Running the Demo

You can run the SCS demo as follows:

•Start the program scs11.exe (or scs11demo.exe), which under Windows can be done by clicking: Start / SCS 11 / SCS 11. It's recommended to have a shortcut to SCS 11 setup on your desktop - this option is available when you install SCS 11.

•SCS 11 Demo V2 should be listed in the 'Load Production' window. Select this item and click 'Open this Cue File'. If 'SCS 11 Demo V2' is not shown then click 'Browse' and look for it in your Documents\SCS_Demo folder.

To keep down the size of the SCS demo download, most of the audio files in the demo are MP3 files. However, for quality sound effects it is recommended that you use WAV files or some other lossless format.

•Make sure the speakers connected to your default sound device are turned on.

•The first sound cue can be played by clicking the button labeled Q1 - Go! at the top left of your screen. As an alternative to clicking the Qx - Go! button, you can press the space bar (briefly) or click the right mouse button with the mouse pointer positioned anywhere within the limits of the SCS program window.

•Details on how to play all the cues in the demo are given below:

This demo cue file is set up to give examples of using SCS in a typical theatre environment. It will start before the show begins and run through some of the scenarios that are encountered.

Q1: This starts the pre-show background music playlist. This is a playlist cue such as you might build for intermission or pre-show music. This demo only contains short extracts from four music files* - in practice you would use full length music files with as many files as you need to adequately cover the time required, plus plenty of spare music included to allow for late starts. Q61 - Q64 are setup as "Hotkeys" for the playlist/intermission music (see the panel on the lower right of your screen), the letter before the cue description is the hotkey you can use to activate these cues. However, for live productions it is unlikely that you would need to use hotkeys for your pre-show/intermission music and you should have cues specifically set up to start and fadeout the playlist at the appropriate points in your cue list.

Q2: This is a memo cue that auto-starts with Q1. Memo cues in this demo provide helpful advice on what is going on. Memo cues can also be used for information to be displayed to the audience or to back-stage crew.

Q3 - Q16: The 3 minute curtain call. The next series of cues will auto play up to the start of the show (Q19) to provide a 3 minute warning to the audience with introduction music playing in the background. If you have multiple sound outputs they could be fed to the bar or foyer area as well for example.

The timings in this demo have been shortened but feel free to edit them as need be.

Note: As mentioned above, you may manually stop or start the Intermission playlist by using the hot keys as detailed in the HKeys panel on the main screen.

Q18: Start the next cue to fade the overture out or let it run until the end.

Play the fanfare Q19 manually.

After the fanfare has completed, run Q20 when required.

Once the car is running trigger Q21 manually.

Read the Note cue Q22 and follow the instruction.

Once Q25 has started run Q26 manually.

Q27: The next manual cue Q28 is a simple slide show for pictures bringing us to that end of Act 1 and the intermission. This cue runs a simple 'slide show' of 4 JPG image files, each set to run for 7 seconds with a 1.5 second cross-fade. If you have a second monitor configured as an extension of the Windows desktop then these images will be displayed on the second monitor. If you only have your primary monitor then the images will be displayed in a small window near the top of your main window.

Q29: The background playlist has been re-started, the next cue (Q30) will fade out and stop the playlist ready for the start of Act 2

You could put your own bells warning in next as happened at the start of Act 1 (Q3-Q16).

Q30: Activate the next cue (Q30) to prepare for Act 2

Q31 - Q37 is a simple rain forest audio cue sequence that can all be stopped by Q38. These sound cues are also linked. To run this part of the demo, you will manually start Q31 (Rain forest ambience), then manually start Q32 (Bird call) when you are ready to do so. Cues Q33 - Q37 start automatically at set times (explained shortly), and when you want to terminate this sequence of cues you will activate Q38  (Stop forest and birds).

Q38: (Stop forest and birds) is an SFR Cue set up to fade out and stop all earlier running cues. When you get to this point in the demo you should just have Q31 (Rain forest ambience) still playing. To terminate this cue click the button now labeled Q38 - Go!. A Fade Out Cue will stop the nominated cue immediately if it does not have a Fade-out time specified, but where they have a Fade-out time then the Stop Cue starts the Fade-out. Therefore, activating Q38 will cause Q31 (Rain forest ambience) to fade out and stop over 5 seconds.

Q40: This is a London street scene at night that will fade into daylight, this is 2 pictures with a cross fade set. Activating Q41 will activate a slow crossfade between Q40 and Q41 (the two .png picture files).

Q42: This sequence is made from a picture Q43 cross fading into a video Q45 for the sinking and then back to a picture of the sunken ship Q49 with appropriate sound effects (Q44, Q46 & Q47).

Q49.2: Playing a video with it's own soundtrack (Q51)*. In the background several audio cues (Q52-Q55) run at set 'auto-start' times until the end of the video. If you examine these cues in the Editor you will see that most of them are set to play just a short part of the relevant audio file.

•You can select any cue by clicking on that cue in the list in the upper part of the screen. This will reposition the script to that cue.

•You can dynamically change the level or pan of an individual cue simply by dragging the Level or Pan slider in the cue's display panel. (The original level and pan requirements for each cue are specified when the cues are set up.) To dynamically adjust the overall level and pan, it is recommended that you use the faders on the sound desk (mixing console) as adjustments can be achieved much more sensitively this way.

•The slider below the multimedia controls in each cue's display panel shows the progress of the cue. You can also use this to reposition a cue at any point, which is primarily intended for tech rehearsals, when you may wish to quickly go to a position near the end of a cue.

•Setting up and editing cues is described later in the Help, including details of Control Send cues and directing sound output to different sound devices. (Control Send cues and multiple sound devices are not included in the demo, but the functionality is available for you to try.)

•When you have finished playing the cues, close the program by clicking the close window control (X) in the top right corner of the window.

* See Credits for copyright info regarding music and videos used in the demo.