Related Manuals for Wheatstone Corporation FM-4
Summary of Contents for Wheatstone Corporation FM-4
- Page 1 FM-4 Digital Audio Processor Technical Manual 600 Industrial Drive, New Bern, North Carolina, USA 28562...
- Page 2 ORSIS U lt r a - H i g H r e s o l U t i o n P r o c e s s i n g FM-4 Digital Audio Processor Technical Manual ©2010 Wheatstone Corporation 600 Industrial Drive...
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Page 3: Table Of Contents
A Note About Input Levels Network Version Access Introducing Vorsis GUI Lite! Installing the GUI Lite Software Configuring the FM-4 TCP/IP Address Device Configuration – Connecting to the FM-4 Setting the Input Audio Levels Setting Output Audio Levels Taking Presets... - Page 4 LF/Warm EQ GUI Lite Caveats The Other Two Pages of GUI Lite… I/O Settings Change With Preset Takes Resolving FM-4 Network to GUI Connectivity Issues Unlocking the Front Panel Contacting Wheatstone Technical Support FM-4 GUI Pro – What Is It? Appendix General Purpose Input –...
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Page 5: About Wheatstone
About Wheatstone Wheatstone Corporate Headquarters New Bern, North Carolina USA Wheatstone Corporation is the world-leader in extreme-reliability broadcast audio equipment. Its product lines include audio mixing consoles for the radio and television broadcast industries, audio control surfaces and digital audio networks, and our award winning line of Vorsis digital audio processors. -
Page 6: The History Of Wheatstone Audio Processors
The History of Wheatstone Audio Processors Introduced in 2005, the Vorsis product line evolved from Wheatstone’s return to its original roots in audio processing. Having designed and integrated analog and then later, complex digital audio processing, into their radio and television consoles and control surfaces, Wheatstone was perfectly poised to address the challenges of combining very high audio quality with competitive on air loudness. -
Page 7: Digital Audio Processor For Fm
This flexibility means that if you can think of the on-air sound you want your station to have, the FM-4’s DSP audio processing algorithms and its clever user interface can most likely create it for you. - Page 8 Note that for those users with experience adjusting audio processing, a professional version of the FM-4’s GUI (“FM-4 GUI Pro”) is available at no cost by registering at www.wheatstone-processing.com.
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Page 9: Feature Highlights
Feature Highlights - Four band time-aligned crossover - Four band AGC/Compressor with adjustable inter-band coupling. - Four band limiter © - Exclusive Vorsis Bass Management System (VBMS - FM peak control via oversampled lookahead limiter or oversampled distortion masked clipper. - Four band full parametric equalizer. -
Page 10: Electrical Requirements
Humidity: 0% to 95% RH, non-condensing. Altitude: 7500 feet AMSL maximum. Approvals and Compliance CE and FCC Class A Device. European Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) compliant. * FM-4 GUI Pro is available for download after registering the FM-4 product at www.wheatstone-processing.com. -
Page 11: Processing Structure
- Lab grade DSP-based digital stereo generator; - Oversampled composite clipper. The overall signal flow of the FM-4 is shown in the following block diagram. FM-4 Block Diagram – Signal Flow The FM-4 is equipped with a flexible headphone routing scheme to allow monitoring of audio in various parts of the signal path. -
Page 12: Audio Inputs
An AES3 digital input applied to the FM-4 determines the FM-4’s AES3 output sample rate, even if the digital input is not being used. In other words, the FM-4’s digital input also serves as a sync input for the digital output. -
Page 13: Rack Mounting
Aggressive AC input filtering is utilized at the AC input of the FM-4, however it is always advisable to use external surge protection and/or an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), especially where AC power quality can be questionable such as at a remote transmitter site. -
Page 14: Where To Install The
FM-4’s built-in stereo encoder which will always allow more precise control of modulation peaks. If the FM-4 must be located at the studio and a composite or digital STL is used to send the program material to the transmitter there are several issues that need... -
Page 15: User Presets
User Presets The FM-4 comes with a variety of factory presets and it can hold a total of 80 presets in its onboard memory. Our factory pre-sets can be readjusted to taste and then saved under new names on the FM-4, in order to create your own unique and individual sound. -
Page 16: Installation And Setup Using The Front Panel
Installation and Setup Using the Front Panel The FM-4 is equipped with a front panel menu navigation feature that permits field installation and configuration without needing a computer. The menu is navigated by the rotary encoder knob and illuminated “V” button. The items in the list are arranged in tree form in order to make navigation simple and logical. -
Page 17: Presets
FM-4 to ensure they are not spending any significant time at levels of -12dBFS and above. GUI Lite has a “Ref” indicator on... -
Page 18: Network
OLD: NEW: The Access menu item allows the front panel security features of the FM-4 to be customized. A front panel password may restrict access to the front panel controls, and can be set or changed when necessary to keep curious fingers out of the adjustments. -
Page 19: Introducing Vorsis Gui Lite
Introducing ( drum roll please ) … Vorsis GUI Lite! Vorsis GUI Lite for the FM-4 is our standard simplified user interface whose under-the-hood intelligence distills the FM-4’s hundreds of processing adjustments down to just six easy to use controls. Finding the perfect sound has never been quicker. - Page 20 - The second page of GUI Lite is the “Stereo Generator” page which hosts the Input and Output Calibrations, the selector for the Headphone monitor source and the Input Audio Source selector. - The third and last page of GUI Lite is the “Configuration” page, hosting controls for selecting the processor mode, configuring the GUI to communicate with the host Vorsis audio processor and programming the Scheduler.
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Page 21: Installing The Gui Lite Software
• Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the GUI installation. Configuring the FM-4 TCP/IP Address* The FM-4 is shipped from the factory with a default IP network address of 192.168.1.194. If this address will work on your network there is no need to change the FM-4’s default IP address. -
Page 22: Device Configuration - Connecting To The
4. Next, and if you wish (this is optional), enter a pet name for your FM-4 (call letters of your station, the FM-4’s physical location, etc). 5. Then, enter the IP address that you wish this FM-4 to have, noting that its address must be unique if the FM-4 will be communicating over a network with other devices attached to it. - Page 23 FM-4. Edit Device Dialog 4. Next, enter the IP address that you configured the FM-4 for in the previous steps. It is recommended that any existing data in the IP Address box be deleted and new IP address entered from scratch, using the period key to jump forward to the next part of the IP address.
- Page 24 If the GUI cannot connect and be Online to the FM-4, the configuration of the GUI’s networking parameters, those of the FM-4, and sometimes even those of the interconnecting network should be carefully examined to ensure that the destination TCP/IP address assigned to the FM-4, GUI Lite, and the host PC’s network configuration conforms to the expected networking parameters for the host network.
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Page 25: Setting The Input Audio Levels
The Digital Output may be operated either pre-emphasized or de- emphasized. In the absence of a digital input to the FM-4, its default digital output sample rate is 48kHz. If the output sample rate needs to be something other than 48kHz,... -
Page 26: Taking Presets
FM-4 will lock its output to that rate (even if the digital audio input is not selected as the on air source! The FM-4’s digital audio input is also the digital sync input). For the Composite output associated with the rear panel BNC connector, connect the FM-4 to the MPX or composite input connector (usually a BNC connector like the one on the back of the STL or exciter). -
Page 27: Tuning Audio Processing - An Introduction
Tuning Audio Processing – an Introduction By installing and tuning audio processors in broadcast facilities all over the world we’ve learned a couple of things that seem to be consistently true across all of those facilities. Since it seems like now is the perfect time to do it we’d like to share a few of those with you now: No one at a radio station listens No one in the station's audience... -
Page 28: Six Controls! Why Not Just One
GUI Lite with just one factory preset – the number is 1,771,561. If we take into account the FM-4’s two dozen or so factory presets, we can multiply the above result by 24 to arrive at the new total number of possible sound variations. -
Page 29: How Do The Tweakers Work
There are only six tweakers associated with adjusting the sound of FM-4 factory presets. Four of them are assigned to tuning the processing “texture” while the remaining two are there to tweak “equalization”. As mentioned before, each tweaker has eleven positions numbered 0 through 10. - Page 30 GUI Lite Slider Var 3 Var 7 First, notice the 0 to 10 GUI Lite control on the left and the eight vertical bars to its right, labeled Var 1 through Var 8. Those eight vertical bars represent the processing variables that will be altered by moving the GUI Lite slider up and down.
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Page 31: The Six Gui Lite "Tweakers
Likewise, lower settings leave less gain available to pull up the softer passages in programming. Note: the FM-4 GUI indicates up to 30dB of AGC/Compressor gain reduction while the front panel is limited to 22dB. Because there is over 48dB of... -
Page 32: Density
“Density” The “Density” tweaker operates just like a power control. Higher settings increase both short-term density and the average audio level, making the audio not only louder, but also fuller. Some formats desire a denser sound in order to create a certain emotional feel for their on-air presentation, and this is the control that does it. -
Page 33: Mf/Hf Eq
“MF/HF EQ” This tweaker modifies the mid and high frequency equalization balance to be different from that of our factory presets. Because of this the equalization tweakers in GUI Lite have been designed to operate completely differently from how the four texture tweakers work. While the texture tweakers work by applying offsets to the settings recalled by factory presets, the EQ controls apply several different fixed values of frequency, Q (bandwidth) and equalization boost or cut. -
Page 34: Lf/Warm Eq
“LF/Warm EQ” Rather than applying a boost and cut as the MF/HF controls do, we designed this tweaker to allow users to choose between two completely different styles of bass equalization. In the counterclockwise direction the tweaker provides increasingly deep bass with a small reduction of energy near 180-200Hz (one method to enhance bass in an automobile listening environment without exaggerating the inevitable interior resonances). -
Page 35: Gui Lite Caveats
FM-4’s processing controls. What follows is an overview of what facts to keep in mind about how GUI Lite interacts with both the FM-4 and the Pro version of the GUI. 1. GUI Lite can only modify virgin factory presets. - Page 36 Understanding the differences between Factory and Legacy presets, and how they work with GUI Lite. - Factory presets are those created by the Factory using specialized tools. - Legacy Presets are presets that are created and saved by a customer using either the full control program, GUI Pro, or GUI Lite.
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Page 37: The Other Two Pages Of Gui Lite
The ability to make simplified adjustments to Factory presets in order to put the FM-4 in service is nice, but a way to configure settings such as the Input Source and Output Levels is also needed and that’s where the other two pages of GUI Lite come in. - Page 38 FM-4 GUI Lite ‘Stereo Generator’ Page Along with Stereo Generator controls are others for selecting the Analog or AES Digital input, adjusting the gains of the Composite and Digital outputs, and selecting the audio source for the headphone output. Note that for convenience the headphone volume control appears on all pages of GUI Lite, and the headphone source selector is present on both the Stereo Generator and Configuration pages.
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Page 39: I/O Settings Change With Preset Takes
Sometimes it’s useful to have a preset change some setting of the input or output when it is recalled. FM-4 has the capability to do this. When a preset is saved, that preset is a snapshot of every setting in the FM-4, including the selected audio input source, the input gain settings, current output level settings, etc. - Page 40 Factory presets. This means that the Factory presets have the digital audio input selected and if your station is using the FM-4’s analog inputs and a Factory preset is taken while the “I/O Settings Change with Preset Takes”...
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Page 41: Resolving Fm-4 Network To Gui Connectivity Issues
What this all means is that the FM-4 expects to be able to use TCP port 55987 and UDP ports in the range of 60001 to 60010 on the portion of the network connecting the FM-4 and the host PC running the GUI. -
Page 42: Unlocking The Front Panel
Unlocking the Front Panel There is no factory default passcode for the FM-4 – it leaves our factory in an unlocked condition. To unlock the front panel after it has been locked with a passcode: • Scroll through the front panel menu until the word ‘Access’ is displayed. -
Page 43: Contacting Wheatstone Technical Support
We do value your input – and we take it seriously! FM-4 GUI Pro – What is it? Do I need it? How do I obtain it? The full GUI, or GUI Pro, is widely acclaimed by our end users for its completely unrestricted access to all of our processing controls and its quantity and quality of visual feedback provided to the user. -
Page 44: Appendix
Pin 5 - GPI 8 In Pin 1 - GPI COMMON Each of the GPI inputs of the FM-4 is current limited by an internal 475 ohm resistance. The maximum rated forward current of the GPI input is 50mA with its...
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