Echo Gina3G, Owner'S Manual

Page 1: ...LAYLA 3G GINA 3G Owner s Manual Version 1 0 1 for Windows...

Page 2: ...oduct near sources of water or moisture such as sinks damp basements leaky roofs etc 6 Heat Your Echo product should be situated away from sources of heat such as heaters or radiators 7 Servicing Do n...

Page 3: ...the Echo Service Department Unauthorized service repair or modification will void this warranty To obtain factory service Contact Echo Digital Audio Corporation at 805 684 4593 9AM to 4PM Monday throu...

Page 4: ...Echo Layla Gina PureWave and SuperChannel are trademarks of Echo Digital Audio Corporation ADAT is a registered trademark of Alesis Corporation Tracktion is a trademark of LOUD Technologies Inc Window...

Page 5: ...WAVE DEVICES 21 DIGITAL MODE 23 CONSOLE3 24 RUNNING THE CONSOLE 24 CONSOLE WINDOW 24 BUS SELECT 26 MASTER OUTPUT BUS CONTROL 26 ANALOG INPUTS 27 DIGITAL INPUTS 28 PLAYBACK STRIPS 28 ADJUSTING PLAYBAC...

Page 6: ...TI CLIENT AUDIO FAQ 46 APPENDIX C WINDOWS DRIVER MODEL WDM FAQ 49 APPENDIX D AUDIO SOFTWARE GUIDE 52 APPENDIX E PUREWAVE AND SUPERCHANNEL 54 APPENDIX F SURROUND SOUND 64 APPENDIX G AN INTRODUCTION TO...

Page 7: ...s with collars Layla3G only Two removable rack mount brackets Layla3G only An interface cable Please note The cable included with your Echo3G system is a shielded data cable that has been custom manuf...

Page 8: ...tter and a motherboard with a genuine Intel chipset OR A genuine AMD Athlon processor and a motherboard with an AMD Via or Nvidia chipset An empty PCI slot A minimum 256Mb of RAM 512Mb highly recommen...

Page 9: ...e to install the drivers Disable Windows System Sounds We suggest that you turn off your Windows system sounds prior to installing your Echo product Because most system sounds are sampled at very low...

Page 10: ...ion of this step if necessary 4 Select the PCI slot into which you will install the card You may use any available PCI slot in your computer for the card Unscrew and remove the bracket covering the ex...

Page 11: ...the back panel of your computer and secure the cable using the built in screws located on both sides of the connector Attach the other end of the cable to the connector on the rear of the interface la...

Page 12: ...a corresponding volume knob which monitors analog outputs 1 and 2 Layla3G has six analog line inputs s 3 8 and eight analog line outputs on the rear panel These analog inputs s 3 8 operate with an in...

Page 13: ...put and output connections can be used with balanced or unbalanced cables via the connectors By default the outputs are set to send a 4dBu signal You can switch between 4dBu and 10dBV for each individ...

Page 14: ...is enabled and the gain range of the trim knob is set to range from 0 to 45 dB The guitar line preamp can support both guitar line level signals The input impedance of each guitar line preamp is 102K...

Page 15: ...or is a pair of connectors labeled OPTICAL IN and OUT These connectors are used to transmit digital audio data via an optical signal using special digital optical cables with Toslink connectors You ca...

Page 16: ...andard analog RCA audio cables is not recommended For reliable S PDIF operation 75 ohm coaxial RG59 video cables are recommended MIDI Both Layla3G and Gina3G are equipped with MIDI I O connectors The...

Page 17: ...ord Clock connector The Word Clock I O uses a BNC connector As with the S PDIF I O a shielded 75 ohm RG 59 coaxial video cable should be used BNC connectors have been widely used in the electronics in...

Page 18: ...called Tracktion to the Program menu available from the Start button menu Tracktion comes with an HTML User s Guide that you can open from the Help button inside Tracktion So you ll be able to get up...

Page 19: ...the screen You can learn a lot just by clicking on things and reading the pop up help You can also access a quick start guide and a more detailed help document by clicking on the help button in the b...

Page 20: ...default wave output and that it is hooked up to some speakers or headphones You can check this setting on the right side of the Settings Audio devices screen of Tracktion 6 Now you re ready to play so...

Page 21: ...ware or from the Windows control panel The items you see in the list will depend on which product you installed For playback devices you should see Layla3G Gina3G Layla3G 1 2 Analog Out Gina3G 1 2 Ana...

Page 22: ...al In Layla3G 5 6 Analog In Gina3G 3 4 Digital In Layla3G 7 8 Analog In Gina3G 5 6 Digital In Layla3G 1 2 Digital In Gina3G 7 8 Digital In Layla3G 3 4 Digital In Layla3G 5 6 Digital In Layla3G 7 8 Dig...

Page 23: ...PDIF S PDIF ADAT 1 2 Layla3G 3 4 Digital not used not used ADAT 3 4 Layla3G 5 6 Digital not used not used ADAT 5 6 Layla3G 7 8 Digital not used not used ADAT 7 8 In other words if you want to play or...

Page 24: ...e tray icon a red Echo icon will be placed in your system tray This is called the launcher Double clicking the launcher icon will display a console window for each Echo card in your system If you only...

Page 25: ...e Software that output bus Audio played through the selected channels by an application any analog input and any digital input may be mixed to an output bus Screenshot of Layla3G Console3 main window...

Page 26: ...re is only one digital output bus because the console is in S PDIF mode When the console is in ADAT mode four digital busses will be displayed representing all 8 ADAT channels Master Output Bus Contro...

Page 27: ...a button labeled 4 this button allows you to select the nominal level for this analog input Since the button currently reads 4 it is ready to accept a 4 dBu signal Click the button to change this inp...

Page 28: ...adout below the fader will allow you to numerically enter a fader setting The faders also have gang buttons and their operation is the same as the gang button for the master output bus controls Digita...

Page 29: ...e on the upper right lets you select your input clock source and digital mode If a given synchronization source input clock is detected the indicator next to the input clock button will turn green You...

Page 30: ...applications however it is not appropriate for situations where sample accurate synchronization is required Let s take a brief look at the various synchronization types Word Clock Layla3G only The Wor...

Page 31: ...fiber optic cables do not add noise or interference Layla3G Gina3G can send out or master ADAT clock as well as slave to it If you want Layla3G or Gina3G to slave to an ADAT clock just set the input c...

Page 32: ...input sync The second Layla3G will slave to the first one and your Layla3Gs will now operate in unison No matter how many devices you are synchronizing the concept is essentially the same You are mer...

Page 33: ...he Settings dialog gives you six different tabs to choose from Driver Console Digital GSIF Surround and About Driver Here you can do two things lock the sample rate and tell the driver whether or not...

Page 34: ...n will reduce your audio quality and consume a great deal of CPU power Locking the sample rate forces Windows to only use the hardware at the locked rate In general we recommend you set the sample rat...

Page 35: ...e most recently opened session file with the current settings By default a directory with your product name is created and all sessions for that product are saved to it Sessions are not cross compatib...

Page 36: ...g digital copies of a digital copy The S PDIF output defaults to the Consumer format If you are recording from your Echo hardware into a professional DAT deck CD recorder or Mini Disc recorder the dev...

Page 37: ...ency of GigaStudio in terms of samples Select the value here that provides the best tradeoff between performance and reliability The driver that comes with Layla3G Gina3G fully supports GigaStudio 3 i...

Page 38: ...e Surround Here you can find the controls for surround sound delay management Please refer to Appendix F Surround Sound under the heading Delay Management for more information Windows XP Service Pack...

Page 39: ...ole Hot Keys The console supports several hot key functions F1 F12 Selects the output bus F Fast saves the current session L Loads a session S Saves a session T Opens the settings dialog Ctrl click a...

Page 40: ...out your computer system your audio software and hardware and the problem you are having We do ask you to please read through this manual and the support area of our website before contacting us Also...

Page 41: ...or 1608 For this error you should try to set up the Windows Installer separately and see if that works First install the base Windows Installer To do that download and run one of the following Windows...

Page 42: ...he driver for this hardware was already installed Solution It is possible that during the installation process you moved an existing PCI card from one slot to another Windows keeps track of installed...

Page 43: ...een look at it See if the crash occurred in echo3g sys if it did then it s probably something we need to fix Restart your computer and find the most recent dmp file this is the memory dump It s probab...

Page 44: ...e simply select the one that is not currently checked Now click the OK button and again try recording to your DAT Note Your Echo product never transmits the SCMS bit regardless of which mode is select...

Page 45: ...syncing until you reset your Echo hardware s sample rate to one within spec like 44 1 48 or 96kHZ You can do this by playing a wave file of the appropriate sample rate through your Echo product s out...

Page 46: ...ve application and a DirectSound application all running at the same time It s very flexible Q So what s the catch The catch is this all the software applications using your Echo product at the same t...

Page 47: ...follow if I want to use multiple audio applications at the same time Set all your applications to the same sample rate You can also use the sample rate lock feature in the Console to help with this T...

Page 48: ...downside to all this The main downside is that your computer may very well have a hard time keeping up If you fire up three different audio apps at once your computer is probably going to struggle unl...

Page 49: ...of WDM you can just write one driver that can run on all the different Windows platforms that support all the different audio APIs You should care about WDM and our hardware if you meet any of the fo...

Page 50: ...audio drivers only support 24 bit audio if the application is using Microsoft s new extensible wave format Many existing apps do not support this format This only affects programs that use the wave M...

Page 51: ...un it Start All Programs Accessories Entertainment Volume control you should see a volume slider in the Line out section This is the same as the Playback slider in the Echo console Adjusting the Wave...

Page 52: ...a Setup program Click the Advanced button select Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth and unclick the checkbox to set it as Inactive Run Cubase again If your outputs still don t show up you may have some o...

Page 53: ...eel On the Driver Profiles tab uncheck Access Driver In Mono Be sure to set Stream 16 bit data as to 32 bit PCM left justified You may get a message that your audio devices are not compatible with the...

Page 54: ...at gives your audio applications a more direct connection to your Echo hardware allowing your audio data to pass through unmodified Here s a diagram to illustrate the difference WDM PureWave Microsoft...

Page 55: ...machine Note that this only applies to software that uses the wave MME API to communicate with audio hardware Applications that use other APIs such as ASIO or GSIF do not benefit from PureWave as they...

Page 56: ...s Software Best mode Acid 3 PureWave Acid 4 or higher PureWave or ASIO Cakewalk Pro Audio PureWave Cool Edit PureWave Cubase ASIO eSkimmer PureWave GigaStudio GSIF Kontakt ASIO or PureWave Logic Audio...

Page 57: ...M This list is far from comprehensive As a general rule if your professional audio software offers ASIO or WDM Direct KS kernel streaming modes then you should use those If it only offers basic WDM mo...

Page 58: ...Analog Out Layla3G 5 6 Analog Out Layla3G 7 8 Analog Out Layla3G 1 2 Digital Out Layla3G 3 4 Digital Out Layla3G 5 6 Digital Out Layla3G 7 8 Digital Out As you can see there is one wave device for eac...

Page 59: ...vices SONAR works more efficiently with a multichannel wave device than with multiple stereo wave devices We recommend that you decide how many output and input channels you want to use from SONAR and...

Page 60: ...audio hardware is presented to Windows applications To access the Wave device configuration window open the console click on the Settings button select the Driver tab and then click on the Advanced b...

Page 61: ...together Click on it again the two rows are now disconnected You can use the link buttons to build your desired set of Super Channel wave devices Width indicator This just shows you how many channels...

Page 62: ...s 2000 and XP you will be asked if you want to Update now or Wait until the computer restarts If you choose to Update now your computer will be unresponsive for a period of time after clicking OK whil...

Page 63: ...restart your computer and everything will work properly For Windows Me you will need to reboot for your changes to take effect Known issues In some cases only the first six channels of a device set to...

Page 64: ...oft decodes those 8 channels 1 front left 2 front right 3 center front 4 sub 5 rear left 6 rear right 7 center left 8 center right Both Layla3G and Gina3G allow you to decide how many channels you are...

Page 65: ...to use the SuperChannel feature please refer to Appendix E PureWave and SuperChannel Here we ve used SuperChannel to create an 8 channel analog output audio device for playback of a 7 1 surround mix...

Page 66: ...select your newly created SuperChannel audio device from the Sound playback Default device dropdown box In this example our SuperChannel device is called Layla3G 1 8 Analog Out Click the Apply button...

Page 67: ...he speaker configuration you ll be using Here we ve selected 7 1 surround sound speakers from the Speaker setup dropdown box Click the Apply button and then click OK You re all done Now all you have t...

Page 68: ...r DVD player software as well For this example we will use Intervideo s WinDVD After you ve followed the directions above Open WinDVD Select Properties by right clicking in the WinDVD playback window...

Page 69: ...0 ms means no delay At sea level sound travels at about 1 foot per millisecond ms so if your speakers are up to 250 feet away from each other then we ve got you covered Keep in mind that these delay...

Page 70: ...d with bit for bit accuracy In order to use this feature follow these steps Select S PDIF RCA or Optical digital mode in the Echo console Select the digital output of your Echo product in the Windows...

Page 71: ...he input that is read This number is called a sample The number of samples taken per second is called the sample rate On playback the process happens in reverse The series of numbers is played back th...

Page 72: ...ming signal can be represented by any of over 16 million possible values The output DACs are also 24 bit again over 16 million values are possible The S PDIF inputs and outputs also support signals wi...

Page 73: ...able of storing large amounts of data though the performance of hard drives can vary substantially The speed and size of your hard drive will be a major determining factor in how many tracks of audio...

Page 74: ...Bu is identical to a level of 0dBm Digital signals after they are recorded no longer directly represent any physical quantity such as voltage or power and 0dB is generally used to represent a full sca...

Page 75: ...cisely equal the noise will completely cancel out In the real world this is not the case and some of the common mode noise will still make it through although at a much reduced level How well an input...

Page 76: ...high dynamic range Theoretically a 24 bit system has a dynamic range of 144dB and a 16 bit system has a dynamic range of 96dB Two questions immediately come to mind 1 Why does my Echo product only hav...

Page 77: ...avoid clipping The only way that 96dB would be adequate is if all music were recorded so that the peaks were just under full scale and no compressing or amplification was going to be applied after re...

Page 78: ...ghted Input Impedance 1 5Kohms Gain Adjustment 10 to 58dB Maximum Input Level at Minimum Gain 9dBu Guitar Line Input Level balanced TRS Dynamic Range 110dB A weighted Input Impedance 102Kohms Gain Adj...

Page 79: ...ed analog inputs with precision 24 bit 128x oversampling analog to digital converters Eight balanced analog outputs with high performance 24 bit 128x oversampling digital to analog converters S PDIF d...

Page 80: ...pedance 1 5Kohms Gain Adjustment 10 to 58dB Maximum Input Level at Minimum Gain 9dBu Guitar Line Input Level balanced TRS Dynamic Range 110dB A weighted Input Impedance 102Kohms Gain Adjustment 0 to 4...

Page 81: ...ersampling digital to analog converters S PDIF digital I O with up to 24 bit resolution ADAT optical digital I O Trim control and level meter for analog inputs Headphone output with volume control On...

Page 82: ...put level meters 14 input trims 14 installation 9 interface cable 7 M microphone preamp 14 MIDI 16 MIDI time code 16 MTC 16 multi client audio 46 O optical 15 P PCI card installation 10 phantom power...

Page 83: ...Index 83 Index T technical support 40 troubleshooting guide 41 TRS 76 U unbalanced 75 W WDM 49 website 40 Word clock 17 30...