9 The Software Control Panel
This section will explain the features of the FireWire 1814’s control panel. This device
operates under the following three modes, based on the selected sample rate:
44.1kHz & 48kHz mode: All control panel descriptions below apply.
88.2kHz & 96kHz mode: All control panel descriptions below apply except the
mixer page
controls are non-functional and grayed out. However, the meters
are still enabled. Also, the
output page
no longer maintains the aux bus.
176.4kHz & 192kHz mode: All control panel descriptions below apply except the
mixer page
controls are non-functional and grayed out. However, the meters
are still enabled. Also, the
output page
no longer maintains aux bus control.
The FireWire 1814’s driver software installation includes a Control Panel—a simple yet
powerful interface with your computer and Digital Audio Workstation software.
T h e
Control Panel gives you a multi-channel software mixer with up to twelve virtual outputs
(in stereo pairs) from your audio software, and up to sixteen input channels from the
FireWire 1814’s hardware inputs. Each mixer channel input pair may be routed to any of
the FireWire 1814’s analog outputs. In addition, two software auxiliary sends are
available per stereo input pair.
The FireWire 1814 Control Panel is installed in your system after you have completed
the driver installation procedure. To open the Control Panel:
In Windows – A tiny “knob” icon will be placed in the system tray, generally located at
the bottom of your Windows desktop. Double click this icon to open the Control Panel.
On the Mac – The FireWire 1814 Control Panel can be found under the Apple menu. In OS
9, go to the Apple Menu > Control Panels. In OS X, go to Apple Menu > System
Preferences.
In either Windows or on the Mac, the FireWire 1814 Control Panel can also be opened from
an ASIO-compliant music program’s audio setup page (ASIO not applicable to Mac OS X).
The FireWire 1814 Control Panel gives you a great deal of control, and you may find that
the default settings work just fine for your needs. Depending on how you record, you
may never have to make an adjustment to these settings. Just to be safe, though, we’ll
go through the Control Panel in great detail and explain all of the user controls.
NOTE:
When the FireWire 1814 is first installed, it is configured for full 16 x 12
operation. As mentioned earlier, you may customize your setup according to the digital
devices that you will be connecting. If an ADAT or ADAT Optical capable device is not
part of your setup, and you have no plans to add one, you may want to consider
switching the optical port to S/PDIF operation. This will reduce the number of channels in
your
mixer
and
output
pages, as well as the number of input and output devices that
will appear in your audio recording program, with the end result of simplifying your use of
both the FireWire 1814 and the Control Panel. See the
hardware
page section for more
information.
