Audio cue software options

[gotty]

I've been using MultiPlay for sound cues for a while now, and it's been pretty good - easy to use and understand, and no installation required.

 

And in the current production (a school production, with sound operated by an 11yo) it's fine for backing music and general FX, but we're having big problems hitting spot FX because of the latency between hitting GO and the sound appearing, as well as the slight delay in setting up the next cue.

 

We're currently in last week of rehearsals and have moved to playing the spot FX in Windows Media Player as it cues/plays very quickly (VLC and Media Player Classic are also instant-start).

 

So I'd like to see if we can try some other audio cue software, and I'd appreciate thoughts. It needs to run under Windows 7 and 8, and free or at least low cost (I'll have to buy it as the school has no budget).

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

 

[Bobbsy]

Free: Soundplant (well, free if you only play wave files...you pay for MP3). It's very effective for instant spot cues but doesn't do a playlist in order. Instead, you just programme each key of your computer keyboard to do a different sound.

 

Cheap: The "Lite" version of Show Cue System--a conventional playlist application. Very stable and easy to use in my experience--I have the standard rather than Lite version so I don't remember what you'd be missing.

 

SOUNDPLANT

 

SHOW CUE SYSTEM

[GridGirl]

I second Show Cue System. In four years of very heavy use it never gave us a problem unless the person who programmed it did something stupid.

[GR1]

Sport Sound Pro is very reliable and quick. There is a free version which allows you to load up about 100 cues or the full paid for system which allows well over 1000. It will play wav, MP3 and other formats. I've used it for 5 years.

[gotty]

Thanks for those suggestions. I'll investigate them.

 

Cost will be a significant factor (unfortunately we've become used to the features of MultiPlay and getting something else to match may prove too expensive).

 

Also looking at Cue Player

 

 

[Bobbsy]

Having used Multiplay as well, I'd say that SCS is probably the closest in operation and functionality with some nice extras. I believe they have a trial you can download so that may be worth doing.

[Lamplighter]

I am somewhat puzzled by the OP's problem. I have used multiplay for around 5 years and not had any delay when hitting Go or moving on to the next cue. I frequently use stacked cues, perhaps a midi cue followed by a midi mute and then an audio cue. Even if used for something as critical as a gunshot this is not a problem. Two thoughts occur, are you using MP3 files? if so convert them to wav files, Multiplay is much happier with .wav.

Secondly use Audacity or some other editing software to check that the audio file has not got a lead in or a silent tail. If you trim the file to within 10 mS of the audio it will start as soon as you hit Go. If the audio has a long fade out then try using the start advance option to set up the next cue in advance. The advice given most frequently that many ignore is to make sure that the sound computer is a clean "bare bones" install, not trying to be an all singing and dancing device.

Brian

[SamDram]

We've been using Q-Lab all year (as opposed to using MultiPlay the previous year) and love it.

Easy to program delay times or trim off any unwanted audio for the waveform etc.

Supports video as well, which is great if you are using projection in your shows.

It's free, unless you want the Pro version (which is basically the same, it just allows you to expand control surfaces and outputs)

Give it a go!

[Bobbsy]

Q Lab is Mac OS only and the OP specifies he's on Windows machines.

[gotty]

Having used Multiplay as well, I'd say that SCS is probably the closest in operation and functionality with some nice extras. I believe they have a trial you can download so that may be worth doing.

 

Thanks for that - very much appreciated.

 

I've now installed SCS and am giving it a try-out. Not sure if it's the answer though.

 

 

[alistermorton]

How do you mean you're not sure it's the answer? Are you still getting delays? If so, it would point to a problem elsewhere, I think.

[Shez]

I'm having some inconsistency with delays in SCS at the moment although it's not on my usual computer so I can't rule out hardware or setup issues yet. Particularly with hotkeys - sometimes they'll fire instantly yet a few moments later with the same key, there'll be a half second pause before it fires. Normally I'll recommend SCS without hesitation but this one warrants some further investigation.

[alistermorton]

Hmmm ... the only time I've seen random delays is if I just throw a load of sounds and images into the cue stack then, instead of running them in sequence, fire them off at random by triggering them off midi events. Whenever the cues are run in sequence, so SCS has a chance to preload them, it's been fine. One to feed back to the developers, though, especially if it's affecting hot key effects (which so far we've not seen any problems with).

 

We did see a bit of a problem trying to play back an AVI as a cue - it was a bit jittery, but converting to WMV solved that.

 

EDIT : spelling

[Bobbsy]

I just finished a 3 month run of 6 different shows back to back (usually with rehearsals overlapping evening performances) and (admittedly only on audio, no video or images) SCS has been flawless. Five of the six were run in sequence but the sixth (well, the 4th but you know what I mean) was run randomly off the stack.

 

No problems with any of them even with multiple shows being programmed at once.

[alistermorton]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that SCS works better if it can get more memory. We used to run on an XP 32bit machine and tha twas when we say occasional hiccups but we now use a W8.1 64 bit machine which potentially allows each process to run with more memory. More memory is good.