Looking for a live performance program for live theater.

sacwest · Post by **sacwest** » Tue May 16, 2006 1:15 pm

I run a musical theater performing arts school. Every year we do around 3-4 shows. I'm tired of cueing up CD's. I'm looking for a program that will enable me to run music for the show from my Power Book Pro. I would like to program the music to pause in between cues and/or play through. I think Ableton Live is overkill. I've already got DP to record. Any suggestions.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Tue May 16, 2006 2:25 pm

If you have DP already, my first suggestion would have been Abelton Live as a second app. If you think that this is overkill, then perhaps iTunes might be useful. It does have some editing features, and playlists and some playlist behaviors can be easily customized.

Honestly, if you're looking for another app to do this, it would seem that you'd have a second Mac anyway if you are recording with DP on your PB. I would say to just load DP on a second Mac and set up detailed stop/start times, cue sequences, markers, chunks, and certain mix/playback automation there. With markers alone, jumping manually to the right cue (if you had to go out of order in a pinch) would be a snap. I would think that you could do all of your edits in DP in advance-- crossfades, splicing, effects, timings, etc., and if you want to, just export those perfectly timed cues in to one or more iTunes playlists.

You may want to look at Voice Candy-- a DJ mixing app. I've never used it, but I mention DJ software in general in case iTunes and DP are either too obvious as suggestions or are not apps you'd want to use. Voice Candy is only one such DJ app... If Abelton is overkill, would another app be at least redundant if you already have iTunes or DP? In that spirit, I would say that something like Logic or similar would be wholly unnecessary, however useful.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/

Here is a link to some other DJ-related software-- long list:

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/mac/DJ_MIXING/

Good luck!

sacwest · Post by **sacwest** » Tue May 16, 2006 3:04 pm

Thanks Frodo,

I think I'll dive into DP and see what happens.

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Wed May 17, 2006 1:53 am

Just went through the same question on a show I was working on here in Australia. They eventually decided to run everything (music & sound FX) from a program called SFX. Unfortunately it only comes on PC. It seems to run ok but I didn't like it at all (very fiddly to set up). Ableton Live was the other option we looked at. It would work great for what you're doing. I don't know of anything else that is 'below' Ableton but 'above' using iTunes.

mastermix · Post by **mastermix** » Wed May 17, 2006 3:14 am

sacwest wrote:I run a musical theater performing arts school. Every year we do around 3-4 shows. I'm tired of cueing up CD's. I'm looking for a program that will enable me to run music for the show from my Power Book Pro. I would like to program the music to pause in between cues and/or play through. I think Ableton Live is overkill. I've already got DP to record. Any suggestions.

Traktor DJ Studio:

http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.p ... raktor3_us

Kris..

a_real_mf · Post by **a_real_mf** » Wed May 17, 2006 4:06 am

check out sound byte......

http://www.blackcatsystems.com/software/soundbyte.html

Dragonwind · Post by **Dragonwind** » Wed May 17, 2006 4:15 am

If you are just cuing music then iTunes will work perfectly. I use it for cuing music for Irish Dance recitals. Import your music, make a playlist, uncheck the songs so they don't play one after the other, plug the audio out of the Powerbook into the house mixer and you're off and running!
Chris

orage · Post by **orage** » Wed May 17, 2006 1:40 pm

Try either Cricket or QLab. Both are Mac-based playback solutions aimed at the theatrical market.

http://www.soundcrack.net

http://www.figure53.com

I've extensive experience with SFX and Cricket, and have also been keeping an eye on Qlab...I think it's going to turn into something special.

Hope this helps.

Paul Peterson
Sound Director
The Old Globe
San Diego, CA

sacwest · Post by **sacwest** » Wed May 17, 2006 2:11 pm

Paul,

I'm going to give Qlab a try. I'm running the show on a PowerBook Pro (Intel). Cricket insn't ready for Intel Macs yet. Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know how it works!

orage · Post by **orage** » Wed May 17, 2006 2:22 pm

Let me know if you have any issues, a friend of mine down here in San Diego is part of the development/testing team.

Paul Peterson
Sound Director
The Old Globe
San Diego, CA

bendrissa · Post by **bendrissa** » Wed May 17, 2006 4:27 pm

http://www.clgizmos.com/macscue/index.html

?

dang47 · Post by **dang47** » Wed May 17, 2006 5:07 pm

i am FOH at a performing art center in detroit and i do all my stuff in performer and transfer all to the mini disk,,its a sony and it has a great remote...every theater should have a mini disk player in the house rack...or i'll just use itunes

newsound · Post by **newsound** » Wed May 17, 2006 6:27 pm

You might also want to try SAMSC

http://chaldee1.gotadsl.co.uk/~richardb ... y.php?f=16

It may be overkill for what you are needing to do right now, but it can also handle full show control of lights, video, any MMC or MSC capable device, and takes advantage of multi channel sound cards. It's pretty amazing. I have it installed in 5 theaters that I design for now, and more
are wanting to use it.

And, it is now universal.

MOTUnation.com

Looking for a live performance program for live theater.

Looking for a live performance program for live theater.

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