Audio File Cues - WAV, MP3, WMA, etc

For an Audio File cue or sub-cue, the lower panel to the right of the cue list tree will contain properties specifically for audio file sub-cues. For example, a sub-cue for a non-MIDI file (eg WAV, MP3, etc) may be displayed like this:

In the above example the sub-cue has been specified to start 4.21 seconds into the file and to end at 30.38 seconds, giving a play length of 26.17 seconds. When the sub-cue is first displayed the graph will show the complete file, ie from 0.00 seconds to 36.60 seconds, but by clicking the View Playable button the graph is re-displayed as shown above. The View scrollbar on the right is adjusted to indicate the relative length and position of the displayed part of the graph. The Zoom control on the left is adjusted to indicate how much the displayed part has been magnified. To redisplay the complete file in the graph you can just click the View All button. Other adjustments to the display can be achieved by using the Zoom control and/or moving the 'thumb' of the View scroll bar.

Some properties and controls displayed in this panel will vary depending on other properties or options. Also, some properties may only be available if you have an SCS Professional or higher license.

Sub-Cue Relative Start Time: This field is available for every type of sub-cue. It is designed for cues that contain multiple sub-cues, and enables you to delay the starting of a sub-cue. For example, suppose your first sub-cue for this cue is an Audio File sub-cue that starts immediately the cue starts, and you want a number of Control Send sub-cues to start at set times during the playback of that audio file. You can do that by setting the Sub-Cue Relative Start Time on the Control Send sub-cues. Enter a relative time in seconds, eg 24.75, or minutes and seconds, eg 1:30.00, or leave the field blank if you do not want to delay the start.

Audio File: This will contain the path name of the sound file to be played. The ... (browse) button can be used to locate the required file. Supported file formats are WAV, MP3 and WMA (demo and all license levels); OGG and AIFF (all licensed levels); and MIDI, FLAC and APE (SCS Professional higher license levels only). Note that some compression formats lose audio quality. See Audio File Selector for information on how to preview audio files before including them in your cue file.

If you open a MIDI file (extension .mid) then the display will change as several properties are not available for MIDI file playback. See Audio File Cues - MIDI Files for details.

If you try to open a file that has DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection then SCS may not be able to open it - you may get the error message: 'The file is protected (license required)'.

You can also 'drag-and-drop' an audio file into this field from another program such as Windows Explorer.

Description: When you open an audio file SCS will examine the file and display the title as the 'Description' of this sub-cue. If the title cannot be found then SCS will display a description derived from the file name. You can change the Description field if required.

Pre-Load Whole File: (BASS audio driver only) By default, SCS plays audio files by decoding and streaming the data from disk while the file is being played. Normally this is OK, but if you find the playback breaks up, especially if you are using ASIO, then it may be beneficial to pre-load the whole file into memory. This can be requested using this checkbox. A scenario in which streaming break-up may occur is if the computer has been idle for a long time before the cue is played. SCS attempts to prevent the disk spinning down, but the operating system may still have triggered some idling process. Pre-loading the audio file into memory may help this situation. ASIO outputs are particularly susceptible to audio break-ups if the sound card's ASIO driver only permits a small buffer size. See the Troubleshooting topic ASIO Problems for more information.

Files pre-loaded into memory can take up a lot of memory, so SCS ignores the flag if the duration of the audio file is more than 12 minutes. This applies even if you select only a shorter portion of the file to play. The memory taken up by a pre-loaded file is freed when the file is closed, unless that same file is also used in a later Audio File cue or in a hot key Audio File cue.

Rename: If you wish to rename the audio file you have selected for this Audio File cue, then click this button to open the Rename File window.

Start at and End at: If you do not want to start the cue from the beginning of the file, enter the time at which the cue is to start. This can be to 2 decimal places of seconds. For example, enter 12.5 to start the cue 12.5 seconds from the start of the file. Leave blank to start at the beginning of the file.

If you want SCS to stop the cue before the end of the file then enter the time at which you want the cue to stop. This is the absolute time within the file, not the required time after 'Start at'. Leave 'End at' blank to let the cue run until the end of the file (or until you stop it). For example, to get SCS to stop playing the cue at the 15.45 seconds time with the file enter 15.45 in the 'End at' field.

Loop start and Loop end: Use the 'Loop start' and 'Loop end' fields if you want part or all of the file to loop. Leave blank if looping (auto-repeating) is not required. The times entered in these fields are the absolute times within the file, not the time after 'Start at'.

If your loop start time is be the same as the 'Start at' time then you can enter 'start' (without quotes) in Loop start. If you loop end time is be the same as the 'End at' time you can enter 'end' (without the quotes) in 'Loop end'. Experiment with values by playing the cue in the edit window. If you find you get clicks at the loop point then this is probably due to a sudden change in waveform level between the end point of the loop and the restart point. The simplest solution to this is to set the Loop Cross-Fade Time (described later). Alternatively, try making minor adjustments to the 'Loop end' or 'Loop start' times. You can use Ctrl/Left-Arrow and Ctrl/Right-Arrow to make these adjustments as described below.

Setting Start at, End at, Loop start and Loop end using the mouse: You can alternatively set these fields by clicking on the required field to highlight it and then using the mouse on the graph or the time bars to set or change the position. The left mouse button adjusts the start point (either 'Start at' or 'Loop Start' as selected) and the right mouse button adjusts the corresponding end point.

Adjusting Start at, End at, Loop start and Loop end using arrow keys: If you want to fine tune these fields, click on the required field to highlight it and then use Ctrl/Left-Arrow to reduce the time field by 0.01 second (1/100 second), or Ctrl/Right-Arrow to increase the time field by 0.01 second (1/100 second).

Play length: This display-only field shows how much of the audio file will be played, based on the earlier of 'Start at' and 'Loop start', up to the later of 'Loop end' and 'End at'. The range of the progress slider is set to this Play Length.

Fade in time: Use this field if you want SCS to fade in the audio file. Leave blank if fade in is not required. For example, to fade in the cue over 5 seconds enter 5 under 'Fade in time'. When you start the cue the level will build from no sound to the level specified by the Level fader(s) over the time specified (5 seconds in this example).

Fade out time: Use this field if you want SCS to fade out the cue. Leave blank if fade out is not required. For example, to fade out the cue over 10 seconds enter 10 under 'Fade out time'. When you fade out the cue the level will fade to no sound over the time specified (10 seconds in this example). Fade out is also activated automatically at the specified number of seconds before the end of the cue, if you do not fade out the cue manually or with a Fade-Out cue.

Type of fade: Under the 'Fade in time' and 'Fade out time' fields is the Type of fade drop-down list. The default fade type is 'Standard', which follows a linear track of the level faders. Other options include logarithmic and linear fades. A 'linear' fade is not the same as a 'standard' fade as the level faders are not linear across the entire range.

Loop Cross-Fade Time: If you have set 'Loop start' and 'Loop end' points then you can cross-fade from the end of the loop to the start of the loop, which should eliminate any click and therefore make it easier to setup your loops. This will, of necessity, reduce the length of your loop by the duration of the cross-fade. For example, if you have a loop that lasts 30 seconds and you specify a cross-fade time of 1 second, then at 29 seconds into the loop the sound will cross-fade with the start of the loop.

# Loops: This property enables you to nominate a fixed number of iterations of the loop. For example, if you set this field to 4 then the loop will be heard 4 times. You can still stop the cue or release the loop early if you wish - this field is effectively the maximum or default number of iterations of the loop. Leave the field blank to loop until stopped or released manually or by another cue.

Zoom: Move this slider to the right to zoom in on the graph, or to the left to zoom out.

View Playable: The 'playable' area is normally the section of the audio file between the 'start at' and 'end at' position, so in the screen shot above the playable area is the section of the file between 4.21 and 30.38 seconds. By clicking this button the graph is redisplayed showing just that section.

View All: If you have zoomed in and you want to redisplay the whole file then you can click the View All button.

View: This scrollbar gives an indication of how much of the file is displayed in the graph and how far thru the file the graph represents. You can move the 'thumb' of the scrollbar to scroll the graph forwards or backwards. The scrollbar is disabled when the entire file is displayed.

Note: To display the graph SCS scans and decodes the audio file, which can take several seconds for a large file. However, once the graph has been built SCS saves the graph information in the cue file (the .scs file) so that next time you view this audio file cue the graph will be displayed 'instantly'. If you use the zoom control then SCS will still scan and decode the file, so that may take longer. But for normal use of just clicking on cues in the Editor, the graphs will be displayed immediately (on second and subsequent views).

There is also an Editor Option to set the Graph Auto-Display Max File Length. This can be used to prevent the scan and decode occurring if the length of the file is greater than a nominated length, eg 5 minutes. This option is ignored if the graph information is already available as the graph can be displayed without having to scan and decode the file. (See Editor Options for more information.)

In this section you will define which audio devices are to used to playback this audio file. It may be that you are just using a single mono or stereo output, in which case you will only need a single entry in this section. However, with SCS Professional you can nominate up to four audio devices per audio file sub-cue, and with SCS Professional Plus you can use up to eight audio devices.

Audio device: The audio devices available are as specified in the Production Properties. The use of different audio devices enables you to direct an audio file cue to a particular sound card or channel pair of a multi-channel card. For example, you can have one sound card or channel pair feeding front of house, and another sound card or channel pair feeding rear speakers, etc. (NB the term 'front of house' is used as per sound engineers' terminology, meaning the main auditorium speakers facing the audience. Unfortunately, 'front of house' in theatre terminology is also used for the box office and patron-waiting area.)

Tracks: (SM-S audio driver only) This enables you to select the track or tracks to be played to this device. The main purpose of this is to allow you to define mono devices in Production Properties but be able to play stereo or other multi-track files spread correctly across multiple devices. For example, to play a stereo file in stereo over two mono devices. The values that may be in the drop-down list are dependant on the number of tracks in the audio file and the number of channels requested for the selected Audio Device (as defined in Production Properties). Here are typical values:

· Dflt: The default assignment of tracks to output channels. For a stereo device, a stereo file will play track 1 to the first channel and track 2 to the second channel. A mono file will be played to both the first and second channels. For a mono device a stereo file will be downmixed to that single channel.

· 1: Play track 1 only to this device. If the device has more than one output channel then track 1 will be played to all the outputs of the device, at the same level.

· 2: Play track 2 only to this device. If the device has more than one output channel then track 2 will be played to all the outputs of the device, at the same level.

· All: Play all tracks to all outputs of this device. For example, a stereo file played to a stereo device will have tracks 1 and 2 downmixed to mono and sent to each output of the device.

Trim: You should only need to use this control if you have files to be played at a low level and you are having difficulty setting the level using the Level control. With the Trim control you can apply an overall reduction in the level of up to 50dB.

Level: The level fader sets the level (volume) at which SCS will play the cue, after the fade in time if specified. The setting of the fader is also displayed and is enterable as a dB value. The maximum dB setting (loudest) setting is 0dB, which represents the level of the audio file as recorded, ie without any attenuation. If you set the level to -75 or lower then SCS treats this as -infinity, ie silent. You may also enter this as -INF.

Pan: The pan controller sets the stereo position of the sound. The setting of the controller is also displayed and is enterable as a number, where 0 is left, 500 is center, and 999 is right. The Center button is enabled if the current value is not 500 (center). Clicking this button sets pan to 500 (center).

Tip: If you want to make fine adjustments to the level or pan, left-click the slider and then use the left-arrow and right-arrow keys as required. When you left-click the slider the background color of the slider will change to your Windows color scheme's selected item color (probably blue). This indicates that the slider has focus so keyboard actions like left-arrow and right-arrow are processed by that slider.

The same file may be used in all instances, or you may use different files provided they have the same length.

Linked cues or sub-cues are started, paused, and stopped simultaneously, and SCS also keeps the cue positions in sync if you manually reposition the cues.

Testing your Audio File Cue

You can test your Audio File Cue or Sub-Cue using the controls available in the 'Test' panel. Just press the multimedia play button to start the test. You can also use the other transport controls as required.

While the audio file is playing you may experiment with the level and pan controls.

The slider alongside the multimedia controls shows the progress of the cue. You can also use this to reposition the cue at any point.

If you want to make fine adjustments to the position, left-click the slider and then use the left-arrow and right-arrow keys as required.