Looking at the cue sheet above what can we say? Firstly, the red bracket indicates that these five cues are going to happen in quick succession so it makes sense to pre-set as many settings as we can. We can set the group faders (settings marked in pink) because these are the same for all five cues.

• Group 1 & 2's faders (sending sound to the front of house speakers) can be set to -10 dB.
• Group 3 & 4's faders (sending sound to the on-stage speakers) can be set to +5 dB.
• Group 5 & 6's faders (sending sound to the rear of the auditorium speakers) can be set to 0 dB.
• Channel 1 & 2's faders (receiving Q1:Rain SFX from minidisc 1) can be set to -15 dB & routed to groups 1, 2, 5 & 6.
• Channels 3 & 4's faders (receiving Q2:Thunder SFX from minidisc 2) can be set to -5 dB & routed to groups 3 & 4.
• Channel 5 & 6's faders (receiving the Q3:Footsteps from minidisc 3) can be set to -15 dB & routed to groups 3 & 4. (Note that auxiliary send 1 also has to be turned up to about 1 O'Clock to send the footsteps to a reverb effect. Make sure the auxiliary send is set to "post" as indicated.)

You will notice that Q1:Rain SFX is routed to the front of house & rear auditorium speakers. Q2:Thunder SFX just comes from the on-stage speakers as does Q3:Footsteps , Q4:Match strike & Q5:Scream.

You will not be able to pre-set the levels for Q4:Match strike & the Q5:Scream because the channels are already set for earlier cues.
(Q2: Thunder SFX & Q3:Footsteps.) Once the Thunder SFX cue has finished set the levels for the new cue as swiftly as possible.
(Q4: Matchstrike, MD 2, Channel 3 & 4 needs to be set to -20 dB.)

Likewise, when Q3:Footsteps has finished, immediately set the level for Q5:Scream at +5 dB & do not forget to turn down the auxiliary send otherwise the scream will have reverb on it.)

At busy times in the show it is impossible to make the settings for each cue, one at a time. Use brackets & pre-set levels as much as possible. If you do not have time to reset the levels for an upcoming cue in a sequence, you have no option but to use a further playback device connected to a further pair of channels that can be pre-set.

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