This isn’t necessarily an SQ specific question, just more of a ‘does anyone have experience with this” question. The theatre I work shows for will be doing a horror style play in a few months. The director wants the ghost to sound as if they are in different parts of the auditorium at various points throughout the show. AKA sending audio to different speakers at different times while the others are muted.
Does anyone have any experience with this type of application? And is there a particular device that could be used to assist with this? I’m aware that I could send a matrix mix to different areas, but that seems a lot of muting and unmuting. And the director is wanting to use more speakers than matrix mixes available.
Assuming there are enough aux mixes available, I would definitely use them and prefer them to matrices.
Perhaps your theater already uses QLab, as steine recommends, or a similar program.
This is ideal, especially when multi-channel tracks such as nature or other sounds need to be sent to different FX speakers.
However, if the ghost is performing live or his playback use only 1-2 channels, I would try to implement the changes with appropriate scenes.
This, like using QLab, ensures reproducibility when others have to run the play based on play book.
It sounds like these speakers are installed solely for the ghost.
In this case, you could either use the aux mutes, or, especially if the ghost is supposed to move from speaker to speaker, the aux masters would be more suitable.
Mixing station allows you to enable a 3D pan feature that uses an additional pair of busses for surround pan. Its literally worth the price pf admission and works on the SQ. Youll of couse need discrete PA channels to go with it but MS can make it a breeze to dial in, easier than the console by far
Many years ago, I also tried using a DAW in theater, but it proved unsuitable because it can only work rigidly sequentially.
But what if, while the ghost is speaking, other sounds need to be played in sync with visible actions, or music needs to be closed at an unpredictable time, as if it were cutted that way?
That’s how I came across apps like SCS and QLab, which allow for many other things, like video playback and various device controls like MIDI and even DMX.
For theaters and many other shows, such programmable players with their sophisticated commands are truly the better choice.
Did this a few years ago on dLive for the Phantom in POTO, but could be done with SQ in a similar way, so although I’m really just repeating the suggestions here…
Reaper (though could be any DAW or QLab as mentioned) running multichannel/surround output. I ended up using ReaSurroundPan with a mono input object and custom speaker layout to match the setup.
Automation to control movement of the object, which allowed for gradual or instant (or somewhere inbetween) movement around the theatre.
Separate channels for each speaker, routed to a combination of Mix External Inputs to matrix feeds for clusters of speakers and direct outputs for some dedicated FX speakers (in boxes to make people jump ).
It’s quite funny to read this because even a yamaha 01v96 (which my sq5 replaced) can do 5.1 by default with the patterns you want - and expanding too (the most requested feature of the sq). And no need to pay more for qlab or whatever else.
I use Show Cue Systems software for all my theatrical work. The Pro and Pro plus levels allow you to treat a digital mixer, currently Qu5D, but works with SQ as well, as muti track sound card, an audio cues can be routed and auto cross faded to anywhere. I have flow aeroplanes abd driven trains acoustically through the auditorium using it.
Yea - I also like to use SCS (because it’s Windows) for all kinds of playback, but you could even use it to control your entire show (similar like with QLab).
You can create a cue list with keywords, and you can then not only start or change any kind of audio playback, but also e.g. send commands for scene changes, etc., to the audio and/or lighting console.
This way, you can also synchronize audio and lighting, for example, by automatically changing the lights at an exact position in the soundtrack.
Or you can start a flash of lightning with a Cue and hear the accompanying thunder shortly afterwards.
This is a bit off topic, but it might still be of interest to the OP, because his question was about theater plans.
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