QLab 5.5 brings Object Audio and native PJLink projector control

Pioneering cue-based show control system, QLab, has just announced its latest software version 5.5. This update brings important bug fixes, comprehensive spatial features, and native projector controls. The last two features are significant audio and visual upgrades for theater, broadcast, and film producers.

Object Audio

QLab 5.5 features the company’s new proprietary Object Audio feature. Unlike traditional channel-based mixing, this uses a visual map to spatialize sound sources. Depending on an object’s position on the map, QLab determines how to send the audio to the system’s various outputs. Examples (or “marks”) located on the map send information about how the audio should sound at those locations and work in conjunction with audio output patches. There’s even a handy heat map tool to visualize how your plotted objects are interacting. This displays every location on the map, and the volume level being sent to each cue output.

What makes QLab’s Object Audio tool stand out is its ability to upload images and blueprints to the map editor. So, suppose you know the exact dimensions of a live performance venue and the location of the speakers. In that case, you can upload a floorplan to the editor and plot objects in venue-specific locations. Once you have plotted all of your objects on the map, you can set fade cues to target the audio cue and draw fade paths on the map. This makes it easier to design and visualize spatial fade sequences compared to channel-based mixing. All of this is handled within the new Objects tab in QLab’s cue list inspector.

Equally notable is the software’s available tools for shaping how each plotted mark behaves. For example, you can select QLab’s new Merge control if you don’t want the audio cue to snap immediately to the initial object location on the map. This gives the fade cue permission to slide the position of the object into the fade path over a percentage of the duration of the fade. There are also controls for smoothing, warping, flipping, and stretching the shape of the fade path, should you wish.

Similarly, you can adjust the Gravity, Shadow, and Filter of each plotted mark. The first increases the influence each mark has and how they interact with one another. So, if you want the audio cue assigned to your first mark to have a greater effect on the audio cue assigned to your second mark, you can increase mark one’s gravity. Conversely, Shadow dictates how much a mark shields one side of itself from the influence of another mark. Filters block the effects of marks across them, allowing you to make sonically independent areas on your map. Filters can also be used to fade the map edges to silence, and you can set which cue outputs are allowed to pass through filters when required.

Integrated PJLink projector control and bug fixes

In addition to Object Audio, QLab 5.5 also brings integrated PJLink projector control. This feature is a unified standard for operating and controlling data projectors from various manufacturers. While designers previously had to control power on/off, input selection, volume, and status information queries from outside QLab, integrated PJLink allows this to be done from within QLab itself. This makes QLab a one-stop shop for LFX and AV control.

QLab has also introduced a list of bug fixes with its latest version 5.5 upgrade. These include optional skipping of disarmed cues, audio in/out OSCs supporting OSC wildcard patterns, and the ability to edit the parameters of audio effects on disarmed cues and disconnected audio devices. QLab has also improved the performance of audio waveform drawing in the Time & Loops tab of the inspector.

Either way, QLab 5.5 is sure to improve the workflow and creativity of technicians across all mediums — check it out!