SoundCheck Sequence Editor Secrets
Speed up your SoundCheck sequence development with hidden Sequence Editor features. In this video, we’ll show you secret tips for editing, debugging, and reusing steps to streamline sequence development.
Additional Resources for SoundCheck
Detailed explanations of how to use SoundCheck can be found in the SoundCheck manual.
Video Transcript: SoundCheck Sequence Editor Secrets
In this short video, I’m going to show you how to speed up your sequence development with some of the hidden features in SoundCheck’s powerful sequence editor.
The sequence editor can be opened from the Setup menu or with the Ctrl + Q keyboard shortcut.
On the left side is our template library. You can drag the divider to re-size it, or click the divider to show or hide elements.
Step templates are grouped by category, and you can click on the expansion buttons to expand or contract them. You can right click on the category name to create new templates or import them from other versions of SoundCheck. Existing templates can also be edited, renamed or deleted. All sequences located in the folder of the active sequence are listed in the sequence template group.
The right side of the editor contains the active sequence. The configuration menu at the top is where you set the default behavior for when the sequence opens, starts and runs, and set the path to any instruction files. There’s also a comment field where you can enter notes about the sequence.
The Sequence Parameters table is used to create Memory List placeholders which can be filled via external control using the MemoryList.set TCP/IP command.
Lastly, the Metadata table is used to configure the sequence’s Metadata parameters.
Expanding a step shows you what data is coming in and out of the step. Steps are added to a sequence by dragging from the template library and dropping at the desired location. They can be configured as desired. A step or groups of steps can be moved within a sequence using drag and drop.
Now let’s take a look at the features in the right click menu.
Right clicking > Configure Step lets you configure step logic such as looping and jumping, as well as adding breakpoints and comment lines.
The configure Script option is only active for custom steps, where the script configuration window offers access to the LabView and Python options as well as the custom step editor
Commenting lets you enter descriptive text to help others understand what’s going on, step by step, and it’s a very useful feature, especially where your sequences are long or complex. In this sequence we’ve used comment steps to describe individual step functions and comment lines to explain where different river measurements take place for a 3-way loudspeaker.
Insert and Replace step are self explanatory. Insert is an alternative to drag and drop, and ‘replace’ replaces an existing step with a new step from the template library.
Copy and paste is a new feature we introduced in SC23. You can either use the right click menu or control+C control+V keyboard shortcuts.
Remove – as the same suggests, it removes or deletes the step
Rename – lets you change the default name to something more descriptive
Undo – lets you undo the last several actions including inserting, removing and editing steps
Expand/Collapse all is a global command that expands and collapses all steps in the sequence. and is useful for determining where certain inputs and outputs are happening during the sequence run.
We also have some powerful tools for sequence debugging and editing.
Breakpoints are really useful when you’re working on long or complex sequences. You can define points in the sequence where it breaks from running, then use the toolbar buttons to either advance to the next step or the end of the section. This lets you isolate and run small parts of the sequence without having to run the entire sequence. Here I’ll add 4 breakpoints. Now I can run the sequence just up to the first break by clicking start on the toolbar. And I can use this button to step through the sequence one line at a time, this button to run to the next breakpoint or hit the abort button to end the sequence.
Another useful debugging feature we recently introduced is Enable Disable step. This is much like commenting out a line of code in a program – when the sequence runs, the disabled step will be skipped over until it is enabled again. You might, for example, disable an autosave step to avoid collecting data, or operator message steps to save time, when developing a sequence.
Run from here allows you to start the sequence from any point, and when you use this in combination with breakpoints, it can make your sequence development a lot faster.
Apply is the last menu item. This simply allows you to apply the step function without having to open the step editor to click the editor’s apply button.
The last feature I want to show you is back over in the Template Library in the Sequence group. I can highlight a step or any number of steps from another sequence and drag them right into my active sequence. This is a big time saver whenever you want to repurpose part of an existing sequence. You can even go one step further and drag the entire sequence into your existing sequence, instantly creating a subsequence.
That concludes our sequence editor tips and tricks. Hopefully you learned something new, and don’t forget to check out the user manual for more details.
