In this video you’ll learn how to add and configure any hardware or software I/O device to Racks A and B in the Device Racks section of the eMotion LV1 mixer’s System Inventory page.
The previous video was an introduction to the System Inventory page, where the network is set up and devices are assigned. Now we’ll focus the on the Device Racks.
Device Racks are used to assign and set up:
Racks A and B assign hardware and software I/O devices to the mixer. Any I/O device on this SoundGrid network can be assigned.
A rack consists of eight slots, each of which can hold one I/O device. Racks A and B are identical. A rack slot number determines the device’s place in the Patch Window. The sequence is not important, although some engineers like to put FOH I/Os in one rack and Monitor I/Os in the other.
The small arrow opens the Devices drop-down menu. Choose among three types of devices:
Select an I/O device. Available devices are Black. There are several status indicators and buttons on the icon itself and just below it. The color of the text tells you the device’s network status:
The master device can sync to a digital source, to word clock, or to its own Internal clock. A slave in this SoundGrid network will almost certainly derive clock from the master via Sync over Ethernet, which is usually called “SOE.”
The Sample Rate of the device is displayed here.
The Device’s Activity Status is indicated on the left side of the slot.
Click the Gear button to access the device’s control panel—to adjust preamps, configure channels, and control clock.
The ID button activates lights on the front panel of the SoundGrid hardware device that’s represented by this icon.
FW displays the status of the device’s firmware:
Once an I/O device has been assigned to a rack slot, additional menu items are available:
The Offline Devices menu is a list of I/Os that are currently not physically present but can be configured and patched offline. When the I/Os and server are added, the session is fully functional. Working offline is described in the next video.
Certain menu items apply only to drivers:
When a second driver is assigned to the mixer, you can assign one as the main driver, and the other as a backup. The input signal is then split and sent to the local driver as well as to the designated backup driver.
Driver Channels
This sets the number of channels assigned to the SoundGrid audio driver. To keep buffering to a minimum, don’t assign more driver channels than you need for the current session.
The Driver Network Buffer helps the OS send synchronized information through the network port—between the ASIO/Core Audio drivers and the I/Os.
When lots of channels are going in and out of the driver—to several destinations—you may need to increase the value of the Driver Network Buffer. This reduces the chance of audio drops or artifacts, or of overloading the network port driver.
In this video we examined the I/O Device Racks, and we learned how to assign I/Os, set clock master, and troubleshoot devices.
In the next video we’ll cover the other racks and talk about working offline.