Previous Track Behaviour

[Simon Ambrose Brown]

Hello!

Let's say I have cues  1, 2, 3, 4.   All set to "stop others" and "auto stop".

I hit go, cue 1 plays.  I hit go, cue 2 plays.  I hit previous track (keyboard up arrow):  the selector moves from cue 3 to cue 2 (currently playing).  I hit previous track (keyboard up arrow):  track 1 becomes armed.  i hit go and track 1 plays but track 3 becomes armed.  What I am after here is for track 2 to be armed just as it was the first time I played track 1.

I can kind of understand why - but what I want to happen is that if I move back through the show, the cues behave exactly the same way each time (irrespective of how I get to them).   The reason being is that I am controlling the show with a flic button and I can't see the screen.   So I'd rather just execute "go" to advance a cue and "previous track" to go back a cue (and have the next cue below armed).   Otherwise I have to keep track in my head where the player is and which track is armed (which won't always be the next track)...

Is this possible?  Any help appreciated!  Thank you... 

[Brent Lord]

Hello --

The situation you describe is technically working as expected. There is a subtle order-of-operations that makes your playhead move to cue 3 instead of cue 2 in that specific case.

Shows are designed to move forward ("fire and forget"), so starting a cue immediately moves the playhead to the next available cue, which is to say to the next one that is not yet running. This way, each GO is as responsive as possible, no matter which actions are scheduled to happen after the GO.

The other actions like "Stop Others" happen after the GO starts the cue. (Quite often, stop others has a fade out. Even with a 0-second fade, the stop is not technically "immediate".) Because of this, if you GO while cue 2 is playing, the playhead skips over cue 2 and moves to 3 instead.

Would it be possible to design your show in a different way that would not require moving back up the cue list? One idea would be to add duplicate cues with the tracks you might want to repeat. This way you can repeat playback of the tracks while the show still moves forward. If you want the option to jump over those repeated tracks, you can add a "Custom" go action to one or more of those cues. Set the custom action to "Start" and target the cue that follows the repeated sequence of cues. 

Go actions that you don't trigger during the course of a cue get skipped, so in that way they give you optional ways to branch your show flow.

Brent

[Simon Ambrose Brown]

Thank you for explaining this.   If I just write my use case, maybe you can point me to a better way to do things!

I am performing in a solo clown show and I trigger the cues with a flic button.  Mostly the show will advance from track to track using GO, most tracks I hit GO before the end of the track because that bit has finished, but occasionally depending on how the audience react I might want to go back and "do a bit" again.  So I make the flic double click trigger "previous track".   So during the show if I want to repeat a bit I do "double click", followed by "single click (GO)" and play the previous track.  But then when I want to proceed and I hit GO again, it now skips the next track.   So I have to mentally try and remember when I'm doing something how many times I've done it and try and (in my head!) to position the playhead.   If there was an option such that each cue always behaved the same way (no matter how it was entered) that would make sense to me - but maybe there is another way of using GO I am not understanding...  thanks!

[Brent Lord]

I think you may be able to devise a set of go actions that could give you an option to move backward. It is a little bit fragile, because as I mentioned, Go Button shows are designed to move forward. Ideally you are able to trigger any show just by pressing GO. But I think it might get close:

1. Enable "Stop others" on all cues.

2. Add two "Custom" go actions to all cues: The first custom action set to "Fade Out / Pause" -> "This Cue" and a short fade out duration, and the second custom action set to "Start" -> "Prev Cue".

Since go actions are optional, if you don't press GO while the cue is running, the playhead will automatically move ahead to the next cue if it runs to completion.

If you want to go back to redo a bit, you'll hit GO to fade out your current track, then GO a second time to start the previous track. By using the first go action to stop the current cue, your playhead is able to return back to that cue when your second go action starts the cue before it.

Brent

[Simon Ambrose Brown]

Thank you, I really appreciate this.

I don't think that will work but I'll document the use case - in the industry I work in (cabaret/street shows/clown shows) I think it's very common, but I appreciate it's not the same as a regular theatre show!

Let's think of the show as a series of games, say 10 games in a row.  Each game will have one or more bits of music.  During the game the artist will trigger the first bit of music and then either

- let it run to completion and stop

- pause it and start where it left off

- pause it and restart from the beginning 

- go back to one or two tracks and start that track (but keep the running order the same)

- jump to the next track

Ideally this can be done from a button with 3 commands.   Maybe this:

One click - next cue

Two clicks - previous cue

Long click - pause/unpause

If I were to make a feature request it would be that the show can be set to either how things currently operate or else it runs where every cue behaves the same no matter how it was entered - so cues are identical each time they are repeated.  I think that would be a show wide setting that would cover the use case above.

Nonetheless - I think for now i will practice with the existing functionality and see if I can get an intuitive feel for which track will happen next whenever I go forward and backwards.  Happy to discuss further and thanks again for your help.

Best wishes,

Simon

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