{"id":5072,"date":"2024-06-17T11:43:43","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T02:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2024-07-04T10:06:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T01:06:58","slug":"adx-beginners-guide-10-categories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/17\/adx-beginners-guide-10-categories\/","title":{"rendered":"ADX Beginner\u2019s Guide #10 \u2013 Categories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following our introduction to spatialization in the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/13\/adx-beginners-guide-9-advanced-spatialization\/\">latest post<\/a>, we will examine how Categories can be used to organize and process groups of Cues.<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 40px;\">What is a Category?<\/h1>\n<p>A category is a way to group multiple Cues together and control them all at once. Categories can be used to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Adjust the volume of all the Cues that belong to them.<\/li>\n<li>Limit the number of Cues that can play simultaneously within that category.<\/li>\n<li>Apply AISAC to control all the Cues belonging to a category.<\/li>\n<li>Use <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/09\/adx2-beginners-guide-4-markers-and-actions\/\">Actions<\/a> to pause\/resume\/mute all the Cues in a category.<\/li>\n<li>Automatically drop the volume of a category when a Cue from another category is triggered (i.e., ducking).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Categories are managed in the <strong>Project Tree<\/strong> and are organized into <strong>Category Groups<\/strong> (e.g., type of sounds, levels, states, etc.).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Create a category group in the Categories folder.<\/li>\n<li>Select the group and create as many categories as you need.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/01-Cat-Tree.png\" alt=\"01 Cat Tree\" width=\"474\" height=\"494\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5075\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/01-Cat-Tree.png 474w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/01-Cat-Tree-288x300.png 288w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Once the categories are created, you can assign them to Cues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Select a Cue.<\/li>\n<li>In the <strong>Inspector<\/strong>, click on the <em>Category<\/em> property to open the <strong>Edit Categories<\/strong> window.<\/li>\n<li>Tick the categories you want to assign. Only one category from a given category group can be assigned to a Cue.<\/li>\n<li>Alternatively, you can drag and drop the Cues from the Work Units tree directly onto a category to assign it to the Cues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/02-CueCat.png\" alt=\"02 CueCat\" width=\"866\" height=\"620\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5076\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/02-CueCat.png 866w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/02-CueCat-300x215.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/02-CueCat-768x550.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By default, only 4 categories can be assigned to a Cue. However, you can change that limit by editing the <em>Max Number of Categories <\/em>property of the <strong>Global Settings<\/strong>, and get up to 16 categories per Cue.<\/p>\n<p>When a category is selected in the Project Tree, \u00a0the Cues that belong to it are displayed in the <strong>Referred List<\/strong> panel.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/03-Referred-List.png\" alt=\"03 Referred List\" width=\"830\" height=\"542\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5077\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/03-Referred-List.png 830w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/03-Referred-List-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/03-Referred-List-768x502.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 830px) 100vw, 830px\" \/><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 40px;\">Category settings<\/h1>\n<p>As mentioned earlier, a category can be used to adjust the volume of a group of Cues at once. This is particularly useful to balance the volume between different types of sounds (ambiences, voices, music, etc.). As explained in <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/06\/adx2-beginners-guide-5-dsp-bus-mixer\/\">our post dedicated to mixing<\/a>, changing the volume of a category simply scales the volume of all Cues in that category, unlike using the faders of a DSP-Bus, which acts directly on the audio signal itself. If a Cue belongs to two or more categories, their volumes are multiplied to affect the Cue.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Select a category.<\/li>\n<li>Adjust its <em>Volume<\/em> property in the Inspector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"max-width: 700px; margin: 0 auto; margin-bottom: 20px; border: 1px solid #aaa;\">\n<div style=\"width: 800px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-5072-1\" width=\"800\" height=\"423\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Video_Category_Volume.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Video_Category_Volume.mp4\">https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Video_Category_Volume.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A category can also be used to limit the number of Cues of a certain type that can be played simultaneously. For instance, if you have a \u201cMusic\u201d category you can make sure that only one music Cue is played at any given time to avoid overlapping.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Set the <em>Category Cue Limit flag<\/em> to True.<\/li>\n<li>Set the maximum number of Cues that can play simultaneously by setting the <em>Cue Limits for the Category<\/em> property.<\/li>\n<li>In addition, you can use the <em>Multiple Playback Prohibition Time<\/em> to prevent the Cue from being triggered within a given time window.<\/li>\n<li>\nFinally, when set to True, the <em>Cue Priority Short Distance Priority flag<\/em> will use the 3D positioning of a Cue to ensure that the closest Cue gets priority playback if the Cue Limit is reached.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/04-Category-settings.png\" alt=\"04 Category settings\" width=\"761\" height=\"401\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/04-Category-settings.png 761w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/04-Category-settings-300x158.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/04-Category-settings-390x205.png 390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 761px) 100vw, 761px\" \/>\n<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"font-size: 150%; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 40px;\">AISACs and Categories<\/h1>\n<p>AISACs can also be used with categories. In this case, it means that all Cues belonging to that category will be affected by the AISAC. This is especially useful if you want to apply the exact same attenuation curves (e.g., for 3D sounds) to a particular type of Cue, without duplicating the curves for each Cue. This is, of course, a huge time saver and will simplify your project.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Select a Category.<\/li>\n<li>Create the AISAC and select the AISAC Control you want to use.<\/li>\n<li>Add the AISAC graphs and edit the curves.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width: 900px;\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/05-AISAC-CAt.png\" alt=\"05 AISAC CAt\" width=\"1324\" height=\"542\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5079\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/05-AISAC-CAt.png 1324w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/05-AISAC-CAt-300x123.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/05-AISAC-CAt-768x314.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/05-AISAC-CAt-1024x419.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1324px) 100vw, 1324px\" \/>\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"max-width: 700px; margin: 0 auto; margin-bottom: 20px; border: 1px solid #aaa;\">\n<div style=\"width: 800px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-5072-2\" width=\"800\" height=\"423\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Video_Category_AISAC.mp4?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Video_Category_AISAC.mp4\">https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Video_Category_AISAC.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>As you can see, Categories are a powerful organizational and behavioural tool for groups of Cues. <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/adx-beginners-guide-11-dynamic-mixing-with-react\/\">In the next post<\/a> of this beginner guide, we will see how, used conjointly with the REACT system, they will allow us to adjust the parameters of a group of sounds when a sound from another group is played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following our introduction to spatialization in the latest post, we will examine how Categories can be used to organize and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adx","category-tutorials"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5072"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5550,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions\/5550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.criware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}