In a nutshell: Scenes will recall a desk status in any way you want. By default, with no global safes, if you save a scene, do anything to the desk in that show, then recall the scene you saved, it should snap back to exactly the state it was in when you saved the scene.
IE - you store a scene, that captured scene then holds every bit of desk status information.
Recalling everything isn’t always the desired outcome though. That’s where “Recall Filters,” come in. By applying filters, you will affect how the desk behaves with a particular scene recall. Note applying filters does NOT affect what information is stored in a scene, only what is recalled by that scene! (IE, if you change your mind later about a filter parameter, you can uncheck it.)
The safest/easiest way to make a scene do what you want is to go to your recall filter, click all (so that everything is blocked in red,) apply the filter, then go through and unselect those items you want changed by the scene. You may just want fader, pan, and mute status for a particular channel, or perhaps the whole status of that channel, or a range of channels. It kind of depends on the application. I break scenes down in to a few basic types:
-
Global - I use these to store shows within the context of a larger “Show,” file. For instance, I have a Redzone scene for weekend services, a women’s ministry scene for a women’s band, Non-redzone volunteer, and so forth, as template scenes that I can then recall, copy and save as a new scene for, say THIS weekend’s show.
-
Song cues - typically only affect fader/pan/mute and fx status of band channels. For simplicity w/ my volunteers I usually just do one song cue scene per song. HOWEVER, you can get super crazy here if you want. IE - a series of cues that are Song 1, intro, chorus, bridge, chorus2, outro… I also have a sub set of cues that change FX units and send/receive level. Occasionally I’ll map those sub cues to soft keys so I can hit them during a particular spot in a song easily.
-
utility cues - These perform a range of functions, “preShow” (iPod on, mains @ full, peripheral speakers @ conversational level, waits a couple seconds then kills band,) Speaking moment (VFX DCA down instantly, fade down drums, keys, guitar DCAs -6dB or so over a 3s ish period,) end speaking moment, Mains on (@ cal level, used as embedded recall in volunteer scenes,) IO shift from recording to playback from DAW, Aud mics up/down (used for automating audience mic presence in a TV/backup streaming mix that gets recorded,) saving individual IEM mixes for specific recall, etc. (IE I use ST Aux busses for IEM and use OneMix for wireless locations, Me-1 for wired band locations. You can scope the individual aux mixes as a targeted scene store/recall.)
The one last thing to consider is “Global Safe,” These are things you don’t want to change in ANY scene. IIRC, only loading a full show file will affect those things in global scene safe. <–I would say be very careful what you use Global safes for. These have bitten me a few times. For instance - I applied global safe to my lavs sub-buss, then made a new version of the show for higher-end users that routes band through LR buss and repurposes that as “band,” then routes that LR buss to LR “Mains,” matrix. Lavs/Media bypass the LR buss entirely and go directly to “Mains,” Matrix.
The problem was this - I left a regular, everything goes through LR Buss, show, for our unskilled volunteers. Because I had applied global safe to my Lav sub, the routing did not change back to going through LR buss when the unskilled user next came in to run a show.
All that to say, just really mean it if you globally safe something!
Hope this is helpful.