Cue-Start Confirmation

Cue-Start Confirmation is only available with SCS Professional Plus and higher licenses.

"For this show - as for many others - there are certain playback cues that have to be triggered by the Conductor, such as click tracks. He wants to be able to use the top-most key on his synth keyboard (not played as part of the score) to trigger each cue (rather than a key per cue - as it's all too hard to keep track of which one he wants)."

The conductor is effectively a second or remote operator of SCS, but the conductor must only be able to start specific cues. If you just implement MIDI control to map the top-most 'Note On' command to 'Go Next' then the conductor could start any 'next cue', so SCS provides a way in which the conductor's control of starting the next cue can be enabled only when required. This enabling is controlled manually by the principal SCS operator, or by an auto-start cue. You can liken this enabling to opening a gate to allow thru the confirmation command from the conductor. The gate will be closed automatically after the confirmation command has been received.

SCS Professional Plus users will have two additional entries in the Activation Method drop-down list: Manual+Confirm, and Auto+Confirm. Manual+Confirm means that the cue must first be manually activated by any method acceptable to a Manual (Go Button) activation, such as a mouse right-click, pressing the spacebar, or by a MIDI command. On receiving this activation, the cue state is changed from Ready to Waiting for Confirm. The cue will only start playing when a confirmation message is received, which may be either via MIDI (such as a specific Note On message sent from the conductor's synth) or by the operator's keyboard.

Under Production Properties - Cue Control Devices - MIDI select a suitable Control Method, eg MIDI Note On and then scroll down the Cue Control Command list to locate Go Confirm. It is here that you specify what MIDI message is to trigger the 'confirmation'. For a Note On message you need to enter the Note No. so only that Note No. will trigger the confirmation.

Also, go to Options and Settings - Shortcuts. An entry here allows you to nominate a computer keyboard key (shortcut) that will enable the SCS operator to supply the confirmation should that be necessary. For example, you could use the / key. It's advisable to use a key that cannot be used for a Hotkey.

In the Editor you may now enter a cue Activation Method of Manual+Confirm to cause the cue to require manual activation plus confirmation. When the production is running, if a 'confirmation' message is received when no cue is awaiting confirmation, a warning message will be displayed for 7 seconds on the status line. This is primarily so the principal SCS operator knows that the remote operator (eg conductor) has sent the confirmation message when it was not expected. That confirmation message will be discarded - it is not queued.

Note that if you are also using MIDI control for your main cue control then the MIDI 'Go Confirm' message must use the same MIDI channel as your other MIDI control commands, because there is only one drop-down field for the MIDI Channel.

Auto+Confirm provides the same confirmation functionality as Manual+Confirm, except that changing the cue state from Ready to Waiting for Confirm is activated like any other Auto-Start cue (eg 0.00 seconds after the end of another cue) instead of being manually activated.

A few notes:

•The SCS operator or auto-start condition should activate the cue to 'open the gate' (ie change state from 'Ready' to 'Waiting for Confirm') as soon as it is safe for the conductor to start the cue. Opening the gate too near to the actual expected start time could cause frustration if the conductor sometimes gets in ahead of time while the gate is still closed. So leave a reasonable margin.

•If necessary, the SCS operator can issue the confirmation from the computer keyboard provided a key has been assigned to this command as explained above. This allows for situations where, for example, the conductor is not present for a particular performance and a click track is to be started by the SCS operator.

•Sometimes you may have SCS cues that are present for backup purposes only, where the conductor will only issue the confirmation if it is necessary. To provide for this, whenever SCS starts a cue other than a hotkey cue the program will scan the cue list for any cue other than the current cue that is waiting for confirmation and will 'Complete' that cue. So if the conductor does not issue the confirmation command for a 'Waiting for Confirm' cue, and neither does the SCS operator, then that 'Waiting for Confirm' cue will effectively be canceled when another non-hotkey cue is started.