep the audio files. SCS is great though - and £30 is not too much to pay for the standard licence (Pro licence is required for MIDI triggering).

P.

Hi Again,

Well as suggested I downloaded CSMD and CSC. I now see where alot of people are coming from on the CSC side. Guess with this been a well known product to the market then lots like it, and it is nice, especially where it has the extra capacity that CSMD doesnt have.CSMD on the other hand was set up in minutes and I was using it quite quickly. It has a record feature which was good, but it only records in .wav format which is a bit limiting, and meant long recordings take up some serious space. I guess I could get a free converter if I wanted. The one thing I found with both products is that because when were going amdram were often in an environment where control is at the back of the audience, using software like this our faces are going to be light up like gin palaces!! Guess I could wack a gell over the screen or just turn the brightness right down. Anyone got any other suggestions? I think although the software are very similar there are also alot of differences, and according to what exactly you want you might choose a different one. For what I want, a replacement for CD and MD decks CSMD will be fine, but I just wondered if for a few pounds more I should go with CSC and have the extra capacity. Touch decision! Anyone got any other thoughts on either that might help me swing in one direction or the other?

SM

Had this problem and using a sheet of ND to cover the screen seems to be the simplest way, especially as you can attach it as a cover and flip it back if you need the full brightness of the screen.

Let us know how the programs work out for you

I use Audacity a lot and it does a lot of the basic stuff very well. It has free mp3 support with lameenc.dll (freely available on the net ).

I use it for sound effects and trimming music for specific purposes. It can do multitrack recording and is FREE. It does a lot more but I've never needed to explore all it's possibilities. Not adware or ad supported or whatever. Also it's very stable and reasonably quick.

If I were you I'd give it a go first. It may well do the job for you.

Another recommendation for Audacity (info and download here). As a lampy, my audio-mangling needs are relatively few, but Audacity does everything I've ever needed it to do, and seems to do it rather well. And for nothing. Which is good. Right?

running any audio software via a network drive is asking for trouble - ok for storage, but dreadful for audio direct. Some software won't even try. Cubase is one.It son spots the data isn't contiguous and comes up with an error message. I can just about do it with mp3's on my network, but 44.1 wavs tend to die, 98 doesn't work at all.

Yeah any network drives on windows are not great. You get alot of timeout errors, and if your using wireless networks then your in for even more problems. I have to agree that for amdram free stuff is often really good, its cuts costs to zero. I have to admit though I had used Audacity before and it was good, but I just like new stuff! I think the big buttons and things, well it just does something for me, not everyone taste I guess. At least I managed to get our crew away from using WMP yuck............

P.S. TeeJay what you mean ND? Ive kind sorted it by dropping the brightness of the screen and a dark gel, and the program is darkish colours which help.

SM

Interesting, Rambo posted an identical question onto Lab, which I responded to there.

I recommended a product called PCStage, and I'd recommend here that anyone using anything for theatre sound playback (including all the products mentioned above) have a serious look at PCStage.

http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/6529/0

If you can afford it, get hold of SFX pro audio from stage research. It'll give you unlimited wav playback and midi control with up to 16 channel output depending on your soundcard. Talk to Gary Giles @ cue one for a complete system to hire. The other system I used to use was G-type from Autograph but this is only a midi control system so you'll need an Akai S5000 to go with the PC.

But only buy it if you can find something you need to do that SFX can do and PCStage cant. Otherwise, thats several hundred dollars you've saved.

I used to recommend SFX to the well-heeled, and SCS to the less well heeled, but all that has changed now.

Alright, I stand corrected. PC Stage does pretty much everything SFX does. I've not used it in anger yet so can't comment on how it fairs with directors breathing down my neck but by just having a little play with it, it seems cool.
My only thing with it would be that it's a little long winded if your playing multiple wav's to multiple outputs as you need to be quite cleaver with how you route things, and I couldn't assign a Q to hotkeys, (good for back up gun fire if the real one doesn't go off) But in all, if you've gotta pay for it, and the show isn't too complicated then go with PC Show. If your company has the money and your running 16 outputs and multiple Q lists in your show, I'd still stick to SFX.
Rich.

Assuming these are FX you only use for failure - stick 'em in a separate cuelist, and then use Production/Triggers... to make a key trigger a cue transition, eg FadeCue GUN SFXOOPS, assuming a cue named GUN in Desk SFXOOPS. For this kind of thing I tend to have a "resting" cue at the top, make the named cue do what its supposed to on the pre-event, and have the "next" flag ticked (same as SFX AutoFollow), and have the folowing cue issue a Desk command to FadeCue stright back to "resting", so the gun is ready to go again immediatly.

Its also handy if all the fadetimes are set to zero, which is easily done by first setting the resting cue, zeroing its timers, and clicking the button that makes it the desk default.

This technique alows you to build an "instant replay" type thing, if thats what you need. You can also have buttons casuiong playback to stop, or to pan or change level.

Like many of these sorts of things, its actually a lot quicker to do than explain...

There are other, probably better ways, for example having multiple resting states, a state appropriate for each possible missed cue, and use desk commands to keep the SFXOOPS cuelist in the right resting state as you move through the show. Then you can just have one key for the emergency effect (assuming that only one effect is going to be missed at once, but obvciously you can have more keys if necessary), with the key set up as FadeCue Next SFXOOPS. Advantage is just one key to find in a hurry :-)

Or you could do it with cuefilters.

Lots of ways to skin this particular pussy.

Theres a suggestion in your comment that SFX may have an advantage with multiple cuelists: best as I can remember, there is no real difference between the way the two products handle multiple cue lists (other than PCStage calling them "desks"), and they both support the same sort of inter-cuelist malarky that makes having multiple cuelists worthwhile.

As for directors, when you've got command over all aspects of a shows technical presentation, jumping around the show at rehersal becomes trivial and seamless (ie you run your lights from PCStage as well as sound and FX), and I can tell you, directors do like that :-)

Try the product in anger. When it doesnt do something, complain on the mailing list, and we'll all benefit from the new feature :-)))