export Galaxis file from finale 3D

[pyro25081747]

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Hello everyone,

I’ve been programming shows from Finale 3D into the Galaxis system for about three years now.

I work in the event industry, mainly on electronic music festivals and close-proximity pyrotechnics.

Because we often have several shows to program on the same day, we organize our cues by groups of ten. For example, my first DJ will have cues 1–20, the second 30–40, and so on.

My issue is that, as far as I know, the Galaxis system doesn’t allow me to skip cue numbers when programming. Because of that, I have to export everything to Excel and then use it to compose and program the show.

I’ve tried using “ghost cues” to fill the gaps, but this isn’t always practical, and I find troubleshooting the show afterward quite difficult.

Do any of you have experience with this or a different workflow that you could share?

Going through Excel does work, but it adds a lot of extra work and, of course, increases the chances of errors.

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any solutions you may have found.

Thank you, and have a great day!

Anouck

[DrewFinale]

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Hi Anouck, welcome to the Finale 3D forum, and thanks for posting!

 

You can get the block numbering directly out of Finale 3D, without ghost cues and without working the numbering out in Excel. The approach uses split-matrix boards, which Finale 3D represents as virtual slats of ten outputs each.

 

Three steps:

1. Tag each DJ. Unhide the Custom Script Field column in the Script window and give every event belonging to a DJ the same value — A, B, C, or the DJ’s name.
2. Address the show with a split module type. In Addressing > Address show…, set the module or slat type to GALAXIS 10x10ch Split. In section 2, set First by to Position Name and then to Custom Script Field.
3. Restrict each board to one DJ. In section 3, set Each slat is restricted to a single → Custom Script Field. No split-matrix board will then hold events from two different DJs.

 

Each DJ now starts on a ten boundary, and a DJ needing 20 cues takes two boards. The part that matters for your problem is what happens on export: in the Finale 3D script the outputs on each board are numbered 1–10, but when the GS2 is written they are converted to the parent device’s absolute 1–100 range. So any outputs left unused at the end of a DJ’s last board come through as gaps in the cue numbers — exactly what you were creating ghost cues to achieve. Finale 3D assigns the numbers, so you are not entering them in Composer by hand.

 

One practical tip if you go this way. Split-matrix boards are labelled with absolute output numbers relative to the module, while the Finale 3D script numbers the outputs relative to the board — so board 1-D pin 3 is not output 3 on the hardware. To avoid doing that conversion in the field, create a custom labels template using the Pin Absolute field.

 

The full details of the GS2 export are here: https://finale3d.com/documentation/galaxis-gs2-script-file-format/

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