Omnia-6ex Use and Operation Manual – V: 1.20
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Master Drive
This control, located after the input bargraph meters, calibrates the nominal internal level of the Omnia-6EX to
match the reference level of your air chain. This control should normally stay at 0.0 dB but may need to be adjusted
if your station's audio reference (0VU) level is something other than +4dBu. It also may need adjusting if the input
audio feeding the Omnia-6EX is primarily pre-processed, such as many recent CD releases that follow the current
record industry trend of “hyper-compression”, or if you wish to bypass the WB AGC section and there is not enough
gain reduction in the Multi-Band AGC section. The range of this control is –9dB to +6dB.
Note: Normally there should be 10-12 dB of nominal gain reduction in the WB AGC section. This should occur
when a +4dBu average (normal program) input level is present and the Master, Right Trim, Master Drive, and AGC
Drive controls are set at 0.0. If, for example, your audio reference level were +8 dBu instead of +4 dBu, you would
set the Master Drive control to –4.0 dB. This will optimize the headroom through the unit.
Input Source
Selects between the discrete Left/Right Analog input or the AES/EBU Digital input.
Input Mode
Selects how input audio is routed and processed by the Omnia-6EX. Highlight and click on the parameter selection
to set the mode. The selected Mode is shown with a dot in the box next to the name. The factory default selection is
Stereo. The other available modes are:
Stereo:
the left and right input channels are processed separately.
Mono L:
routes the Left Input only through both channels of the processor.
Mono R:
routes the Right Input only through both channels of the processor.
Mono L + R:
sums the stereo input to mono and processes the summed audio.
Swap L / R:
swaps the Left and Right Inputs.
Invert Both:
if the absolute phase of the Omnia-6EX is different from your existing system, it could cause your
announcers to think they sound “weird” while speaking and monitoring themselves with headphones. If this
happens, the absolute phase of the Omnia-6 may be different from what your announcers are used to. A quick way
to remedy this is to highlight Invert Both and click to select. A dot in the box indicates Invert Both is active.
Input Failsafe
A new Input Failsafe feature adds functionality requested by many of our customers. In essence, it allows the Omnia
to automatically switch its audio input from Digital to Analog (or vice versa) if audio fails on the selected primary
Input. To enable this feature, navigate to the Input Menu, highlight the “Auto” checkbox in the Input Failsafe box,
and click the jog wheel. A message will appear on the screen to warn you that you have selected the Auto mode, and
what behavior to expect. If the Hunt feature is also selected, the Omnia audio inputs will be alternately tried at the
interval that is set under the “Hunt” option until a valid audio source is found.
Be aware that there are caveats in the use of the Auto and especially the Hunt features of Input Failsafe that may or
may not be suitable for your particular facility! Some caveats are:
1.
The presence of program audio, not just valid digital data is used to determine if audio is present on the
AES/EBU digital input. Any signal meeting or exceeding the Omnia’s program presence detector threshold
of –37.5dBFS is accepted as valid audio.
