"Rewind" all paused cues by a certain amount of seconds

[tcgass]

I've setup an "emergency" cue list that can be triggered to fade down all active audio cues (relative fade to -59) and pause them

as well as starting an music loop and voice message "the performance is temporarily interrupted...".

A second trigger will then fade out the music loop, restart the paused cues and fade them up again (relative fade to +59).

Is there an easy way to kind of "rewind" all paused cues e.g. by 5 seconds?

Thomas

[Rich Walsh]

-- Only works properly when run as a separate process!

set userNudge to -5

tell application id "com.figure53.QLab.4" to tell front workspace

repeat with eachCue in (active cues as list)

try

if running of eachCue is false then

set currentTime to action elapsed of eachCue

load eachCue time currentTime + userNudge

end if

end try

end repeat

end tell

[tcgass]

Thanks Rich for your appreciated and speedy help! Works perfectly (I wish I had more skills with scripting, have definitely to dive into this... :-/

There are only two problems I've noticed: it does not work when any fades are involved (it somehow sums up the fade levels)

and in case one of the paused cues has not run 5 seconds yet (then the cues are not in sync anymore).

Does that have to do with your remark "Only works properly when run as a separate process!"? What do you mean exactly with this?

Thanks, Thomas

[tcgass]

...ok, got it: "Run in separate process" enabled on Script tab of the cue (I should think first and then reply ;-). That's enabled, but still no luck with fades.

[Rich Walsh]

Well, obviously if a cue's only run for 3s you're going to struggle to rewind it 5s… Did you expect some kind of logic to detect that and stop those cues, add a temporary 2s pre wait, start and immediately pause them – and then reset the pre wait once they've started running again?

Likewise, relative fades are going to fall apart if you start scrubbing them. Absolute fades seem to be fine.

QLab isn't built for this kind of action. You need to think about what compromises you are prepared to make to bend it into doing this. I have to say, in over 30 years of doing shows I've never needed to do anything like this… We just program to be able to pick up again if the show has to stop.

Rich

[tcgass]

Rich,

thanks again for your fast reply and sorry for answering late - I was offline a couple of days.

Yes, you're absolutely right: Me as well I never needed to do something like this in my many years as sound designer so far and sure, I didn't expect any logic to detect and stop cues, add a temporary 2s pre wait, start and immediately pause them and then reset the pre wait once they've started running again ;-) The show I'm talking about however is a special one: no actors, no technicians - a self running museum setup with sounds, lights and kind of animatronics. The audience can walk on stage, yet there are restricted and marked "no trespass areas" with trigger pads on the floor which will start an "emergency stop", an announcement and the demanded 5" rewind action. I've noticed that group cues in "timeline" mode will not react correctly to your script and rewind paused cues within the group only to the very beginning of the cue if the time elapsed is beyond 5 seconds. Yet I found another solution (together with your precious script) that will work in this particular production: I've bounced all audio cues in those timeline-group cues to be of the exact length of the group cues containing silence where there's no audio information. Thus, your script works like a charm. Nested timeline groups within one "master group" will do the rest.

Maybe this will be helpful to others struggling with a similar setup.

Once again, thanks for your kind help and insight,

Thomas