Software Control Panel - M-Audio Firewire 410 User Manual

10. Software Control Panel

The FireWire 410's driver software provides a simple yet powerful interface with your computer and Digital Audio Workstation software. The
control panel gives you a multi-channel software mixer with ten virtual outputs (in five stereo pairs) from your audio software. Each output
pair may be routed to any of the FireWire 410's eight analog or two digital outputs. In addition, two software auxiliary sends are available
per stereo pair.
The FireWire 410 control panel is installed in your system when you complete the driver installation procedure. To open the control panel:
In Windows – A tiny "M," which is the M-Audio logo, will by placed in the system tray, generally located at the bottom of your Windows
desktop. Double click this icon to open the control panel.
On the Mac – The FireWire 410 control panel can be found under the Apple menu.
While the FireWire 410 control panel gives you a great deal of control, you may find that the default settings work just fine for your needs.
Depending on how you record, you may never have to make an adjustment to these settings. Just to be safe, though, we'll go through the
control panel in great detail and explain all of the user controls.
N N O O T T E E : : The FireWire 410 control panel can also be opened from an ASIO compliant music program's audio setup page.
Global Menus
The following control panel features are available on all pages of the control panel:
MIXER SETTINGS – The RESET button returns the control panel settings to their default values. These default values can be found in Section
14, Product Specifications.
The LOAD, SAVE and DELETE buttons will open a Windows or Mac file dialog box within your audio application, with the corresponding load,
save or delete function selected.
LEVEL CONTROLLER ASSIGNMENT – This section allows you to choose which group of MIXER or OUTPUT faders the front-panel LEVEL
CONTROLLER rotary encoder is addressing. The Level Controller in the FW410 Control Panel is a software representation of the hardware Level
Controller on the front panel, and will follow the controller assignment made here. The encoder can offer tactile control for the following:
• SW RETURN – The levels of the five virtual stereo pairs returning from your computer's audio workstation software
• OUTPUT – The levels of the FireWire 410's eight analog and two digital outputs
• INPUT – The levels of the FireWire 410's two analog and two digital inputs
• PHONES – The levels of the FireWire 410's headphone outputs. Note that the levels of each individual headphone output is still controlled
via its associated front-panel level control knob.
• AUX SEND – The levels of the L and R virtual AUX SEND buses.
When you first click on one of the group assignments listed above, the CTRL buttons for that entire group assignment will activate. For
example, if you select PHONES, the CTRL button will appear over the PHONES faders in the output channel.
This group assignment can be modified by clicking on an active CTRL button and deselecting the associated channel faders. Changes to the
LEVEL CONTROLLER position will then affect only the selected channel faders. The control panel will remember these modified assignments
when you click to another LEVEL CONTROLLER assignment group, then click back to the group with modified assignments.
MAIN OUTPUT – These two buttons provide immediate access to MUTE or DIM the overall monitor output levels. Pressing the MUTE button
(the button turns red) will cease audio output to all of the FW410's hardware outputs. This is useful when you wish to switch back and forth
between monitoring with headphones and monitoring with your speakers. Pressing the DIM button (the button turns green) will lower the
listening level of the hardware outputs by 20dB. This is useful if, for example, you want to have quick conversation without losing the groove,
then return to your previous listening level.
MULTIPLE UNITS – The control panel also shows a "Unit 1" designation. Future updates of the FireWire 410 software drivers will allow you to
chain multiple units together for increased I/O. Clicking on a unit icon will activate the control panel for that particular unit, displaying its
control panel settings.
Presently only a single FireWire 410 is supported. We suggest you check the M-Audio website for information on FireWire 410 driver updates.
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