In the meantime, check out the new stuff!

Streamers is for folks working on film scoring, ADR, or foley.

Lockstep is a handy utility that does one thing: convert incoming linear timecode to outgoing MIDI timecode.

Chroma Tickets is our new project to re-invent online ticketing. It’s just getting started, and we hope you’ll join us in the fun as we make it.

Finally, we round out the updates with a great new QLab tutorial from Jason Knox covering signal flow in QLab.

Not a bad way to start out a new year! Hell, a new decade! And damn, what a decade it’s going to be. So much to make! So much to do! So many ideas to channel into code!

From all of us on the Figure 53 team: happy new decade. The ride is just starting. I think it’s safe to say: this is gonna be fun.

If you have used QLab 2, you have already benefitted from Sean’s skill. He designed and built QLab’s SMPTE timecode synchronization mechanism and the entire license and authorization system.

I feel extremely lucky to welcome Sean to Figure 53. He communicates with care and precision, he writes code cleanly and efficiently, he is a first-rate engineer with a deep involvement in the arts, and above all he is a good guy with a sense of humor. His creativity has helped me out of a coding jam more than once.

Sean is based in California, and will continue to live and work there now that he has joined Figure 53.

In addition to his development work on QLab, Sean will gradually become available as a second support resource, allowing us to improve the support “coverage” we can provide across the world’s time zones. (I might even get to take an occasional vacation!)

Moreover, Sean will be working on some brand new applications. We’re not yet ready to announce the specific nature of those apps, but I’m excited to begin broadening the stable of Figure 53 products.

More about Sean: He started his undergraduate pursuits with a double major in oboe performance and electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University, finished them with a B.A. in music composition at Carleton College in 2002, and followed them up with a graduate certificate in film scoring from the University of Southern California in 2004. He joins Figure 53 after several years independently creating OS X applications for film scoring and post-production. In addition to his development work, Sean is an instructor in USC’s Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program, where he torments students with the arcane details of music technology. (The dude is a timecode ninja. Seriously. If you have questions about timecode? Ask Sean.)

Please welcome Sean to the Figure 53 team!

New GUI. QLab 2 offers a single integrated layout with streamlined controls to help you work faster.

48 channel output. Each Audio Cue now supports up to 48 independent channels of output and can read up to 16 channels of a multi-channel file.

Sample-accurate audio synchronization. QLab 2 provides guaranteed sample-accurate sync across all Audio Cues assigned to the same output device. You can pause and play the entire workspace, and it will all remain sample-accurate synced.

Video is also synced.

Audio waveform display. Visually trim the head and tail of your audio files. Visually set a looping section of the file. Add a fade envelope directly to the waveform.

Dead-simple vamping. Define a looping section in an audio cue and then pop out of it with a Devamp Cue. Chain multiple cues together to create arbitrary numbers of looped sections in a music track. (You can “stitch” multiple cues together because of the guarantee of sample accurate sync.)

Draw your own fade curves. Completely customizable.

Animate your videos. The new Animation Cue allows you to animate opacity, translation, scale, and rotation.

Camera Cues. Add a live video feed to your workspace. Animate it just like videos from a file.

Custom video rendering with Quartz Composer. You can render your videos and camera feeds through your own Quartz Compositions. Apply image filters, warping–anything you can do in Quartz Composer you can now do in QLab.

Trigger cue lists from timecode. QLab 2 can follow either MIDI Timecode or Linear Timecode–or both at the same time. Each cue list can follow a different timecode source.

Generate MIDI Timecode with the MTC Cue.

Full application scripting. Thorough scripting hooks let you control QLab 2 with AppleScript, Python, or Ruby.

Arm / Disarm your cues. When a cue is disarmed the pre and post waits will still run, but the action will not be fired. Can be set from the inspector or with the handy Arm Cue and Disarm Cue.

New auto-follow mode in addition to auto-continue. Preshow music creators rejoice.

New “Fire random child” mode for the Group Cue.

QLab 2 honors incoming MSC parameters, so you can fire specific cues in the workspace with MSC commands.

Default volume levels for Audio Cues. Default Group Mode for Group Cues. Added more MIDI patches (you can now patch up to 12 MIDI devices in the workspace).

Editing audio devices is now done with a full matrix mixer, rather than just on/off check boxes.

Preferences are now saved with the Workspace, not with the computer–so your device patching and device routing stay with the workspace.

Overhead does not accrue. Have you ever tried to chain together a whole whole bunch of short cues, and by the end of it the timing was slightly off? This is because in QLab 1 the small overhead of firing each cue adds up. In QLab 2, however, the overhead does not add up. If you build a thousand 1 second waits and chain them all together, the last wait will finish almost exactly one thousand seconds later. (Within a millisecond.)

The playback position of the cue list is no longer required to be the same as the selected cue. You may turn off that association, so that you can edit cues without changing the playback position. Helpful for editing during tech without disturbing your operator.

No more working directory. Files are found via an alias mechanism, so while you’re on the same computer you don’t have to think about the directory structure. The bundle feature will still allow you to easily transfer to another computer.

No more plugins. No more trying to figure out which version of many different pieces you’ve got. It’s all a single package, with a single build number.

I could go on, but you get the point. Go ahead. Knock yourself out.

Once Marketing delivers the new website and the guys over in Sales finish modifying the online store to handle upgrade discounts, we’ll be ready to roll!

Oh yeah. I’m Marketing and Sales. No problem, I’ll delegate it to the Intern.

INTERN! Get over here! Everyone is beating down my door and sending me threatening emails to finish v2 today and we need a new website now and about 30 pages of documentation, stat! Get on that so I can finally take something resembling a small break from work and spend some time with my family! And if you could bring me up a large hazelnut latte, that’d be greeaaaaat, mmmkay?

Oh yeah. I’m the Intern.

Hmm.

Well, tell you what. Coding is complete, give or take a few final tweaks. I’m going to take a little time to spend with my family now, because they deserve it. We’ll reconvene in the new year after I’ve fired all those lazy bastards in Marketing and Sales. I’ll just code up the new website and write the new docs myself, which is of course the only way to really get anything done these days.

It’ll be a fun way to kick off 2009. Be good, party safe, and meet me back here in January.

Hi.

Been quiet around here, huh? Six months since the last blahg update. Not much going on then, I guess? Sitting on the ol’ laurels, right?

Wroooooonggggg.

I’ll admit, it must look quiet from the outside. But if you come join me down here in the Figure 53 bunker you’d see a different story. Down here in the laboratory these last six months have been a maelstrom. Coding like Figure 53 has never coded before. Coding like gangbusters, if gangbusters could code. Coding that has been frenetically, obsessively focused on QLab version 2.

And it’s almost done.

When exactly will it be released? Well, software resists prediction. This summer I made noises on the QLab mailing list that I expected a late fall release. Then a last-minute architectural bottleneck arose and forced me to rewrite the entire video engine from scratch. It’s the nature of software; it doesn’t work until it works, and you just can’t predict exactly what it will take to make it work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a manager.

“Great Chris. But when will it be released?”

Okay, okay. What I can say is that I’m back on track and coming down the final stretch. A small but devoted team of beta testers has been whacking away on the new code since mid-September. I really, really want to get it out before the end of the year. Right now I’m feeling confident I can achieve that goal.

And what will it cost? Prices are not yet finalized, but I will point you to the upgrade policy as described on the mailing list. Short version: the full cost of your Audio, Video, and MIDI licenses from v1 can be applied to a v2 upgrade.

Back into the bunker with me. I’ll be coming out again shortly with a new tool for you to try. I think you’re gonna like it.

• at least one scenario in which an initial white frame could be displayed instead of the first video frame
• a bug that could lead to a crash when a Video Cue is first run

It is a small change and I recommend that you update. The new version of the cue is available from the update manager at “Cues” → “Install/Update Cues…”

• Added a “Send MIDI Message” button to each kind of MIDI cue. Handy for previewing the message you’re building.
• Better error reporting if a bundle operation fails. Also gives the option to proceed with the bundle and skip the file(s) that had an error.
• Fixed a bug on 10.5 where clicking the up arrow in the target column would sometimes cause the target string to be selected, which then prevented the file chooser dialog from working correctly.

You can find it under “File” → “Bundle Workspace…”

To bundle you first choose a location and provide a name. QLab will then create a new directory of that name and copy all your media files in to it. That directory becomes the new working directory, and all the target strings are updated to point to the media files in that location.

If you wish to then move the show to a new computer, just copy that directory to the new machine, and select that directory as the working directory.

NOTE: All the plugins need to be updated with this release. Go to “Cues” → “Install / Update Cues…” to do this.

This has been a much-requested feature, so I hope it helps some folks out!

A new cue, the MIDI String Cue, is also included in this release (available from the update manager). This new cue allows you to send raw MIDI SysEx messages. This plugin is a free upgrade for all current Pro MIDI license holders.

Note: Apple has not yet fixed the QuickTime bug introduced in QuickTime 7.2.x that prevents QLab from properly playing video on multiple graphics cards, e.g. on a Mac Pro with multiple cards. If you require driving multiple displays/projectors from multiple graphics cards, you must stay at Quicktime 7.1.3 or 7.1.6 on OS 10.4. (Actually, some video formats do work. I’ve tested some AVI and Animation codec videos that do display on multiple cards successfully. But not everything does. This bug is acknowledged by Apple and we’re still waiting on a fix or a workaround.)