July Fourth is the Go-Live date for Zeehi's CueCast Digital Mixing Console User File Conversion Service. The announcement was made by Danny Abelson, Zeehi co-founder.
CueCast provides front-of-house and monitor engineers, sound reinforcement companies, broadcasters, performing arts facilities and production managers the ability to quickly and easily convert “show files” that contain user settings between different digital audio mixing console formats.
“We’re calling this Fourth of July ‘Show File Independence Day,’” said Abelson. “For the first time ever, operators of digital audio mixing consoles can transfer their user settings between mixing consoles, offering a degree of independence never before available but always desired by the community. We just couldn’t resist using the holiday as the official launch date. We’re passionate about providing solutions to the user community, and our team has toiled for over a year to develop a service intended to help mixers everywhere enjoy more flexibility and independence.”
This initial release of CueCast converts the most commonly used features and functions stored in show files, including bussing, sub-group assigns, control group assigns, routing, labeling, mutes and mute groups, EQ and dynamic in/out settings, aux. send on/off/and assigns, and effects and matrix on/off and assigns. The current iteration of CueCast supports file conversion between the Avid Venue, DiGiCo SD8 and SD10 and Yamaha PM5D platforms. Future releases will support additional console formats, and will provide conversion of variable settings, snapshots, and many other features.
The web-based service solves a fundamental challenge: how to take user settings from one mixing console to another without the time-consuming headache of entering those settings manually, according to Abelson, a thirty year veteran of the pro audio community.
“We first announced CueCast at the InfoComm show in Las Vegas last month. Everyone we demoed for lauded our innovation,” Abelson noted. “We promised a release date in early July, and we’re meeting that commitment. We have been extensive in our pre-release testing, with additional Beta testing performed by a number of experienced outside engineers. Fortunately that process has been going well, to the point where we feel we are ready to offer CueCast to the user community.”
New customers will be provided with a 30-day no-risk free trial opportunity to try out the new service. Users will be credited with two free conversions when they sign up, valid for 30 days from sign up. Abelson continued, “We want everyone to feel comfortable with file conversion. CueCast is breaking new ground, and engineers will not believe how cool it is until they try it. Seeing their settings instantly load on a different desk, and the time it saves them compared to manual entry, is going to makes us a lot of friends. We anticipate that there will be a few bugs along the way. This is a very complicated process. As in all new software applications, the users will need a bit of patience, and we will need them to tell us if we have something wrong. By providing our initial users with two free conversions, we feel we can give our customers the opportunity to try us out, with no risk, and feel confident in the conversions before committing to purchases. We’re confident the flexibility and independence CueCast provides engineers will become a welcome and relied-upon solution.”
“Thanks to the console expertise and software savvy of our development team, converting the user data is reliable and takes just three easy steps,” said Abelson. “Simply upload your file to our secure site – www.cuecast.com – specify the format you need, and download the converted file for installation in the new console. If you like, we’ll store your files on our secure cloud for safekeeping. CueCast technology supports files from 24 to 196 inputs, and the Beta release supports file conversion between the Avid Venue, DiGiCo SD8 and SD10 and Yamaha PM5D platforms. Soon your can expect us to add many other formats and features to the service.”
