Some good news here...

[rasputin1963]

 

 

Hey guys,

 

Just received word that I am to be the musical director for a show to be produced at our community theater...   They'll be staging the musical show NUNSENSE  (1993).      Basically,   a cast of five nuns put on a variety show for two hours.    All the songs are sort of postiches of typical Broadway song-and-dance numbers.

 

 

 

Boerne Community Theatre (BCT)  doesn't want to recruit live instrumentalists;  rather,  they need me to produce recordings that the cast can sing and dance to.    This will entail doing MIDI/VSTi  arrangements,   then recording them to high quality stereo.    In a sequence of ordered soundbytes.    Whether they'll provide me with just a piano score or a full orchestral score,   I don't know yet.

 

As is typical of stage show music,   there is a lot of accelerando and ritardando moments,   some vamp-'til-ready moments,    and moments which must appear to be colla voce  (the music following the adlib of the singer,   and not the other way around).     A number of sound effects  (slide whistle,  ratchet,  gongs,  churchbells,   etc.)   

 

I need to find some kind of computer program which will play a particular soundbyte at a second's notice... the way radio DJ's will trigger their funny SFX;    the theatre has been using a program in which soundbytes have to be carefully cued in advance...   armed carefully then played;    but I think the quickness of this show will not permit that...   the soundbytes need to be triggered instantly,    as,  say,   with a QWERTY keyboard.  

 

Looking forward to it---   the show will open next May.   Let's hope my musical chops haven't atrophied too much.

In the above 1993 clip,  it sounds like the instruments were created using just the basic ones offered with GENERAL MIDI..   You know how they sound:   functional,   but not exactly realistic nor especially dynamic.     I hope I can plug in some newer,  better-sounding samples  (for my drums,  strings,  horns,   etc...)

 

ras

 

 

[daklander]

Good news indeed. A karaoke stage production, which would be karaoke at it's best.

 

Actually, congratulations. It seems like it's going to be a fun as well as challenging endeavor.

I really can't help with the instant sound effects. I'd probably have a **** pot full of VLC players open and cued up so I could go to them for the sound effects.

 

 

[MikeRivers]

 

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rasputin1963 wrote:

 

 

 

 

I need to find some kind of computer program which will play a particular soundbyte at a second's notice... the way radio DJ's will trigger their funny SFX;    the theatre has been using a program in which soundbytes have to be carefully cued in advance...   armed carefully then played;    but I think the quickness of this show will not permit that...   the soundbytes need to be triggered

instantly

,    as,  say,   with a QWERTY keyboard.  

---

 

I'll bet you could do that with almost any media player program that allows you to build a playlist. Just arrange all the cues in the order that they appear in the show, making duplicate copies of the same sound if necessary. Set it to play the next song in the playlist and then stop, and all you need to do is start it.

Or take a look at the Broadcast Wave Player. It's a freeware emulation of a broadcast cart machine. I don't know if you can assign hot keys to the cues - you may need to click on them with a mouse. And the Windows OS compatibility list stops at XP, which doesn't necessarily mean that it won't work under later versions. But you can try.

[blue2blue]

Congrats! My mom really enjoyed that play when she saw it last year. Should be fun.