No! The 18R2 won’t fire at 0 seconds in your example because your first cue is at 5.3s!   If the first ‘Event Time’ in your script is 5.3 seconds, then the 18R2 will fire the cue 5.3 seconds after you start playing your soundtrack and feeding time code to the remote. Think of time code as a stopwatch. When you hit play, the remote receives the time code starting at 0s. The remote is thinking, “okay, I’m getting time code, cool, we’re at 0s, do I have any cues to fire? No. Okay, now we’re at 1s, do I have any cues to fire? No.” Then all of a sudden 5.3s passes and BAM! This is the beauty of time code.   You can try it for yourself in your living room, there’s no reason to wait until the day of your show. All you need is your soundtrack with SMPTE, a computer or other device to play your soundtrack, the 1/8″ stereo to RCA cable, your script file, and your 18R2 remote.

Quick question, given the 5 seconds of audio silence generated at the beginning of the soundtrack, will the 18r2 start firing at 0 (since the timecode starts at 0) or at the first cue from finale, let’s say at 5.3 seconds in? It seems to me that as soon as you hit the play button on the soundtrack, the show will start firing.   I’m assuming that the show should be started and on pause on the 18r2 before starting the soundtrack. I hope that’s correct, at least.   Sorry for the dumb questions, I’m just trying to get a handle on everything possible before my first pyromusical on the 2nd.   Thank you in advance for the response.

Hi, I work with a client in fps in this case 30fps and I don’t understand why the column “effect time” is in 30fps but the “event time” is in milliseconds. When a product has “prefire” I have the “effect time” in 30fps but I need to know when the item starts in fps too. Why is it in milliseconds? this confuses me. Is there any way to change this or am I not doing it right. DrewFinale Thanks        

Hi Pyro_51170000, as an experiment, I made this cake without using the custom effect editor. Since we don’t have a VDL term for lace (yet), I used “Dark to Bright Red Flashing”. Here’s the complete input description the RA530174 Magic Light:   25mm 26 Shot 47.2s Cake (a) Aerial 45.0 HTM Dark To Very Bright Red Flashing w/ Pink & Lemon & Aqua Dahlia Pistil + (b) 45.0 HTM Bright Red & Blue Peony w/ Dense Dark To Very Bright Very Bright White Strobing + (c) 45.0 HTM 1.4 DUR Dense Gold Willow w/ Dark To Very Bright Red Strobing + (d) 45.0 HTM 1.4 DUR Dense Gold Willow w/ Dark To Very Bright Yellow Strobing + (e) Aerial 45.0 HTM Dense Green & Yellow Strobing w/ Pink & Lemon & Aqua Dahlia Pistil, 1 Row (0a2700/a/a/a/a3800/-15b0/0b/15b4300/0c2700/d/c/d/c3800/-15b0/0b/15b4300/0e800/e/e/e/e4200/c0/c/c/c/c/CAK)

Anyone able to help? If not I will just make a generic setup. As always I appreciate all the help!

As a hobby shooter, the Lite version put Finale back into a price range we could justify.  For the most part, it does everything a backyard amateur needs.   However, in prepping to shoot my first show off the new version, I did find a gap.  Creating chains is a very important feature for small users.  Hobbyists often work with extremely limited hardware/cues, and chaining together effects is an important part of making limited equipment go further.  However, while you can create chains, the Lite version doesn’t include the chain building report.  With no way to see those chains at show time, the only way I can come up with to actually build them is to break apart the chain, write down every effect, then put the chain back together, edit chain times, and manually write down every time.  I’ll do what it takes to make it work, but this seems like an oversight.   Thanks,   Brad

Last one I need for the year. Once again it is that lace input combined with multiple row speed and angle changes. The more of these I see you create the better I am getting but this one stumped me.   Thanks  

Figured it out!! – User error!

HELP!! We are almost completely finished with our 4th of July show.  We saved the show, closed Finale and then remembered something we needed to add.  Opened up Finale and noticed that all the rails and pins are in numerical order, such as Rail 1 Pin 1, Rail 1 Pin 2 throughout the entire script. Everything else about the script is in the right order – The 1st event is at the correct time, correct angle, correct position and has the correct notes through all 400+ events but the Rails and Pins are all completely wrong.   We closed the program, did not save when asked – Finale gets stuck at the message “closing unnamed show” and eventually shuts down.  We then tried to reopen the show and it looks the same with the wrong rail/pin modules. We are running Lite.   HELP!!   Kristine

Eric G is exactly right. The catalog effects have been updated but we haven’t quite launched the next full release of Finale 3D. To see the new light simulations, all you have to do is get the latest BETA release from https://finale3d.com/download.