Sound Group Cue

Sound Group Cues are used to combine several sound files into one multi-channel cue.

The Sound Group is a special kind of Group Cue that can only contain other Sound Cues. It “pretends” to be a normal Sound Cue, and presents an identical interface as a normal Sound Cue.

When you drag several Sound Cues into a Sound Group, they are combined by the Sound Group and presented to you as if they were a single cue. The input channels of all the children of the Sound Group are combined to mimic the effect of having a single multi-channel file. The channels are combined sequentially. For example, if you put two stereo files into a Sound Group, the first two input channels of the Sound Group will be the two channels of the first file. The second two input channels of the Sound Group will be the two channels of the second file. (And so on.)

Note: Separate audio files in a Sound Group Cue are still “loose” in the sense that they are not forced into sample-accurate synchronicity. QLab’s performance is good enough that multiple cues started at the same time will generally be played back in sample-accurate sync, but this constraint is not guaranteed. (For example, pausing a Sound Group will cause the child cues to be paused at slightly different times, causing the sounds to be thrown out of sync. If you require guaranteed sample-accurate sync, you must still place all of your audio data into a single multi-channel file. If, however, you do not need such a strict guarantee, the Sound Group provides an excellent way to speed up your workflow with multi-channel output devices.