Synchronizing events in a production controlled by other people is an agreement between the parties involved about what timecode ranges correspond to what elements of the production.  Consider a concert in which the performer will perform 10 to 15 songs.  The pyro production company, lighting company, and possibly other special effects companies may all have contributions to the production that are designed specifically for each of the songs.  The timecode agreement is a list of songs and the timecode range that each song corresponds to. The agreement typically allocates a one-hour range of timecode in a 24 hour “day” for each song, making the list simple for everyone.  At the time of the concert, the songs can be performed in any order.  At the onset of each song, the production operator will start playing the timecode range corresponding to that song, which will trigger the pyro, lights, and special effects to play along in synch with the song.   Matching the timecode range provided by others When other people control the production using timecode, you need to know what timecode ranges correspond to your part or parts of the show.  If the overall show begins at timecode 00:00:00:00, and your part of the show is at the beginning of the show, then you can design your part of the show beginning at zero on the timeline in Finale 3D and export your script normally.  When the production operator plays the timecode beginning with 00:00:00:00, your part of the show will play along with it. If your part of the show is not at the beginning, then you need to make sure your script events correspond to the correct timecode range.  Typically, timecode ranges are allocated in one hour slots of a 24 hour “day”.   Say your part of the show is at the hour slot beginning at 7 hours (07:00:00:00).  It is imperative that your script events begin at 7 hours, not zero hours.  In Finale 3D you have two choices for getting your script events to begin at 7 hours instead of zero: 1) you can script your show on the timeline beginning at 7 hours, or 2) you can script your show at zero on the timeline and set the “Firing system export offset” to add 7 hours to the event times in the exported script.   Moving songs on the timeline to their timecode ranges Scripting your show beginning at whatever time range is required is your only option if you are contributing multiple parts to the production at various timecode ranges scripted in the same show file.  While it may seem disorienting to have a timeline that is 15 or 20 hours long with short, 5-minute songs at the beginnings of various hours, that’s what people do. If you are told the timecode ranges for each song, you need to import all the songs.  If the song files contain their timecode on one of the channels, Finale 3D will automatically position them on the timeline according to the timecode.  If the files are just audio, you need to slide them on the timeline to the correct timecode ranges and then script the parts of your show to correspond to the music. If you are given a single concert soundtrack file containing all the songs with their independent timecode ranges, then you can just import the soundtrack file (“Music > Add song…”) and Finale 3D will automatically split it up and align the sections to the timeline as shown in Figure 1.  Please see Concert soundtracks containing multiple SMPTE timecode sections for more information.   Figure 1 – A soundtrack with eight songs beginning on SMPTE hours 1-8 is eight hours long!   Finale 3D also has the function, “File > Tools > Analyze timecode in soundtrack file…” which reads the timecode of any chosen soundtrack file without importing it into your show, displays information about the timecode, and optionally saves a text log file of the timecode data in a human readable form so you can see exactly what timecode times the file contains, all of them.  See The “Analyze timecode in soundtrack file…” function for SMPTE and FSK for more information.   Scripting at zero on the timeline and adding export offsets Scripting your show at zero on the timeline and setting the “Firing system export offset” to begin at the required timecode range is an option if your show file contains only one part, and thus needs only one offset to the required timecode range.  The “Firing system export offset” field is in the “Show > Set show information…” dialog, along with another field, “Timecode export offset”. If you are the one supplying a soundtrack for your part of the show with music and timecode at the correct range, then before exporting the soundtrack with the function “File > Export > Export soundtrack” it is imperative that you also set the “Timecode export offset” to the correct range, matching the “Firing system export offset”.  You can verify the soundtrack file you export has the correct timecode range by using the function, “File > Tools > Show timecode statistics for song file…”.

Synchronizing events to music in a production you control is essentially an automated equivalent to the manual task of “press play on the soundtrack player and press start on the firing system at exactly the same time.”  The automated equivalent involves combining a timecode signal as one channel of the sound track with music as the other channel or channels of the same soundtrack, ensuring the timecode signal and the music play in perfect synchronization when the soundtrack is played.  While the music channels are routed to speakers for people to hear, the timecode channel is routed into the firing system, which is configured to fire the script events according to the times in the timecode.   Creating a soundtrack with timecode The mechanics of synchronizing events involve three resources: the script, the timecode recording, and the music recording.  All synchronization is based on the relationship between these resources. The script file contains a list of events, or triggers, at specific times.  Imagine an event as, “Trigger module 1, pin 1 at 00:04:01:00 (0 hours, 4 minutes, 1 second, 0 frames)”.  The timecode is an audio signal that hardware devices like firing systems or your computer can decode into a sequence of times, represented as HH:MM:SS:FF streaming in sequentially at some frame rate.  Imagine timecode as a fast talking clock reader, barking out: “0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, 0 frames, <short pause>, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, 1 frame, <short pause>, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds, 2 frames, etc.”  Lastly, the music is the third resource, and it is just regular digital song. Combining a timecode signal on a soundtrack in one channel with music on the other channels creates a correlation between the HH:MM:SS:FF times in the timecode with points in the music.  The timecode for the beginning of the song could begin with 00:00:00:00, or it could begin with other timecode times, such as 07:00:00:00.  Whatever the timecode range is on the soundtrack, that is the range that correlates with the music. When a firing system is configured to operate by timecode, it plays the script events whose times correspond to the timecode signal streaming in.  Some older firing systems require the script event times to match the timecode times exactly, but most firing systems today have an internal clock that locks onto the incoming stream of timecode times and progresses along with it continuously. If the timecode signal drops out, the firing system typically stops after losing the lock; if the timecode jumps discontinuously, the firing system typically recognizes the jump after a short delay and jumps along with it.  Thus, by playing the script events using its internal clock, the firing system keeps in pace with the timecode streaming in as far as speed of play, starting, stopping, and jumping, but is resilient to minor glitches in the timecode signal, and doesn’t skip script events that fall in between the times in the timecode signal. Whereas the timecode signal is represented as HH:MM:SS:FF in units of frames, the script events can be represented in decimal seconds or milliseconds or any other time representation.  The representations of script events and timecode times don’t need the same syntax because they all correspond to real time points on a timeline. Returning to the objective of synchronizing events to music in a production you control, you can use timecode as an automated equivalent to the manual task of “press play on the soundtrack player and press start on the firing system at exactly the same time” by 1) exporting your script from Finale 3D, 2) exporting a sound track from Finale 3D with timecode on one of the channels, 3) configuring your firing system to play by timecode, 4) routing the timecode channel from your soundtrack playing device to your firing system, using a splitter for the audio cable, and routing the other channel or channels to your speakers, and 5) playing the sound track to initiate the show!   Adding pre-roll time In real world productions, it is nice to have a delay at the beginning of the soundtrack before the music and pyro events kick in but during which the timecode is playing.  One reason for the delay is that the firing systems require a short bit of time to lock on to the incoming timecode signal.  If your show began with an event at time 00:00:00:00, the firing system might skip it if it hasn’t locked on to timecode signal yet.  Another reason for the delay is that it gives you a chance to confirm that the timecode signal is correctly routed to the firing system, and that the firing system is properly configured to receive it. Most firing systems will display the timecode times as they are being received.  If you start playing the soundtrack and don’t see the timecode times displayed on the firing system, you know something is wrong.  Having a delay in the soundtrack before the music and events kick in gives you a chance to scramble and fix the problem without delaying the show. How long a delay should you have?  10 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, or even 10 minutes are common practice.  Bear in mind that if the show is set to begin at 9pm and you have a one minute delay, you need to start playing the sound track at exactly 8:59pm. In Finale 3D, you can add a delay by unlocking the song file (“Music > Lock songs on timeline”) and dragging its dotted line on the timeline to right, moving the song to start at the appropriate delay.   Add the same delay to the events to keep them in synch with the song.  Press control-A to select all the events, then do “Script > Time adjustments > Shift times” to move them over.  When you export the soundtrack with “File > Export > Export soundtrack…”, the exported timecode will begin at zero without the music, and later, after the delay, the music will begin.  The event times in the exported script will include the proper delay because they are at the proper positions on the timeline in coordination with the music. It is not necessary to set the “Firing system export offset” or “Timecode export offset” to add the delay when you’ve added the delay by shifting everything on the timeline.  The offsets are used for delays in other timecode workflows described in Synchronizing events to music in a production controlled by others; not for the delay at the beginning of a show controlled by you.   Adjusting for latency Inherently every firing system or timecode decoding device has internal latency for processing timecode streaming into it.  Decoding hardware includes algorithms to compensate, or even overcompensate, for the latency.  Thus even if the timecode in the exported soundtrack and the music in the exported soundtrack correspond exactly to the times of the pyro events in the exported script, the pyro events may be a short bit late or early in reality, in comparison to the music. To adjust for this latency, Finale 3D has an optional field in the “Show > Set show information…” dialog called “Firing system export offset”.  This field is also used for some timecode workflows described in Synchronizing events to music in a production controlled by others, but for shows controlled by you this field is used exclusively for making small adjustments, positive of negative, to script times in order to make them align with the music in reality, taking into consideration all the latencies in all aspects of the firing system and audio systems. The best way to determine the firing system export offset is to run a test on your actual equipment with an LED or e-match on a firing system pin corresponding to a recognizable point in the music.  Start the soundtrack playing a minimum of a few seconds before that point in the music, to give the firing system a chance to lock onto the timecode signal and settle in, and observe if the LED or e-match fires exactly on time or a little early or late.  Choose a firing system export offset to provide the right degree of compensation.  

When you export a firing system script from Finale 3D, you produce a script file that contains a list of events, or triggers, at specific times.  Timecode provides a mechanism for synchronizing these events to music in a production you control yourself, or to music or other elements of a production controlled by other people. Synchronizing events to music in a production you control yourself is essentially just an automated equivalent to the manual task of “press play on the soundtrack player and press start on the firing system at exactly the same time.”  The automated equivalent involves combining a timecode signal as one channel of the sound track with music as the other channel or channels of the same soundtrack, ensuring the timecode signal and the music play in perfect synchronization when the soundtrack is played.  While the music channels are routed to speakers for people to hear, the timecode channel is routed into the firing system, which is configured to fire the script events according to the times in the timecode.  The details and specific instructions for this process are described in Synchronizing events to music in a production you control. Synchronizing events to music or other elements of a production controlled by other people is essentially an agreement between the parties involved in a production about what timecode ranges correspond to what elements of a production.  Consider a concert in which the performer will perform 10 to 15 songs.  The pyro production company, lighting company, and possibly other special effects companies may all have contributions to the production that are designed specifically for each of the songs.  The timecode agreement is simply a list of songs and the timecode range that each song corresponds to.  The agreement typically allocates a one-hour range of timecode in a 24 hour “day” for each song, making the list very simple for everyone.  At the time of the concert, the songs can be performed in any order.  At the onset of each song, the production operator will start playing the timecode range corresponding to that song, which will trigger the pyro, lights, and special effects to play along in synch with the song.  The details and specific instructions for this process are described in Synchronizing events to music in a production controlled by others.

Most of the table editing features in Finale 3D are modelled after Excel.  Copy/paste and the “fill handle” are no exception.  Copy/paste applies to cells, or rectangular selections of cells, or rows, or selection sets of rows.  The “fill handle” is the small black dot in the lower right corner of a selected cell that provides a user interface to “fill down” with a cell value or a continuing pattern.   Selecting cells and rows Clicking on an unselected cell may select the entire row, or just the cell, depending on the user settings: File > User settings > Set click action for effects window File > User settings > Set click action for other windows By default, the click action for the effects window selects an entire row; whereas the click action for other windows selects only the clicked-on cell.  If the click action selects a cell, you can always select a row instead by clicking on the row number in the left-most column.  If the click action selects a row, you can always select and focus a cell by double-clicking on the cell. When a cell or row is selected, the arrow keys on the keyboard will move the selection.  Hold shift and press the arrow keys to extend the selection, growing it from a single cell or row to a rectangle of cells or a range of rows.  Whereas cell selection sets are restricted to a rectangular grid of cells, row selection sets can include any subset of rows, not just a contiguous range of rows.  To select multiple rows by clicking, hold the control key and click on a row to toggle it selected or unselected.  To select a rectangular range of cells or a contiguous range of rows by clicking, select the first cell or row, and then click on another cell or row while holding the shift key to select the range between them.   The copy buffer Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are the usual hot keys for copy/paste in the tables.  Equivalently, you can right click a row or cell and choose “Copy” or “Paste” from the context menu.  The contents of a copy operation are stored in the system clipboard, as text, making it possible to copy/paste between applications and making it possible to examine the contents of the copy buffer simply by pasting it into Notepad or any text editor. Copied cells are represented in the copy buffer straight forwardly as the editable cell text with tab and newline delimiters separating the cells.  In some cases, the editable cell text may be different from the unfocused cell text shown in the table, which may have fewer digits after the decimal point, for example, to make the table more readable.  The editable cell text always has the maximal resolution. Copied rows are also represented in the copy buffer, but in a more complex manner that depends on which table the rows are copied from.  To facilitate copy/paste between shows, or between applications, the copy buffer for rows contains the rows’ explicit data and any rows from other tables that the copied rows depends on.  For example, copying a row in the script representing an event must include the row from the effects window defining the effect used in the event and the row from the positions window defining the position at which the event is located.  The representation of all this information in the copy buffer is human readable text, but it is not as straight forward as copied cells.  The details of the copy buffer are described in Copy/paste.   Copy/pasting over cells or rows If you want to fill an entire column with the value from one cell, select the cell, then copy it with Ctrl+C or using the right-click context menu, then right-click the column header and choose “Select this column”, then paste with Ctrl+V or using the right-click context menu.  The copied value is pasted over all the selected cells. You can also paste a single cell value over any rectangular range of selected cells in a similar manner. Pasting rows is different.  Unlike cells, pasting rows adds the copied rows without removing any rows that are selected at the time of pasting.  Depending on the type of table, the pasted rows may be modified as appropriate.  For example, pasted events are pasted at the time of the playhead (modifying the times of the rows from the copy buffer).  Pasted positions or effects are another example.  Since the positions and effects tables require that every row has a unique name or part number, the pasted rows will have their names or part numbers modified to make them unique.   The fill handle The fill handle is the dot in the lower right corner of a selected cell, or of the bottom selected cell if a vertical column of cells is selected.  If you click on the fill handle and drag down, you will fill the dragged-over cells with the value from the selected cell or with values continuing a pattern defined by the selected cells, such an increasing sequence of numbers .   Table 1 – What the fill handle does, depending on the selected cells Contents of selected cells Number of cells selected Modifiers keys held Cells filled with Example Integers 1 Incrementing by 1 1 –> 1, 2, 3, 4… Integers 1 Ctrl Same numbers 1 –> 1, 1, 1, 1… Integers 2 Incrementing numbers by delta 1, 3 –> 1, 3, 5, 7… Integers 2 Ctrl Repeating pattern 1, 3 –> 1, 3, 1, 3… Integers 3 or more Ctrl or none Repeating pattern 1, 3, 10 –> 1, 3, 10, 1, 3, 10… Strings ending in integers 1 Incrementing numbers Pos-01 –> Pos-01, Pos-02, Pos-03, … Strings ending in integers 1 Ctrl Same string Pos-01 –> Pos-01, Pos-01, Pos-01, … Strings ending in integers 2 Incrementing numbers by delta Pos-01, Pos-03 –> Pos-01, Pos-03, Pos-05, … Strings ending in integers 2 Ctrl Repeating pattern Pos-01, Pos-03 –> Pos-01, Pos-03, Pos-01, … Strings ending in integers 3 or more Ctrl or none Repeating pattern Pos-01, Pos-03, Pos-10 –> Pos-01, Pos-03, Pos-10, Pos-01, … Time 2 Times incrementing by delta 00:05.10, 00:05.20 –> 00:05.10, 00:05.20, 00:05.30, … Time 2 Ctrl Repeating pattern 00:05.10, 00:05.20 –> 00:05.10, 00:05.20, 00:05.10, … Floating point number 2 Incrementing by delta 2.5, 3.1 –> 2.5, 3.1, 3.7, … Floating point number 2 Ctrl Repeating pattern 2.5, 3.1 –> 2.5, 3.1, 2.5, … Coordinates or angles with three components 2 Incrementing by delta for each component (0, 30, 30), (0, 40, 30) –> (0, 30, 30), (0, 40, 30), (0, 50, 30), … Coordinates or angles with three components 2 Ctrl or none Repeating pattern (0, 30, 30), (0, 40, 30) –> (0, 30, 30), (0, 40, 30), (0, 50, 30), … Anything else Anything else Ctrl or none Repeating pattern Apple, Banana –> Apple, Banana, Apple, Banana, …   Loosely speaking, if you select one cell containing an integer or string ending in an integer and drag down its fill handle, you’ll get a sequence of incrementing numbers.  If you hold control while dragging, you’ll fill with a copy of the original cell. If you select two cells containing some form of numerical delta or string ending in an integer and drag down the fill handle, you’ll get a stepping sequence defined by the delta between the initial two selected cells.  If you hold control while dragging, you’ll fill with a copy of the original cell. In all other circumstances, you’ll get a repeating pattern defined by the initially selected cell or cells.