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Cobra Net
London Achitect
Overview ::::: Features
Features
Soundweb Designer took system design and control to an unprecedented level.
Now London Architect brings even more power to your design creativity, and is the real advantage over similar DSP systems.
Total flexibility of signal path flow and connectivity, a massive range of processing objects modelled on classic BSS processors, and the freedom to design the system how you want it to be.
The core system design software for the London system uses the familiar drag-and-dropTM design interface that Soundweb users will know well, but has been dramatically enhanced to provide a more powerful, flexible and user-orientated interface.
BSS Audio has spent a great deal of time with key industry users to ensure that the new programming interface will work for them and you. Users familiar with Soundweb Designer will immediately understand and appreciate the extensive upgrades to the design suite.
Features of the new software include dockable tool menus, creation of zones, layout scrolling and zooming and mini-map windows, while innovative processing objects such as expandable mixers make design and object selection easier than ever before.
Grouped DSP objects, new control panels with freeform elements, copying control values across objects, - just a few of the ways in which we’ve made London Architect so powerful. Information at microscopic levels illustrates exactly what’s going on. Some of the new and more radical features are described
here. Users familiar with Soundweb Designer will immediately
appreciate these powerful facilities. Parameter Recall enables values of multiple parameters
from multiple devices within a system, such as CobraNetTM
bundle assignments, EQ settings, levels and gains, etc.
to be restored either from the software application,
from an external serial or Ethernet controller or via
the analogue GPI control ports on the rear of each rackmount
device. For existing Crown users, the interface adopted
will be instantly recognisable, as the control
panels have been closely copied from the existing
layout in Crown’s own IQwicTM software in
order to keep transition time to a minimum. IQwicTM
and London Architect can co-exist happily on the
same network and the PIP modules can be seen and
controlled by both applications simultaneously.
Indeed, more complex PIP signal paths and DSP configurations
can continue to be designed within IQwicTM before
switching seamlessly to monitoring the devices
with London Architect.
Features of London Architect
For more information, click the name of the feature to expand, click again to collapse.
Logic
Scheduling
Setting Libraries
Custom Control Panels
Proven DSP Processing Objects
Adding Other Equipment To The Control Centre
Signal Path Naming
Zone Creation
Auto
Back Up In The Event Of Failure
Design
File Upload/Download
Recall
Control
Ports And Options
Wave
Files For Messaging
Multiple
Undo Facilities
Integration
With Amplifier And Load Monitoring
No other system available today offers so much more power
and information for the system designer and operator.
London Architect (from V1.06 onwards) features Discrete Logic Processing Objects with real time simulation in design mode.
It allows automatic system changes related to the state of internal objects such as peak/overload detection and button press events,
or external components such as multiple contact closures and on/off switches. For example, different room settings can be automatically
detected and applied for different scenario, and Fire Evacuation systems can be automated with an unparalleled level of flexibility.
Scheduling (from V1.06 onwards) is both flexible and powerful. Timed and reoccurring
events can be set for automatic activation. With the help of the intuitive calendar interface, selecting dates is now
a much simpler process. And, as each Soundweb London hardware units has a real time clock with built-in daylight time
saving automation, once schedulings have been configured, no further connection to a PC is required.
With the addition of Setting Libraries (from V1.06 onwards), you can store your favourite loudspeaker tunings as your own processing
object, hide parameters that you don't want anybody else to see or adjust, or even share your processing object with anyone else running London Architect.
Creating custom control panels, one of the advantages
inherited from Soundweb Designer, has been made even easier,
with simple mouse clicks to create control panel pages and
add ‘unbound’ elements such as meters and faders
that can then be tied to distinct processing objects. Not
forgotten is the ‘traditional’ method of creating
panels by dragging controls directly onto these custom panels.
Sub-pages can also be nested within panels increasing their
versatility, offering neater layout of controls and taking
the concept to an unprecedented level.
All the familiar Soundweb DSP objects are included; many
modelled on the classic and respected BSS Audio analogue
processors. The platform has been designed to enable future
software releases to include new leading edge DSP functions.
The list includes expandable mixers, dynamics processors,
delay, crossovers, matrices, and equalisers.
For the first time other devices can be included in the
system solution and configured and operated from the same
centralised PC suite, including the FDS-366T OMNIDRIVE Compact
Plus and FDS-334T and FDS-336T MINIDRIVE processors. The
large system example on the central pages demonstrates how
the power of London Architect. {example pics, see spread}
To allow the signal paths to be traced with the greatest
of ease – just name the source object, and wherever
the signal is routed, the name follows it through, whether
within the same device or across the network from device
to device. This feature can best be seen in action within
the software.
Zones can be created within the system views to enable
sensible layout of larger systems, by representing individual
rack rooms, for example. This allows highly convenient groupings
of hardware devices, and also reduces screen clutter in the
main system design window. Zone navigation is made quick
and easy with the navigation tree adjacent to the system
design view.
Sub-zones can also be created within zones, to assist
further with creating discrete hardware processing area.
To prevent the loss of a working file in the event that
the PC loses power or crashes, London Architect continually
writes the state of the file to a database so that it can
automatically recover that state when the application is
rebooted.
The entire original London Architect design file can be
saved from the application into flash memory within the Soundweb
London physical devices the network for retrieval at a later
date if you do not have access to the original design, an
occurrence often encountered in the field.
Parameter Recall, Device Recall and Venue Recall are the
methods by which parts or all of the system from individual
parameters to multiple device configurations can be restored.
Each device is able to store several DSP and wiring configurations
for later recall.
Each Soundweb London device has 12 Control port Inputs
and 6 Control port outputs.
You can assign a .wav file to an object, so that if a
channel is muted or unmuted remotely, for example, it triggers
playback of the wave file through the PC, useful for alerting
a centralised operator that an event has occurred. It could
even warn of problems with outputs in remote areas.
Not content with just providing 256 levels of design undo
a drop-down menu also lists the last 20 design history tasks
to which the design file can be restored instantly.
London Architect allows simultaneous and integrated monitoring
of Crown Audio’s PIP-LITE, USP3 and USP3/CN PIP modules,
which can be installed in the Crown CTs series of amplifiers,
providing probably the most powerful CobraNet-based integrated
processing, amplification and monitoring system available.