Snapshots

Q-SYS Level 1 Cinema Training : Control Overview
At the end of this video, we mention the Q-SYS Administrator tool. In the latest versions of the software, this is accessible through the top toolbar, but not through the blue "cog" icon in the top right corner as shown.

1 ) Introduction to Q-SYS Level 1 for Cinema

3m 58s

6 ) Audio Playback

13m 10s

9 ) Final Exam Overview

24m 55s

Video Transcript

Snapshots 3m 51s
0:08
Welcome to the Snapshot tutorial. Snapshots are a simple but powerful feature
0:13
that let you quickly switch between saved presets in your design.
0:17
Now setup of a snapshot is a snap, so let’s take a look. First we need something in our design,
0:23
and so I’ve added a Matrix Mixer from the Schematic Library.
0:27
Now over here in our Properties panel I’m going to go ahead and change our 2-D Matrix Panner to Yes,
0:34
because it’s a more visual way to represent this tutorial.
0:37
Now if we double-click this Control Panel, enter Emulation Mode, we’ll be able to test this out.
0:43
Let’s say we wanted to make some changes to the mixer like so, let’s move this over here,
0:48
and this over here, but we wanted to be able to swap between this setup
0:52
and another setup just by clicking a single button. Well we can do that by using Snapshots.
0:57
Let’s exit Emulation Mode by pressing F7 and go over to the Left-Side Pane and we’ll look at the Snapshot panel.
1:05
Now by default you’ll see that we have the Global Snapshot Bank available.
1:09
Now what this means is that any Snapshot that we make with this bank will save the value
1:13
of every control in our entire design – it’s global. Alright,
1:17
let’s grab our Global Bank component and drag it into our Schematic,
1:22
and you’ll notice that once I do that the component disappears from the Left-Side Pane).
1:28
Now let’s double-click this component. Here is our Control Panel and you’ll see that we’ve got Load
1:33
and Save Buttons for our 4 snapshots, and we also have this Load Previous
1:39
and Load Next button if you want to cycle through any snapshots that you have.
1:43
Now if you come over here to our Properties pane, you’ll notice that you really only have one option,
1:49
and that’s Snapshot Count. You can have as many as 24 Snapshots in a single bank,
1:55
but for our intents and purposes we’re only going to use four of them.
1:59
Now let’s go back into Emulation Mode and we’ll try this thing out. Let’s save this setup as Snapshot 1.
2:05
Now as you can see, when I do that, the Load button glows a bit now,
2:10
so that tells you that our Snapshot is saved. Now let’s move around a couple of these components
2:17
and save that and let’s save one more, and we’ll hit the save button.
2:24
Now if we want to toggle through them all we have to do is click the Load Snapshot 1, or Load Snapshot 2.
2:31
Or we can use the Load Previous and Load Next to just toggle between our choices. It’s really that simple.
2:38
But in a realistic setting, you probably won’t need to change every single control in your system,
2:44
you’re going to want a Snapshots that only controls certain parts of your design.
2:48
So let’s create a User-Defined Snapshot Bank.
2:52
We’ll start by exiting Emulation Mode, and let’s remove the Global Snapshot component,
2:58
and come over here and press the plus icon in our snapshot panel and we’re going to choose
3:03
“Create new Snapshot Bank." And now we have Snapshot Bank 1 listed right over here.
3:08
Let’s drag this Component into the Schematic.
3:12
Now we need to tell this Snapshot what we want it to control. There’s two methods to do this.
3:16
One method is to just grab the component, like our Mixer, and drag it over to the Snapshot Bank.
3:23
And when you hover over it you should get a hover over that says
3:26
Add Selected Controls and Components to Bank. When we release the button, you can see that the Mixer
3:32
and all of its controls are now recordable by our bank. Now if you want to remove this from the bank,
3:37
all you have to do is click on it and press the delete key.
3:39
You could also drag specific controls instead of the whole component
3:43
let’s just drag our Gain fader into our Snapshot bank like so. And voila, it shows up down here.
3:53
Now the second method is to start by selecting what you want to control
3:57
for instance let’s select the entire mixer, and then come over to the Snapshot plus icon
4:03
and then choose Create new Snapshot from selection.
4:07
And now you have a new Snapshot Bank with that component loaded into it.
4:11
Let’s rename our Snapshot Banks, shall we – I’ll call this one Gain Only,
4:17
and we’ll call this one Entire Mixer. Let’s drag that one into our Schematic.
4:24
You can see here in the Properties panel that we have a new option – and it’s called the Mode select.
4:31
Now you’re familiar with Normal Mode since that’s the default,
4:35
Scene Mode will automatically save the Snapshot you’re in when you load a new one,
4:39
and Write Protect will give you a button that will lock out your Save buttons.
4:43
Now for the sake of this demonstration let’s set both of our Snapshot Counts to four
4:51
Let’s go ahead and emulate. Let’s save a couple presets for our Gain faders.
4:57
First let’s double-click here to open up the control panel, unclick our Write Protect,
5:03
and then we’ll save this setting, and we’ll move it, save another one, and we’ll move it one more time.
5:12
Now as you can see, I can use these load buttons to toggle in between these presets.
5:17
Now if we make other adjustments to the mixer, let’s say if we move a few of these gain faders,
5:23
and if we were to load another snapshot, you can see that our first gain fader is moving,
5:30
but the other ones that we’ve changed are not. So it’s only controlling what we’ve selected it to control.
5:36
Now let’s make a few snapshots for the entire mixer. Let’s move this down here, and open this up.
5:46
Let’s unclick the Write Protect, save this setting right here, and we’ll move a couple of these around.
5:53
Alright let’s fast-forward a bit while I save a couple snapshots in our design.
5:56
One final feature of the User-Defined Snapshot Bank is the Ramp knob.
6:00
The Ramp will adjust the amount of time it takes to move the controls from one snapshot to another.
6:05
Let’s set this to about three seconds. Okay we can toggle between these snapshots
6:11
and adjust every control including our gain fader.
6:15
And we can still use our gain snapshot to change our gain fader,
6:20
but the entire mixer snapshot will change these as well.
6:26
The great thing about the snapshots is that you can automate them by using the Q-SYS Admin tool.
6:31
If you’re interested to see how this works, check out our Admin tutorial on the website.
6:36
And that’s the snapshot feature.
6:38
You can use it as much as you like to create some very simple presets for some very complicated designs.
6:45
Thank you and we’ll see you next time.

Lesson Description

Snapshots 3m 51s

Save a preset snapshot of a particular component, or use snapshots to control your entire design.

Tips and Definitions

Snapshots 3m 51s
Keep in mind: Trigger buttons like the play and stop button can’t be initiated with a Snapshot because they don't have recordable states. Instead, a Control Change Command can be created after adding these trigger buttons to the Named Controls bin.