A Better Way to Program to Tracked Music?

Hello,

I am coming from a background of being familiar with 3D animation and am coming to light designing for theatre, specifically for a tracked musical. Something I've found is that there isn't a cue editor screen that helps me program 20-30 cues at specific times after an initial "Go" button is pressed to start the song through MIDI at Qlab. I am able to achieve what I want by using .1-second follows with precise delays, but it's just not an ideal way to work. It's not an ideal way to work because I don't want to think about this like it's a cue list. I would much rather think about it like keyframes in animation. I think the critical difference is that theatre is all about cueing (so live things happening on stage triggers events in the board through direct observation of a human stage manager), while what I'm doing is no different from animation (there is one "go" and everything else that happens is completely predetermined exclusively by timecode). So when your events are triggered exclusively by timecode, you really want an editor that allows you to create and modify events, not snapshots/cues. So a cue is a snapshot, or a look. In animation world, you never, ever want to think about things like separate "looks" (because you want start/finishes of movements to overlap). You want an editor that allows you to manipulate things with exclusive respect to time. What you want is a scrub bar, honestly. A scrub bar is impossible and completely contradictory to the idea of live cueing, but it's a staple of animation. 

Is there validity to the idea of wanting to have an event editor specifically designed to think about controlling lights the way you control an armature in 3d animation? 

In other words, the exact thing I'm talking about is a dope sheet. I want a dope sheet. What a dope sheet does is it's basically a graph that tells you exactly when each parameter is changed with respect to time. It's unlike the blind spreadsheet because the blind spreadsheet thinks about cues, not timecode. I need something that thinks about timecode because working with cues that are automated to fire at specific times forces me to compartmentalize the song and I definitely don't like doing that. I don't like doing that because that's not how you write music. 

I want to be able to think about time like it's a constantly flowing river. I don't want to think about time like it's all these different, separate chunks. 

Ideally, there would be an editor screen that lets me set the length of the song, the cue number that fires this entire sequence I'm about to create for this song, and a workspace with a scrub bar that lets me create keyframes. I want to be able to say this channel's intensity should be 0 at this second and it should be at 75% 50 seconds later, and I want the interpolation to be quadratic. And I want that to be completely separate from all other events. This editor would deal with effects by allowing you to just drag and drop an effect to a channel and control whether that effect is off or on at a certain time with a simple on/off button. "Effect on" and "effect off" actions would be represented on the dope sheet just like any other keyframe. There would also be a way to load the actual music into this editor you you can scrub through the light show and the music in unison. The board would obviously need a way to output sound though of course, which isn't something all boards can do, I don't believe. 

The advantage of this is that it would make it 10x easier for people to get interested in creating advanced light shows in theatre. I'm noticing that very few light designers seem to do this sort of thing in theatre and I think that may be because the light board software is not at all conducive to this type of programming. It's great for busking and for cueing, but it's clearly not designed for thinking about events exclusively with respect to timecode. This is a very valuable idea to incorporate into this software because I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but there are a lot of theatre musicals that are tracked. Not having a dedicated editing screen to take advantage of tracked music seems to be a huge missed opportunity. Doesn't make sense not to borrow from animation world. This might be a possible reason why lighting in so many theatre musicals is so boring. It's not being thought about the correct way. If the music in your musical is tracked, there's really no good reason not to put on a proper light show. 

I see all these super advanced light shows on YouTube with hundreds of movers that are synced flawlessly to music and I don't know what software they're using, but I seriously doubt they're thinking about what they're doing in terms of cues/snapshots. You can only be that effective with your synchronization if you're thinking about it like an animator. I mean think about syncing individual light flashes that happen at the very end of the song—you want to wait through the entire song every time you want to check your timing just for the last part? God, please give me a scrub bar!

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  • But i must say,.... i not really understand your problem...
    Here is the Event Editor in EOS



    You can manipulate Startpoints, what kind of Action you want at the choosen time.
    In your Cue-List you can create Autofollows via Hang/Follow or Loop-Link, you can set Effects in a Cue, set Extermal Links (for Macros for example if you want- but you not need it because you can set Macros direct in the Event List), also for OSC Commands, Snapshots,.. (all you can Execute in a Cue

    The EOS Event List does not interest what you have give in the Cue, the Event List will fire the Cue. You can manipulate the Cue himself whenever you want (also in Blind during running the Show)
    Shure you can also fire Cue 2/X.. as Action in the Eventlist (EOS normal works with the Cue List you add at the Main Playback, but if you have a second Cue List on a Fader and you press in this List GO EOS will add this as Action).

    What you not can do -direct- in EOS is skip back and forward in the Timecode signal via Playback buttons.
    This you must do in your Player
    (Maybe you can send an OSC Command for QLab that skip back-forward 10-20-.. seconds???)

    What you can do is give in the Comand Line:
    Event 1/ TIME 01:02:03:45
    and EOS jumps to the specific point in your Eventlist.
    (Without the "/" you will change direct the Timepoint for the Event Nr. 1)
    If you switch INTERNAL at ON you can run from this point your List.
    You can add this command also in a macro and jumps everytime to this point (but be carefull in this case the LEARN Button must switch OFF because if you stay in Learn Modus then you learn this Macro with every click new in your Event List)
    If you get an External Signal and you jumps for 01:02:03:45 but your real Timecode stay at 00:01:02:34, EOS will also start the Event that comming at next Timecode point. And set the Timeline back at the synchron signal.
    But you can jump around, play as you want...

    If you have Internal AND External Timecode switch ON, EOS will wait for an external Timecode Signal.
    If you STOP the External, EOS also stops.
    If the External Signal get lost -and you have switch INTERNAL at ON- EOS will generate an own Clock (running time you see above every monitor change from green to red) and run with this internal Timecode Signal.
    If you connect the external Signal new, EOS synchron by himself new.
    If you switch ON only the internal, EOS will start from Zero (or the Start Point you have give with the Command Event 1/ TIME.....
    If you have switch ON only the EXTERNAL Signal, EOS will wait until it get a signal.
    All this switchers you can store in seperate Macros, add this Macro(s) at Submaster(s), attache this Submaster to one of your Fadersbuttons and you have direct access.

    In LIVE in your PSD you can mark a Cue, click at TIMECODE Collum and then add a new Timcodepoint for when do the Cue get start


    Only for change the Action you want fire at Timecode Point you must change to the Event Editor.
    All other you can do in LIVE.
    Also during running this Timecode Show.

  • Thanks for this information. I've been aware of the show control/event editor thing you've been talking about , but haven't been able to find a video tutorial on how to use it. But it's not really what I'm looking for anyway, I don't believe. Or maybe it is. I would really need to figure out how to make it work. I did play around with it, but didn't get anywhere: the question of how do I make this window listen to MIDI coming from Qlab on a different device, and how do I tell it which song I'm talking about seemed like a pretty tricky question to answer. 

  • In 9 of 10 case it is easy.

    Connect QLab -for example- to your EOS.
    Create an Eventlist via 1/ .
    Activate in Show Control External at ON.
    Set the Eventlist on LEARN (via LEARN Button same Button you also use for learn Macros)
    Have a Cue-List on Main Playback
    Press GO at QLab, see your Time runs in EOS
    Ever you press GO on EOS you create automatic an Event in your List.
    You can also start Macros, press Submaster.
    You not need go straigh thru Cue-List. You can also work with Go To Q XY ENTER and EOS will record this Cue in the Eventlist.
    This all will autorecord in your Eventlist
    That all you can later edit as you want.

    EOS will ever follow the external Timecode Signal.
    Only you can`t skip back-forward in EOS.
    For this you need your external Player.

    You wanna get a "Timeline" as we know it from some Videoeditors?
    And in this Timeline you can set marks for Events
    Is this what you looking for?

  • Huh. Very cool. I'll check this out on the board tomorrow! (Long boring weekend). Thanks!

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  • Next Step:
    If you have press wrong GO -means you set a wrong Timestamp- you can edit this in the Event List.
    Via Event XY Time 01:02:03:46 (No,... you can`t set this time, because EOS have as maximum 30 Frames...*GGG*)
    Or you do it in the PSD via Timecode Column
    Or delete this wrong Event.
    For create the new correct Timestamp jump on your player -QLab- at a Timeponit so EOS can play 1-2 Cues before you need the new Timestamp.
    With this EOS will set automatic at the correct point in your Cue-List.
    (Maybe this can be important for you for some Automark Moveinstructions)
    Because EOS will play back all recorded Cue you have do.
    Or you go for correct position in your Cue List with Go To Q XY
    After this, don`t forget set the Event List at LEARN.
    And at the correct Timestamp press GO.
    EOS will insert a new Event in your List.
    You can activate-deactivate the LEARN function every time you need/not need it.

    If you have activate LEARN every press at Go or on a SubmasterMacro will create a new Event.

    If your Event List maybe have100 Events you can also do:
    EVENT 101 ENTER.
    And then manipulate the Timestamp and the Action as you need.
    EOS will sort this Event automatic at correct position.
    (This means, you can´t move Event 10 to new position 20 via EVENT 10 MOVE TO 20 ENTER,... for change position you must change the Time they use. EOS autosort the Events by Timestamp)

    You see, you have many many option for manipulate and edit your Event List



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