16 Channel Processor and Digital Audio Snake

Will Fraser

16 Channel Processor and Digital Audio Snake

Using the new more powerful processors and the digital audio bus, we can combine the capabilities of our Insert processor with our Audio Snake into one powerful design.

This design has a number of powerful features, including:

~ Control and monitoring from any PC.
~ Software controlled input gain from 0dB to +48dB.
~ Phantom power and polarity switchable per input.
~ Nine digital audio processors per signal path...that’s 144 processors!

This design utilizes the DSP capability of a BLU-160, configured with sixteen outputs and a BLU-120 with sixteen inputs, to provide sixteen discrete channels of comprehensive processing, invaluable to today’s live sound engineer. A single BLU-160 provides the equivalent processing of 144 discrete analog rackmount devices at a fraction of the cost and rackspace.

A PC running HiQnetTM London ArchitectTM and connected to the BLU-160 provides the Graphical User Interface. Typically this would be a laptop, but it could just as easily be a touchscreen computer or wireless tablet PC, as the BLU-160 is controlled using standard Ethernet. In the design shown, custom control panels, divided into multiple sub-pages, allow the system operator easy access to all the controls for each of the processing objects within the design.

In addition, the operator has the ability to select any of the sixteen inputs and adjust input gain as well as enable or disable phantom power. Full metering gives the audio engineer accurate indiction of signal level at various points in each signal chain. Each channel also has adjustable output gain, polarity and mute.

Each input can be selectively processed by the following nine processors:

Pre EQ - Type (high shelf, low shelf or bell), Slope, Frequency, Width and Boost/Cut for each of the 12 bands of EQ.

Compressor – Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, Gain, Auto Release, and Bypass.

Expander – Threshold, Attack, Release, Ratio, and Bypass.

Limiter – Threshold, Attack, Release and Bypass.

Gate – Threshold, Range, Attack, Hold, Release, Manual Open and Bypass.

Delay – Time (displayed in Milliseconds, Meters or Feet & Inches) and Bypass.

Low Pass Filter – Frequency, Filter Type, Bypass.

High Pass Filter – Frequency, Filter Type, Bypass.

Post EQ - Type (high shelf, low shelf or bell), Slope, Frequency, Width and Boost/Cut for each of the 12 bands of EQ.

BSS Audio’s digital audio bus is found on all BLU-800, BLU-160, BLU-320 and BLU-120 devices. It carries 256 channels of audio at 48kHz, and 128 channels at 96kHz, both at 24bit across a standard CAT5e connection between devices. When connected in a loop, it has redundancy, allowing any one BLU link cable to break while still maintaining audio. The digital audio bus devices are connected ‘point to point’ eliminating the need for expensive switches. You can have up to 32 digital audio bus devices and one Cobranet network connected together allowing you to split and route multiple signals to multiple locations simply by adding more BLU-120s to the network.

>>>Click here to download the full application guide and sample file.<<<


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Technical Support Team
BSS Audio
8760 South Sandy Parkway
Sandy, UT 84070