Sunday, November 13, 2005

Features comparisons - an AudioBox & SFX and a taste of the future: SoundMan-Server

UPDATE: What follows below was true at the time it was written, almost 2 years ago - but a great deal has changed - see the last few paragraphs of this post. cbu (11/27/2007)

This could be subtitled: Keeping your sanity......and the future of serving sound on-a-budget!

An AudioBox has tools to program it that run on both the Macintosh as well as Windows. I will concentrate on the Windows tools since that is what I'm presently using.

Both sets of tools are available on the Richmond Sound Design site [ windows Macintosh ] as well as the Harmonic Function, Inc. site. Please note, the Macintosh programming software expects an AB64 while the Windows software (ABEdit) will program and control all versions of an AudioBox (1616HD, AB1616, and AB64)

In talking with Charlie, it's my understanding that the ABEdit software started out as just a programming tool but has since morphed into both a programming tool as well as a means to run a show.

Here's the links to ABEdit manual for the version that is specific to a 1616HD and AB1616 - and this is the link for ABEdit manual that is specific to an AB64.

In this section, I'd like to contrast and compare two products for playing back sound and doing "show control" in a live theater environment. Along the way, I'll indicate things that were show stoppers for me in SFX as well as what was most difficult in doing my first show using an AudioBox.

Sidebar:
Please note that "Show Control" in the venue I'm discussing (Community Theatre) is not on par with Show Control at Disney or a cruise ship or large entertainment venue. But "Show Control" in this venue is a big savings in time, effort, and helping us give each and every audience the same experience. [well, actors not withstanding....]

Prior to SFX and later, the AudioBox; we always did doorbells, phone rings, lightening, electrical discharges (Cuckoo's Nest) and the like manually.

SFX and later the AudioBox, gave us the ability to use MIDI controlled relays ( MIDISolutions R8 ) for effects we had previously used a Stage Manager or Lighting/Sound board operator to execute. FWIW, the R8 is pretty quiet.

For phones and doorbells, I trigger them directly; for lighting and mains operated bells, I go thru a solid state relay (SSR) sized to withstand the devices current and voltage. I use a stock RadioShack 12V power supply ( 1 amps @ 12VDC P/N 273-1776) to provide power to the SSR via the R8. Any 12VDC PSU would work.

The version of SFX I'm experienced with is SFX ProAudio V5.6 build 9 which I upgraded from SFX standard - JUST to get the audio looping bit. [Note: as of November 2007, SFX has new, completely re-written versions out]

Looping comes standard with an AudioBox - ANY AudioBox.....

Also, there are many effects - such as lightening, that require the use of sound effects and lighting effects at the same time. The AudioBox made it very easy.

end sidebar

I promised this would be a comparison of SFX and the Audio Box in terms of what it meant to our venue - it will be by no means an exhaustive comparison - there are others who use one or the other products (or both) daily in their work (for hire). If you're interested in pursuing the archives, then join up with the Theatre-Sound list, The Audio Box mailing list, the ShowControl mailing list, the ShowMan mailing list, and the SFX mailing list. Theatre-Sound, ShowControl & the SFX lists are quite active.


Both SFX and the Audio Box are just tools. Pure and simple.

The first show I designed with SFX was The Taming of the Shrew and had only scene change music and the like - not really a test of SFX but a means to ease me into the idea of computer controlled playback systems.

Not very fancy except I worked with a composer that was quite taken with SFX's ability to seamlessly loop his music for scene changes and the like. In fact, he gave me two versions of each selection - one that could be looped (and faded) and one that could be played to its natural end.

He wrote the music in Finale, saved to MIDI, emailed it to me, and I used Wavemaker III to render his tracks to wav files. I'm no musician, but although he is, neither one of us could afford studio musicians to record his tracks - so Wavemaker was our option. There are other rendering programs out there too - Wavemaker hit the spot at the time.

Shrew wasn't much of a test - but it was just practice for my next project - The Diary of Anne Frank.

On that show, I designed the Lighting and Sound and had a seperate board operator for sound while I was the board operator for lighting. [Usually, I'm both - "left hand = sound, right hand = lighting" - I said it was community theatre, didn't I?]

Anne Frank was much too complex for me to run both even with SFX. Aside from the normal soundscapes that this show requires, we had phone rings that were automatic and to the proper cadance, alarm bells that were very intrusive and some Foley that was pre-recorded but timed on the actors movements.

The phone rings and alarm bells were nothing more than 2 relays in a MIDISolutions R8 programmed to activate in a particular cadence on cue. In SFX, I set each device in its own list and then triggered that list from my main list.

When we did the show about 10 years ago, sound was a nightmare - Fostex 4-track cassette playback system with additional cassette playback units - most of the soundscapes were hard programmed - you couldn't slide them on the timeline at all....

So, what did SFX get me?

On Anne Frank - the ability to fine-tune electro-mechanical noise makers (phone rings, alarm bells), to wash the audience in sound-pulling them into the environment, to have multiple effects running at the same time and at a pre-determined level and location, to have a repeatible sound experience for the audience, and to integrate sound into the overall experience.

Could an AudioBox done the same thing? Yep! and more. But I didn't have one yet.

Forgot to mention, on Anne Frank, we had to integrate a video player at the top and end of the show - For the closing (the tape was the fill for the actors to get into their "curtain call" tableau) I rolled the tape while my sound op gave me a countdown as to how much time (SFX can show the remaining time or elapsed time of an audio file) we had left on the last scene change music - the idea was, at the proper time, the tape was up to speed and stable, the big screen TV was stable (on-a-budget, I said), and the audience was hearing the last of the music.

It worked most of the time - very stressful as I still had lights to contend with.

The last show I used SFX on was "The Mystery of Irma Vep" and that's because I had not allocated myself enough time to learn the AudioBox to the point I thought I could design a show on it.

Here's something to keep in mind about a SFX rig and an Audio Box.

SFX is "easy" to use - doesn't require much study to get going - but once you get past some of the bits that make it easy to use, I found that there were some things lacking. I originally purchased the Standard version - but soon upgraded to the ProAudio version just to get audio looping.

Some people say the fades aren't very smooth - it depends on your sample depth (16 bit vs. 24 bit) - and how low of a level you need - I've never had any trouble.

But what became the break point for me on the SFX vs. Audio Box front was the fact that I could have live inputs as well as hard disk playback on an Audio Box and couldn't on a SFX rig. The Audio Box's EQ, delay, 16x16 matrix were just icing on the cake.

Most shows don't require live inputs in our venue - except 2 types - musicals and a charity show we do to help out the local Salvation Army at Christmas. See http://www.zct.org/0708productions/AT17.HTM for this year's show.

In the past, we've run a feed from the keyboards to a couple of QSC 850 amps feeding on-stage monitor speakers and tried to balance the house and stage sound so the audience was not getting the majority of sound from the stage.

Our "pit" is in the lighting and sound booth. It's not really a pit nor a booth. It's what would be the balconey (choir) in a church, since that's what the venue used to be...and we're doing theatre in it....

SFX didn't have any kind of live sound ability unless you used an outboard MIDI controlled mixer such as a Yamaha 01V and the like. Which I don't own nor does the venue...Heck, the venue only owns lighting....and only some of that too.

The charity show we do each year starts out with open auditions where all comers are cast - some are seasoned actors, some are trying this out for the first time and some are in the middle. It has become very clear in the last few years that some form of musical support (feed) on-stage is needed to keep them together during the show.

This year, I used an Audio Box AB1616 to take a feed from both keyboards, run each to their own input, send the output from each keyboard to both the right & left of the on-stage monitors (a mono feed split to both speakers). We were able to mix both keyboards in such a way as the on-stage feed gave them what they needed to hear (and were used to hearing) and the audience didn't hear the feed from the stage but heard only the pit.

On top of that, I had spot sound effects, video segments with audio, video segments with a dry sound track covered by a pre-recorded track played from the Audio Box, as well as the normal pre-show and intermission music.

Alas, the video player was not controlled by the Audio Box but it could have been. Maybe next year....

Here's an eyeopener on the diffs between a SFX based show and an Audio Box based show - SFX allows you to be sloppy in your show documentation and still succeed.

An Audio Box will soon show up your documentation shortcoming and stop you in your tracks.

SFX can be considered a "streaming audio" playback system. You don't have to worry (within limits) how many cues use what groups to playback your sound. SFX supports 4 groups with each group made up of a stereo pair. You can have all your cues play via Group 1, one on top of another or layered so that a cue starts to playback before another finishes.

SFX forces you to use a stereo group hardpatched to a stereo output amp.

In a way, this is easy for newbies but deadly when you transfer to an Audio Box where there are a finite number of playback channels

In an Audio Box, you have a finite number of live or disk playback channels that can be patched to ANY output device (amp/speaker) or, in the case of an AB64, CobraNet desitination.

Now, all of a sudden, you HAVE to clean up your paperwork so YOU know what playback channels are in use and when. Lucas Cooper in this link indicates a method of working that suggests you allocate certain PB channels for specific tasks. It's not a bad idea.

A SFX rig can be limited in the number of audio files it can playback in synch - because of shortcomings of the user's PC hardware and MicroSoft's DirectX sound engine.

An Audio Box (any flavor) can easily playback any and all audio in perfect synch.

UPDATE - November 2007
It's November 2007 and alot has changed - AB1616s, and HD1616 are no longer in production and are falling from favor by us little guys because it's getting increasingly harder to get a SCSI interface to work under any of Microsoft's windows OS.

In May of 2007, I lost the ability to communicate via a SCSI card in the PC to the AudioBox AB1616 - I did that show with just spot sound.

Enter SoundMan-Server and SoundMan-Designer - which is what my next post will be about -and it's SO exciting - Theatre's that have practically NO budget can now have 4 channels of playback (equal to 2 stereo pairs), two live inputs, a stereo pair of outputs AND a full featured ShowControl system for FREE!!!!! - no license fee at all!

To get a taste of it, download the demo from here: http://www.richmondsounddesign.com/softw.html#SMD

Full requirements are on the website http://www.richmondsounddesign.com/sm-dref.html

And yes, you'll find a link to this blog there too.

Next installment (and it won't be 2 years either) will take us from ShowControl of Alcorn-McBride DVM2 MPEG-2 video servers plus sound effects for The Laramie Project to the despair of no AB1616 working with the SCSI port on our sound PC (May 2007) to running a full blown SoundMan-Designer system for a production of Foxfire (October 2007) - with many tracks of layered sound, backing tracks for live musicians and a whole lot of effects that added to the audience's experiences.

Back Soon!

- Carl