The PyroJam 2024 design competition is LIVE! This is your chance to see your show design brought to life in front of thousands of people and compete for $5,000 in prizes. New to PyroJam? Don’t wait to get started, the deadline to submit your show is March 1, 2024. Get all the details at finale3d.com/pyrojam. Have a question? Need some help? Post it here!   PyroJam 2024 FAQ:   1) When I import my MP3 soundtrack into Finale 3D, I hear audio artifacts like, static, crackling, popping, or clicking, how can I fix this problem? To resolve this issue, encode or convert your soundtrack to WAV before importing it into Finale 3D. If you need a tool for audio editing, Audacity is a great free option. When creating a WAV file, use a sample rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 Hz) and bit depth of 16-bit. WAV files with other sample rates and bit depths may not work properly in Finale 3D.   2) What kind of single shot racks are used at PyroJam? The single shot racks used at PyroJam are produced by CraigCo. You can see the racks in the PyroJam behind-the-scenes video.   3) Can 360-degree circle racks for single shots be used at PyroJam? No, circle racks can’t be used in the PyroJam competition because firing positions will be placed on the ground. The only exception is a special selection of single shot effects which can be shot horizontally. For details, see: Firing effects horizontally.   4) What firing system will be used at PyroJam? The StarFire firing system will be used at PyroJam. The system is capable of 1/100th of a second (0.01 second) timing resolution and can fire any number of pins simultaneously. Please keep in mind that you are only responsible for the artistic design. When you submit your show, you do not need to assign firing system modules or pins. If your show is selected to be produced, the firing system addresses will be assigned by the PyroJam organizers. You can see how this is done in the PyroJam behind-the-scenes video.   5) Can liquid fuel mines be used in the PyroJam competition? No, liquid fuel mines cannot be used in the PyroJam competition. When designing your show, please only use effects contained in the PyroJam catalog. This effect has been used at PyroJam, but not in the competition shows. If you saw this in a video, it was from the opening or closing shows which are out of competition.   6) Can more firing positions be added to the PyroJam layout? The PyroJam design template includes 53 predefined firing positions. You may use as many or as few firing positions as you like but modifying the layout by adding positions is not permitted.     P.S. If you’re new to the forum, don’t forget to head over to your My Profile and customize your Display Name and Profile Picture!      

Thank you for the info. I had the same thoughts on usability. I have always seen them and have been curious to see if they were actually usable or just a novelty like you said. I may have access to try one out so I’ll have to see if it works for anything I am doing!!

I love the additional drawing capabilities recently added to the racks window! The following are three suggestions/requests: 1) The ability to define custom line/fill/text colors for items using a hex code (e.g. matching the colors defined for racks to create a legend or other setup note) 2) The ability to align and distribute multiple drawing items 3) To be able to select all (drawing items and racks) and have everything move together (e.g. the final layout with drawing items needs to be centered on the page)   The added Racks dimensions and other attributes is also very helpful! When choosing colors for the racks the individual mortars are a lighter shade of the same color but it’s sometimes difficult to see the pin number depending on the color for a particular rail/pin. Maybe define rack color and mortar (circle) color? Of course it would also be nice to define the color rotation for rail/pin.

I’ve used Finale 3D with a touchscreen before and it suffers from the same problems nearly any natively-desktop user interface suffers from. It’s not ideal but everything is usable (of course, like it would be with regular keyboard/mouse input, just not specifically optimized for touchscreens). It’s difficult to do anything with high precision when using a touchscreen (examples: adjusting column widths in the various Finale 3D windows, dragging events on the timeline, etc). Similar problems exist when using a touchpad or trackpad, but to a lesser extent.   Years ago, I bought a touchscreen laptop for portability reasons and the convenience of having a cool touchscreen, but it didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off and for me to regret letting that factor weigh as heavily as it did in my purchasing decision. It’s great for some basic things, but for precision control like you probably want in Finale 3D, I would not recommend going out of your way to use a touchscreen.   If you can, maybe try one out for some actual work like this and see what you think before making a significant purchase decision. You might find that it’s just not as useful as you’d hoped (like me). You might also find that you love it for some other reason(s) (they can be great for simple things like watching videos, etc), but I think it’s unlikely that you’ll find it to be a great tool for Finale 3D.

1、Can you add multiple hosts to the same choreography? 2、Can the description in the label be larger than the font size?

Does anyone have any experience using a touchscreen monitor in finale3d? If so. Are there any pros or cons to using one? I have been contemplating getting one but wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on using one.   thanks  

Thanks Drew, that makes sense, smart design. For some reason it looked like they were randomized relative to each other but I must have misinterpreted what I was seeing. Thanks again for setting me straight. -Chris

Hi Chris, great question. By default (with the effect represented by VDL), the orientation of the Ring and Ear will always be the same with respect to each other, and the shell as a whole will have a random orientation.   If you go into the effect editor, you can change the orientation of the Ring or Ear independently in each effect’s ‘break’ node. When you do this, the two effect will continue to have the same orientation with respect to each other as long as the have the same ‘random-group-id’. And, the overall shell will continue to have a random orientation as long as ‘randomize-break-orientation’ remains enabled.

Hi all – Below is the VDL I’ve created to sim Racoon’s Migraine (single shot for now). The effects are pretty close but I am curious if there is a way to link the orientation of the ring with the horsetail but allow them to be randomized together. I see that I can hard code the orientation of both in the effect editor to get them aligned but then each shot would be identical.   Any options for this?   VDL = 2.5″ 65.0m Red Ring w/ Brocade Ear   Thanks,   -Chris

This is my attempt to match TK2025CB (RKM-25X-RWBTK or RA143045 from Raccoon)   0.75″ 23.00s 25 Shot Cake (a) Red Flashing Pearl To Titanium Salute + (b) White Flashing Pearl To Titanium Salute + (c) Blue Flashing Pearl To Titanium Salute, 5 Rows, Rows 1,4 (abcab), Row 2 (cabca), Row 3 (bcabc), Row 5 (cabca/0.25)   Shout with suggested improvements or if these are helpful to share.   -Chris