My two cents on iLive scene management.
I tend to only store faders, mutes, colors, and other basics in scenes. That leaves me free to adjust EQ and processing on the fly, or for a sub actor, etc. That works fine for me. I’ve also noticed that scene storing and recall is MUCH quicker that way than for a scene that stores all parameters.
My biggest beefs are in the recalling of scenes. If I was mixing for a band and had maybe one scene recall per song, the current scene management wouldn’t be a big deal. But I’m often running scenes for musical theater, and in some songs I may be recalling, tweaking levels, updating and then recalling the next scene every few bars. So even simple interface changes that would eliminate keystrokes would be a huge plus. A few:
On my DM1000, I am able to run a show (usually using SFX to recall scenes) without even having the scene manager on screen. There were dedicated hardware keys to advance scenes AND save settings. To update/save settings on my iLive, you have to use the Scene Manager screen. It’s the only way to update scenes. So the screen become pretty much dedicated to the Scene Manager out of necessity. So the ability to assign the soft keys to Update Current scene and Store All Current Scene would be a great improvement.
Also, the current scene recalled should ALWAYS be highlighted on the scene list, even if it was recalled through MIDI … that way, if I want to update it before moving on to the next scene, it’s a simple touch of the Update button before hitting GO in SFX. Currently, when I recall a scene from SFX, the highlight does not move to the current scene. It stays on whatever scene was last selected from the scene manager itself. So I have to manually cursor to highlight the current scene before I can Update it. I can’t just hit the Update screen button to update the current scene … it never highlighted that scene when it was recalled from SFX.
That one seemingly simple make-the-highlight-follow-the-current-scene-from-MIDI bug is such a problem that I’ve had to stop using SFX for Scene recall. The chances of accidentally Updating the wrong scene are too high. So I use the Next/Go buttons on the iLive, but that prevents me from hopping around and re-using scenes like I can from SFX. I tend to have the same scene change mics out cue multiple places in the show. With SFX, I can recall the exact same “blackout” scene multiple times during the show. When using the iLive scene recall buttons, I pretty much have to duplicate that scene multiple times and waste scenes. The show basically has to be in sequential scene order so I can run it with Next/GO.
Using the dedicated scene recall keys is currently a two-press process. Use the Next key to select the next scene, then hit the GO button to recall it. I’d love to see an option to have the GO button do the Advance/GO in a single GO press. Sounds stupid, but there are some songs where I’m recalling scenes literally every few notes or bars, and condensing things down to a single GO press would be a huge help in avoiding keying mistakes. Throw in a few sound effects from SFX at the same time, and I’m running two parallel GO buttons … one in SFX and one on iLive. So having the iLive auto-advance to the next loaded cue when I hit GO would be huge. And seemingly simple to add as an option. I know it’s been requested multiple times on these forums.
The iLive is a great board, and I love using it. But the Scene Manager is still a few updates away from being as non-intrusive as it should be. 
It should be second nature to run a show, and right now it’s got too many possibilities to mess up.
David Schmoldt
