Video Transcript
Set-up and Usage
4m 57s
0:08
Let’s take a look at one of the most popular components in the Q-SYS Designer software – the Audio Player.
0:14
It’s a simple component that you’re bound to use all the time,
0:17
but there may be a few tricks to it that you didn’t know about yet. So let’s take a quick look, shall we?
0:24
You’ll find the Audio Player in the Audio Components branch of the Schematic Library
0:28
from here all you need to do is just drag it into the Schematic.
0:31
The Audio Player does exactly what it sounds like it should do,
0:34
it plays audio files that you have uploaded to the Core’s internal media drive:
0:38
you can almost think of it like a virtual CD Player or iPod.
0:41
By default it has two output pins, which represent two tracks of an audio file
0:47
for most users this means the left and right channels of the stereo music mix.
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It doesn’t have any input pins, because its audio source is the file that you play from the hard drive.
0:58
I’m going to run this design to the Core so that we can play my audio files.
1:02
Double-click its control panel and you’ll find some pretty basic buttons. First you'll want to load a file to play
1:08
The Root field lets you choose which folder of your Audio Files you would like to search,
1:14
the Directory field, lets you choose a subdirectory if you have created one,
1:19
and the File will let you select which file you would like to play.
1:25
I’ll select this one, and first I’m going to open up my miniture RTA,
1:28
and unmute and pin it so that we can see what’s going on here. The Play, Stop, and Pause will let you start and stop your track,
1:36
the Loop button will set the track to repeat when it’s finished,
1:40
and the AutoPlay will cause this track to start as soon as you load your design to the Core.
1:45
You can adjust its gain with the gain knob, or you can mute it entirely with this mute button.
1:51
The Time indicator shows the elapsed time of the track,
1:55
and the Status will show you some information about what is playing.
1:59
Like I said, pretty simple, right? But, there are a few things you should consider:
2:04
By default, each Core can simultaneously play up to 16 audio tracks via Audio Player.
2:10
That means that you could add seven more of these stereo Audio Players
2:14
to play up to eight different stereo files that are sent to different areas of your venue at the same time
2:20
Keep in mind that any of your Audio Players in your design will use up your available tracks even if they're not playing any audio.
2:28
So if you go up to File and Check Design, you'll see that all 16 of my Audio Player Channels are being used
2:36
even though none of them are playing, in fact none of them are even wired to anything, either!
2:40
So if I were to add one more Audio Player to my design and then go back to Check Design,
2:47
I should get this warning that says I've exceeded my available Audio Player capacity.
2:54
If you’re playing mono audio files instead of stereo audio files,
2:58
then you should go to the Audio Player’s control properties and change its Track Count to 1.
3:04
If you don’t do this, then your second track will be silent since the file is in mono,
3:08
and you’ll be wasting one of your 16 audio tracks.
3:11
But remember though, you can fan-out any of your audio tracks
3:15
throughout your signal path – and still only use a single available Audio Channel Track.
3:22
And if 16 tracks isn’t enough for your venue, don’t worry!
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You can upgrade your Core to handle up to 128 simultaneous tracks.
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For more information on how to do this…as well as to learn about different sizes of internal media drives,
3:35
continue on to the Tracks and Media Drive section of this course.
3:39
For most users, you’ll probably only use the Audio Player with 1 or 2 tracks for mono and stereo files.
3:46
But for larger systems, you may be using a multi-track WAV file with three or more tracks
3:51
that have different isolated instruments or vocals on each track.
3:55
In this case you’ll want to expand the number of tracks on your Audio Player to reflect the tracks on your file.
4:02
Also, Audio Players aren’t limited to playing only one file –
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if you go to the Properties panel and change the Playlist Capable to Yes,
4:11
then you can play as many files as you like.
4:13
You can customize and save your playlists using the Q-SYS Administrator tool,
4:17
which is also how to load files onto the Core,
4:20
so for more information on that check out our Administrator tutorial.
4:24
You’ll notice that when an Audio Player is capable of playing Playlists,
4:28
you’ll have a few more options in its Control Panel –First you can select which Playlist you'd like to play, let's hit the Play button
4:35
you can also choose to randomize your Playlist by clicking the Shuffle button, you can repeat a given Playlist by clicking the Repeat button,
4:42
or advance to the previous or next file on the list, or return to the first file.
4:48
So there you have it – the Audio Player a simple component with lots of applications.
4:52
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time.
Lesson Description
Set-up and Usage
4m 57s
Learn the Controls, Player Capacities and Limits, and how to utilize playlists within the Audio Player.
Tips and Definitions
Set-up and Usage
4m 57s
- The default capacity of a Core is 16 simultaneous Audio Player Tracks.
- Every Audio Player in a design counts its tracks against your total capacity, even if the track is not being used.
- (Shift+F6) = Check Design to see how much of your track capacity is being used.
- Change the Playlist Capable field to Yes in an Audio Player’s properties panel to enable playlist functionality.
Downloads and Links
Set-up and Usage
4m 57s