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This Factory Direct was submitted by
Electro-Voice.
Live Sound makes every
effort to eliminate any use of marketing inspired hyperbole.
A
udio professionals have the
challenge of designing sys-
tems to satisfy the increasing
requirement for feature-rich, higher
quality audio systems that are more
intuitive and ergonomically correct,
yet simultaneously keep with the current technological state of the art. One
area of increased development is that
of integrated systems, with networkable and software controlled systems
rapidly becoming a popular choice.
But, at the end of the day, with all of
the options that are available, what is
the best choice?
Electro-Voice (EV) has made major
investments in this trend with the
development of the NetMax, a modu-
lar audio routing and control hardware and the IRIS-Net software platform. NetMax is a hardware system
that provides analog and digital audio
routing; mixing and matrixing;
CobraNet audio networking; digital
signal processing (DSP); and a variety
of options for data connection and
control, TCP/IP networking, remote
control and supervision. In addition,
the IRIS-Net software platform integrates the control and configuration of
many products under the Telex Pro
Audio umbrella into a single, opensour
ce software application.
IRIS-NET
EV’s IRIS-Net software is the latest version of the I.R.I.S. (Intelligent RemoteIntegrated Supervision) audio control
and supervision software platfor
m.
First developed in 2001, it was
released in 2002 as the control, configuration and monitoring platfor
m for
the proprietary Precision Series DSP
Remote Contr
olled Amplifiers. Since
then, IRIS has been used in many high
profile applications including 2005’s
Houston Rodeo, Live 8 and on Kenny
Chesney’s
Somewher
e in the SunTour
.
IRIS-Net pr
ovides a complete set of
tools for real-time control and monitoring of an audio system down to the
transducer level. Details such as signal
levels,
component temperature,
impedance, output current and volt-
68
Live Sound International March 2006
Total Audio Solutions
Electro-Voice offers total solutions with NetMax and IRIS-Net
By Ethan Wetzell
The EV NetMax N8000 audio processing and matrix system.
Page 3
March 2006 Live Sound International
69
a
ge, fault conditions and other param-
eters can be monitored in real-time.
A useful feature of IRIS-Net is the
One Button System Check, that allows
a
n operator to see a detailed overview
o
f the operational status of the entire
PA system in less than a minute. IRIS is
able to run an impedance sweep of all
components connected to an amplifier
i
ncluding connectors, cable, crossover
networks and transducers, and then
store a reference measurement of the
system as it exists, in a given configuration, and in a given environment.
This reference is subsequently stored
in the system and can be exported to
external files on a control PC for future
reference. User definable tolerances
can be applied to these references
allowing an operator to customize the
system supervision for their specific
application. It then compares a realtime measurement against these references and is able to alert the operator
at any time a tolerance is exceeded.
The core of IRIS is based on a
drag-and-drop graphic user interface
that is completely customizable by the
programmer. A library of control and
monitoring graphical user interface
(GUI) elements is provided, and
includes items such as faders, LEDs,
meters, buttons and display elements.
The function and behavior of these
elements is completely customizable
for control surface design.
Today, one of the most frustrating
things for an operator
, is to have
access to the tools and features of a
piece of technology, only to find that
they are too complicated to be of any
practical use. As such, IRIS allows the
use of custom graphics and text boxes
in addition to the on-board control
elements. The combination of these
GUI tools allows a programmer to
develop a contr
ol surface that is effective, easy to operate and use for any
customer
, regardless of the user’s tech-
nical knowledge.
Additional customization and system security is available through the
use of GUI layers within an IRIS pr
oj
-
ect. Up to 32 layers can be cr
eated
within a project to allow a variety of
different options in which the system
can be monitored and controlled.
Multiple users can be cr
eated within
IRIS, each with a unique password
and access to specific layers of the
GUI. This allows a programmer to cr
e
ate a control surface that is specific to
the needs of any, and all, operators of
the system. For example, the system
administrator will have access to all
aspects of the DSP and system config
uration, while other layers can be created and password protected for less
technical users, thus allowing them to
access elements such as pr
eset r
ecall,
muting and levels, but pr
event them
from changing critical details such as
crossovers and limiters.
From its inception, IRIS was creat-
ed as an open ar
chitecture platform
that would be modular and expand-
able to accommodate current and
future
pr
oducts
and
systems.
Additional products are added to the
IRIS shell through the creation of .DLL
files, which ar
e then integrated with
the IRIS core. Over time, the products
IRIS will be able to contr
ol will
expand throughout the Telex Pro
Audio family to include Electro-Voice,
Dynacord, Klark Teknik and Midas.
In addition, the IRIS-Net shell is
designed to be used by a variety of
third party hardware to control and
monitor any type of product or subsystem needed in a typical audio system design. Softwar
e developer kits
will also be soon available to allow
An extensive arena system design incorporation NetMax.
IRIS-Net DSP.
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t
he authoring of custom .DLLs for integration into the IRIS shell of these
third party products.
NETMAX – A FLEXIBLE
H
ARDWARE PLATFORM
The latest addition to the IRIS-Net
platform is the NetMax N8000 audio
processing and matrix system. The
n
ame NetMax is taken from
“Networkable Matrix” and, as the
name implies, provides a completely
network enabled solution for audio
distribution, control, processing and
supervision.
The N8000 is a modular system that
allows for a variety of different hardware configurations. The chassis has
four card slots that can be populated
with any combination of eight-channel
input or output modules in analog or
digital format. Cards can be added or
removed without removing the cover
of the unit, thus allowing the addition,
or exchange of cards, without removing the chassis from a rack.
The AI-1 analog input card and
AO-1 analog output card feature balanced Euroblock connections with a
dynamic range of 117 dB and 118 dB
respectively. The DI-1 digital input
module features Euroblock and optical connectors, and supports both
AES/EBU and S/PDIF formats at 32
kHz-192 kHz sampling rates. All
i
nputs are equipped with high quality
sample rate converters and signals are
processed internally with a 48-bit
word length.
A
separate slot is provided for the
o
ptional CM-1 CobraNet card. The
CM-1 card supports up to 32 channels
of simultaneous digital input and output and provides primary and seconda
ry 100Base-TX network ports to support redundant network designs. The
CM-1 interface allows the transmission
and reception of multiple audio chan
nels at 48/96 kHz sample rate with a
16, 20 or 24-bit word length, as well as
clock and control data, on a single
cable using standard Ethernet media
and hardware.
When it comes to processing
horsepower, the N8000 chassis is provided with 300 MIPS (million instructions processed per second) of on
board processing power, with the
option to add a DSP-1 DSP expansion
card to add another 300 MIPS to the
processing engine. Additionally, each
input and output card comes
equipped with 100 MIPS of on board
processing, making for a total of 1,000
MIPS of processing power available in
a fully expanded chassis.
Accompanying the processing
engine is a library of DSP processing
objects available to the designer.
These include multiple EQs and filters,
incorporating notches, shelves, highpass and low-pass, band-pass and allpass. A variety of crossover blocks,
delays up to 2 seconds and multiple
compression and limiting algorithms
are also provided.
EV has also included a special
loudspeaker DSP block that includes
six bands of parametric EQ,
crossover, time alignment, digital trim
and mute, compression and limiting
in a single DSP object. All of these
elements are freely configurable, but
this DSP block also allows the designer to import EV speaker presets from
a library included with IRIS directly
into a single block without needing to
add and then program the DSP elements individually.
Of course, no digital matrix would
be complete without matrix and routing options, and there is a wide variety to choose from, including standard
crosspoint matrices, priority matrices,
mixers and routers. The priority matrix
provides the unique feature of being
able to inter
face with a Dynacord
ProAnnounce paging and background
music system, to allow the control and
activation of the matrix for routing of
paging, alarms, chimes and prerecorded messages from a ProAnnounce
paging console, or DTI2000 telephone
paging interface.
The DSP configuration is per-
for
med using an intuitive drag-anddrop CAD-style interface within IRISNet. DSP objects can be added or
removed, while a DSP resource meter
keeps the designer alerted to the true
amount of processing resources that
ar
e being used. In addition, IRIS and
NetMax use an auto compiler for DSP
configuration, so each time a new
object is added, removed or modified,
the project is compiled and the
r
esource meter is updated. DSP con-
figurations can be uploaded to the PC
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Live Sound International March 2006
NetMax Uncovered – The N8000 modular system loaded with I/O modules.
Page 5
or downloaded to the N8000 via IRIS
over an Ethernet connection.
Additionally, configuration files can
be uploaded or downloaded through
the front panel USB port on the unit,
or over an Ethernet connection using
any web browser. This allows the
designer or technician to quickly back
up or view a configuration file even if
they do not have access to the original IRIS program.
Latency is always a concern with
digital signal processing and within
the N8000, the total latency of a signal
from an analog input to an analog output is 2.2917 milliseconds (ms) including any signal processing. The unit
also uses a fixed-latency design, so
this latency is always the same,
regardless of any signal processing
that is done in the DSP configuration.
Being able to successfully integrate
an audio system into a complete AV
system is becoming incr
easingly important, and the EV engineers kept that in
mind while developing NetMax. The
N8000 therefore comes with a variety
of options for integrations and connectivity. A 10-baseT/100-baseTX Ethernet
port is provided for connection to a
WAN/LAN infrastructure, allowing the
use of existing, or off the shelf,
Ether
net hardware for communication
with IRIS-Net. Additionally, the unit has
an integrated web server to allow com
munication, administration and diagnostics over a LAN/WAN using any
web browser. This allows the user to
per
for
m advanced configuration of the
unit, view err
or logs and verify the
operational status of it and its connected components even without the IRISNet software.
Multiple, general purpose I/O
ports are also provided to allow
external control via contact closures
and simple use panels. This can be
done with either analog or digital
control data, allowing the use of
switches, relays and potentiometers
to perform a wide variety of freely
configurable functions. Outputs allow
the interconnection of external
devices for event and fault monitoring, or to trigger external devices
based on conditions or events within
the NetMax system or manually initiated through IRIS-Net. Dual, freely
configurable RS-232 serial ports are
also provided.
In addition, a user can communicate with the N8000 using an intuitive
ASCII parser that is freely published
by EV. This allows advanced users
another option to perform any task
within the unit, or create complex
communication protocols with thirdparty equipment, including connection to a multimedia contr
ol surface,
such as a Crestron or AMX system.
Again, the RS-232 can also be configured for communication with a
Dynacord ProAnnounce system. This
integration thus creates a unique flexibility for NetMax both pro audio and
commercial applications.
Finally, a Controller Area Network
(CAN) inter
face is provided for communication with EV’s DSP Remote
Contr
ol Precision Series Amplifiers.
CAN is an automation and control networking protocol that is widely seen
in industrial and automation applications, and has been extensively imple
mented in the automotive industry. In
fact, if you buy an automobile built in
the US after 2008, your car will have a
CAN bus on-board for control and
diagnostics, and it might even be in
what you are driving right now. CAN
is a protocol that provides such features as confirmed packet delivery
and collision avoidance, making it a
highly effective protocol for networking. A highly efficient and stable protocol, CAN is able to support up to
100 devices, per network, with a network bus length of 1,000 meters. Best
of all, configuration of a CAN bus is
quick and easy, saving the designer or
technician valuable time and money.
CONCLUSION
At the end of a day, after pouring over
spec sheets and manuals, a system
designer or technician is always faced
with the same questions: What is the
best solution for me? Will this technology still be viable in six months? A
year? Or even more? And finally, is this
going to make the lives of my customers and myself easier?
We believe that ElectroVoice has
developed the IRIS-Net platfor
m as an
integrating foundation to bring all
parts of the audio chain together.
NetMax and IRIS-Net is designed to
deliver a solution that is effective and
relevant to today’s needs and applications, while at the same time, offering
a structure for future development and
expansion. In order to be an effective
and useful tool, a pr
oduct must not
only offer both unique and efficient
solutions, but r
emain open enough to
allow easy integration with the rest of
the audio and visual worlds.
n
Ethan W
etzell
is a senior technical applications special
-
ist for Electro-V
oice with more than 15 years experience in the industry. He has worked in numerous theaters and other live performance venues as an audio
technician and sound designer, as well as recording
studios and post production facilities. For more infor
-
mation on this product, go to www.telex.com.
March 2006 Live Sound International
71
Rear panel view of the N8000 system.
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http://www.midasconsolesr.com
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