AudioFuse 16Rig - New Features

All of AudioFuse 16Rig's Immersive Monitoring features are accessible via the new Immersive Screen, accessed by clicking the Immersive (cube) icon on the Upper Toolbar:

This brings up the Immersive Screen, as shown here:

Starting at top left, the first control is a button to turn Immersive Monitoring On/Off.

• When On, all of the features and settings on this Screen become active.
• When Off, AudioFuse 16Rig returns to its conventional monitor controls as described in the Outputs section of the manual. This screen is grayed out.

Next are the Monitor Level and Groups controls, which handle listening levels, muting and soloing.

• The Monitor Level knob displays the current overall monitor level. A blue ring around the knob shows its current level, from –90 dB (muted) to 0 dB.

• The Mute and Dim buttons are joined by a Ref button, which quickly toggles the Monitor Level to a preset reference level of your choice. You can set this level in the Audio Settings tab of the Settings pop-up.
• The Groups buttons allow muting and soloing of the various types of channels used in the current monitor configuration: Fronts, Left/Right, Center, Surrounds, Heights, and LFE. When working with surround and immersive formats such as Dolby Atmos, it's very handy to be able to listen to the various elements of the sound field in isolation.

These controls enable/disable and adjust several critical functions of a multichannel mix.

• Bass Management (BM) routes lower frequencies of certain channels away from speakers not designed to handle them and into the subwoofer (LFE/SUB). For example, this lets the small Left/Right speakers in a 2.1 desktop monitoring system focus on reproducing high frequencies, routing lower frequencies to a subwoofer. This section allows Bass Management to be toggled on/off, and to trim the level of the BM Mix being sent to the LFE channel via the BM Mix To Sub knob.
• LFE stands for Low-Frequency Effects. It's the name for the channel of a multichannel mix that is devoted to low-frequency sounds in a video soundtrack such as explosions and earthquakes. There's a button to turn on a +10 dB LFE boost, in case it's needed by your encoding software or playback system, and to adjust the Cutoff for which sounds are too high-frequency to be directed to LFE. This knob is actually a 6-position selector: Off, and 80 to 130 Hz in 10 Hz increments.

(These two settings are often handled by your encoding software or the subwoofer itself, but in case they aren't, we give you the option to control them here.)

• A/V Sync is a global delay setting so that an entire mix can quickly be time- delayed to line up with video as it appears on a screen during production. There's an On/Off button and an Add Delay knob with a range of 0 to 20 ms.

Each of the 16 Channels available for Immersive Monitoring has the same set of controls.
These are:

• Channel Name: click to rename each channel for your own setup.
• Speaker Type: A pop-up menu allows you to choose the type of speaker in the monitor setup. While this distinction doesn't change the functionality of a channel in most cases, it does assign channels to appropriate mute/solo groups.

• Destination lets you select the physical output of the AudioFuse 16Rig that will play the audio on the channel. You can choose any line-level analog output or ADAT output on the interface, as shown in these pop-up menus:

• Source lets you select where the channel audio will be coming from. This is a set of nested pop-up menus, first to choose a type of input and then a specific channel.

• Trim lets you adjust the level of a specific channel with respect to other channels in the mix, so you can level-match the speakers in your monitoring system. The knob has a range of ±6 dB.
• Delay lets you add delay to a channel to help time-align it with other channels in the mix. This is a drag-to-scroll number that is displayed in either milliseconds of delay (ms) or meters of distance (m). Click the icon to choose ms or m. The control range is 0 to 20 ms, or 0 to 6.85 m.

• Test plays a pink noise signal over the selected channel so you can audition and verify signal routings, etc.

• BASS MGMT controls the Bass Management settings for that channel. The knob sets the crossover frequency below which the audio is routed to the LFE/SUB channel, and the slope of the filter that rolls off the bass frequencies (either 12 or 24 dB/octave).

The Loopback section of the Overview Screen now includes a compact set of meters and basic controls for Immersive Monitoring:

• A set of level meters for up to 16 channels
• Mute and Solo buttons for all channel groups
• Monitor Level knob
• Buttons for Mute, Dim, Ref and BM (Bass Management on/off)

This allows you to quickly work with the main functions of the Immersive Monitoring system without having to leave the Overview Screen. The Immersive Screen is used to configure your monitor system, and once your setup is saved, it will only be used for system adjustments.

The Audio Settings menu now has settings for these new features, as well as a few entirely new ones.

These changes are all in the center column (MONITORING). They include:

• An expanded pop-up menu for Monitoring Button Mode. You can now set the Monitoring Button (with the speaker icon) on the AudioFuse 16Rig's front panel to perform the following functions, indicated by a specific color for the icon's LED backlight:
• Mono (green)
• Dim (yellow)
• All Speakers (dark blue)
• Reference Level (purple - new)
• Bass Management (light blue -new)
• Monitor Knob Lock, which deactivates the front-panel MONITOR knob, although you can still control levels via AudioFuse Control Center. This feature is useful for users with external hardware monitor controllers, who don't want the interface's output levels to change by accident. (It's also handy to prevent accidental level adjustments by that overeager producer or hearing-damaged client messing around in your studio.)
• Reference Level setting, from –90 to 0 dB. This is a preferred listening level that you can instantly return to with one click. It's useful for film/TV mixers that need to work at calibrated loudness levels.
• Mute Button Mode: This allows you to determine what the front panel MUTE button does. There are two options:
• Monitoring Only (default): the MUTE button turns off all signals routed to any analog or ADAT outputs that are specified as Channel Destinations in the Immersive Monitoring system (when it's on), or to the Monitor 1/2 outputs (when it's off). All other signal routings, e.g. sends to outboard effects, remain active.
• All Outputs: every analog and ADAT output is muted, regardless of where it is routed. > In all cases, the PHONES output always remains active.
• Safety Mute, a new feature that automatically mutes the outputs when you change a preset, or when you turn off the Immersive Monitor System. This is important because in stereo mode, the MONITOR knob only controls the main stereo outputs, so there is no longer any volume control for immersive speakers. Safety Mute is On by default, but can be switched off if you are confident about handling levels in your immersive speaker system without this auto-mute feature.

While the functions of the Routing Matrix Screen haven't changed, Version 2.0 has added a couple of worthwhile features:

• As shown above, the CUE icon at the top of its column in the Routing Matrix has been turned into a button. You can now simply click on it to quickly turn the Cue mix on and off.
• The CUE L/R signals can now be routed to more than one destination, just like any other signal.

Two MIDI Configuration options on the MIDI Screen have been expanded:

• The Mixer Control pop-up now adds a USB DEVICE option, so you can control the AudioFuse 16Rig's Main Mixer from your DAW.
• Clock Output now has a menu of choices rather than simply offering 24 PPQN. The choice of 4, 24, or 48 PPQN, or Korg sync, gives you the same options found on many Arturia devices.

The Carousel of menu items on the AudioFuse 16Rig hardware display now has an Immersive menu, indicated by a Cube icon.Two MIDI Configuration options on the MIDI Screen have been expanded:

There are two pages to the Immersive section: one with a set of level meters and buttons for Mute, Dim, Ref, and BM, and one with a set of Group Mute and Solo buttons.

When the Immersive Monitoring system is On, the front-panel MONITOR knob controls Immersive Volume.

You'll find other nice extras as you use AudioFuse 16Rig with Version 2:

- There are now pop- up screens that appear momentarily on the front panel when certain features are accessed (like changing the volume of the MONITOR or PHONES)

- You can specify in Preferences whether your unit stays off or auto-restarts after a power cut

- The shutdown process is a bit quicker