Hapi DA volume control - stereo pair instead of 8 channels?

[archive]

It would be super great if a HAPI firmware update would add the ability to control the volume of just a stereo pair of the DA converters with the front panel rotary knob, rather than the whole bank of 8 channels.

Any plans to add this feature?

It would be a real benefit to those who use one pair of HAPI DA's to feed monitors while also running an analog DA - AD loop, in typical mastering style. Units from Lynx, Prism, Apogee, and others all do this. Its a shame to have to put the HAPI DA's through another stage for volume control, because they sound great feeding the speakers directly.

[mpdonahue]

This may not be the answer you are looking for, but couldn't you just use the monitor panel in Pyramix?
One of the things I have been asking for since day one is to have the volume control of the Hapi be able to control the monitor panel of Pyramix.... and the monitor panel of Pyramix control the headphone gain in Hapi/Horus. (Like the mic preamp gains in the mixer....)
All the best,
-mark

[archive]

This may not be the answer you are looking for, but couldn't you just use the monitor panel in Pyramix?

Hi Mark, thanks for chiming in. I actually do already use the monitor panel for source switching, soloing, and mono-ing, but for speaker volume control it has some quirks that make it a little scary, in my opinion. At least in v9, where I am for now.

For example, if you try to hit DIM and accidentally miss just to the right, the speaker volume jumps to full scale. Yikes!

It's also hard to dial in precise attenuation amounts on the knob, the text entry for attenuation amount is broken, limited range of the reference volume settings, can't set max volume to -tive amounts, and so on. Maybe v11 improves on some of these things?

Do you use the monitor panel for speaker level control?

[mpdonahue]

I do use the monitor panel, but I have the mute and dim routed to keys on my keyboard. (I've also mapped them with an Xkey controller, along with talkback).
I set the maximum and reference levels in the settings panel, so I don't get any "surprises". I don't use the control room volume much, it's pretty much set it and forget it for me... I mostly just the headphone volume for checking noises and such.
All the best,
-mark

[archive]

Coming back to this topic, for the last few weeks I've been experimenting with using the Pyramix monitor panel for speaker volume control exclusively, with my hardware monitor controller out of the path.

So signal path is just HAPI DA > ATC150s. Sounds great, and I've mapped mute / dim / mono / source switching / volume + and - to the keyboard, which is working well.

But yesterday my worst fears were realized when suddenly out of nowhere I was blasted with full scale noise through the speakers. The PMX monitor panel was muted at the time, so it seemed to be originating at the HAPI outputs themselves.

I jumped up and killed the ATC amps before any damage was done, luckily. Upon inspection, the HAPI was showing two error codes:

Ethernet input: audio buffer to small
Ethernet input: audio packet still pending

First of all, what the heck HAPI? If there is going to be an error with results this drastic, I would expect some sort of auto-mute on the HAPI to kick in immediately.

And secondly, any thoughts on what those error codes mean and what to do to prevent it again in the future?

Best,

- J.

[brookbphx]

This had the audio buffer with full scale noise problem happen to me as well - several times in fact. I agree with Mark and strongly encourage Merging to update the firmware to auto-mute outputs when certain errors occur - especially those that cause loud noise output that could damage speakers. Perhaps an auto-error-recovery feature would be good as well. If incoming stream overruns or underruns FIFOs (or similar error), reset the channel/Ravenna link and continue operation with only a short-term glitch/dropout of audio rather than ongoing noise.

I could also see an auto-mute/attenuate feature such that if average levels exceeded X dB for more than Y seconds, the outputs would automatically mute or attenuate. This could work for saving ears and speakers even when there is no Ravenna networking error, but the volume went way up due to user error (e.g. accidentally turn DAW output gain up to max).

Brook