Axia Element - What Can You Do with a VMIX; GPIO Control of Your VMIX; Pathfinderpc Assisted VMIX

6: Virtual Mixer • 99
©2008 Axia Audio — Rev. 3.0
the submix.
For example, if you assign the GPIO channel
number to a GPIO port of the Element or a GPIO
node, you will receive status when a source is
on, and you can likewise provide a command to
turn a source on. (Note that this is not a latching
command).
Remember, the Logic Port ID is only functional
if Element is controlling VMIX — if VMIX is being
controlled by the StudioEngine, there is no Logic
Port functionality.
Finally, at the end of each Mixer section is an Ap-
ply button. Click this when you’re done making
changes to save the parameters you’ve set.
What can you do with a VMIX?
Now that you know how to set up and enable VMIX,
what might you do with it? Here are some examples.
A mix of sources to monitor
Some facilities may need to monitor one or more
sources in addition to program audio, like the “squawk
channel” some satellite feed providers use to relay an-
nouncements. If you wanted to monitor this “squawk”
audio on your Preview speaker without taking up a fader
assignment, you could create a mix of the “squawk”
source and the Preview mix from the engine. The Sub-
mix Out would be the audio source that you would route
to the Preview speaker. This example is possible with
both StudioEngine and Element control of VMIX.
Note: In this example, the “squawk” audio
would not be muted if the CR Mic were turned
on, as a normal Preview channel would be.
GPIO control of your VMIX
Imagine that you have a night jock that should moni-
tor all four radio stations in your cluster. To help make
sure this actually happens, you could send all four off-
air signals as sources into a VMIX and take the output
of its submix to a monitor. A User Module or external
button wired to a GPIO port could provide a “press and
hold” function to allow the jock to monitor the sources
momentarily. This example is only possible with Element
Control of VMIX.
»
PathnderPC assisted VMIX
PathfinderPC server can be used to “control” VMIX.
How? Pathfinder can receive commands from external
devices like satellites, button panels, or automation sys-
tems and react to them by changing the state of VMIX
ON/OFF, Gain, Time Up, and/or Time Down fields.
This provides many different possibilities for facility
automation, Intercom functions, or whatever else you
might imagine. For example, the combo of PathfinderPC
and VMIX could duplicate the function provided by oth-
er products that are controlling audio switching in many
radio facilities. Refer to documentation on PathfinderPC
for further information. This example is possible in both
Engine or Element control of VMIX.
About PathnderPC and VMIX: There are sev-
eral ways that PathnderPC can control VMIX.
First, VMIX funxtions can be used both as quali-
ers and actions in stack events. This means
that a designer can select GPIO triggers, time
based events, user button pushes, serial port
commands, and other options and combinations
of options to decide when to make changes to
any fader in a VMIXER. The user can make a
gain change based on these events, turn a chan-
nel off or on, and or adjust the fade times, giv-
ing complete control over the VMIXer based on
any of the stacking events qualiers.
Second, Pathnder provides an ACU protocol
transator which uses the VMIX system to mimic
a Sine Systems ACU to a Prophet Automation
System. In this way, a Prophet system can con-
trol the mixing capabilities of VMIX just as if
they were ACU channels. In this scenario, each
VMIX submixer becomes one 5 Channel ACU.
GPIO hardware devices can also be mapped to
the Channels within Pathnder and it will allow
those triggers to pass through to Prophet if the
associated audio channels are turned on just
like the ACU. The Pathnder suite also includes
a Bridge application that may be run on the
Prophet system to convert the serial data to TCP,
which can then be passed to multiple “clustered”
Pathnder servers for redundancy.
Finally, Pathnder’s Sofware Authority protocol
translator includes commands to control any
VMIXer present on Element consoles in the sys-
tem; any machine that can send user dened se-
rial or TCP commands can also control and read
VMIX functions through Pathnder.
Using these techniques VMIX can be used as a
fully automated virtual mixer in the background
of each Element. (See the PathnderPC manual
for the specic details on conguring Pathnder
with VMIX.)