Integrating everything into MS

[WVOz1970]

We've used MS for a long time... since version 2.5 I think. Anyhow, we've only done the basics... lyrics, videos, Bible text, etc.

I am trying to become more efficient in our media booth and would like to integrate pre-service music in along with our announcements. But I need some help on that one.

Currently, I add all our announcement slides into a "Section". Put them on a 9 second timed advance. We also have a 15 second video clip that shows our mission statement at the beginning. At the end of these, I have a Script Control that loops back to the video clip to start over. I also have a second script control that fires the 5 minute countdown at the appropriate time. All this is contained in the "Section" and it works fine.

Here's where I become MediaShout challenged... we typically play a pre-service CD while all this is running. I'd like to pull worship MP3s into MS and run everything from the computer. My problem is, if I assign an MP3 as a soundtrack to the first announcement slide, it starts playing again when the loop cue is hit. So in essence, I could have four copies of the song playing over top of each other as an example, if announcements ended up looping four times before service started.

What I'd like to do is line up 2-3 songs in a playlist and have it play while the announcements are rolling/looping... and when the 5 minute countdown video is triggered, fade out the playlist. Can anyone provide a bit of direction on this? I haven't had success yet in trying cues or soundtrack options to make it happen. It's probably something simple, but I can't seem to figure it out.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Brian

[mediashoutnate]

Absolutely! The easiest way to make this happen is by using the Audio Deck to play your audio playlist during the announcements. Just drop your audio into the Audio Deck and change the Audio Deck Mode to 'Loop' or 'Shuffle' (the mode control is in the lower left corner and probably shows an 'N' for normal mode.) The Loop or Shuffle modes override any cue-specific timings and ensure that each track advances automatically once the previous track is finished.

Once your audio playlist is rolling, add a Sound Control Cue right before your countdown video. Set the Sound Control Cue to either Pause or Stop 'All Sounds', depending on whether you want the audio to pick up after the countdown video (you'll need to add another Sound Control to unpause the video afterward if this is the case). The Sound Control is set to immediately advance into the next cue, so you can even add a specific start time if you want the Sound Control to play at a specific time.

After you've added the Sound Control, your audio and announcements can both play freely until you hit the Sound Command, which will both trigger the audio to fade out, and start your countdown video.

Hope that helps!

[WVOz1970]

I knew it had to be something simple, but couldn't make it work. That was the combination I was looking for.

Now the next question, can I set a sound control that will start the playlist playing? I'd like my tech to be able to fire the first cue of the script and not have to do anything else until the song service starts. If they have to start the playlist and then the script, that's fine... But I'd love to be able to set a timed cue to start the playlist at a certain time. IOW, the announcements can be rolling in a loop from 10:00a-10:25a. They feed our lobby televisions. But I don't want the pre-service music to start until 10:15a, when the sanctuary doors are opened. The only options I see in the sound cue are to unpause, not to play.

Thanks for the help!!

[aabshire]

I know it's been awhile since you posted but what I have done is insert the actual tracks into MS with a script that starts playing it. I have a Powerpoint announcement area that I have told PP to loop until ESC so when I import it in it does it without a MS loop. Slide show loops and music continues through all tacks. Does that help?