With stereoscope you can vastly improve your mixing experience by controlling your digital mixer remotely with mobile devices. It acts as a server that translates between simple OSC messages and mixer specific protocols. Stereoscope runs on a Mac or Windows PC (Linux version in development) and connects to the client via WIFI. The mixer is connected to the host via Ethernet, USB or MIDI-Cable.
This concept has several advantages:
Reliability
This is the most important thing in a production environment. Customers reported usages of seven hours without problems. Stable versions are supported with recent bugfixes and we employ continuous integration and test strategies. The Stereoscope engine parses the messages and classifies them in terms of importance and age (with millisecond resolution) according to previous messages. This ensures a smooth realtime behaviour even under heavy loads. You can resync a client at any time, in case you loose contact to the wifi accesspoint. Additionally, Stereoscope has a 'Snap Faders'-Feature that ignores value changes from controls that are out of sync until the value is 'picked up' by the user. This vastly reduces the chance to make unwanted level changes.
Flexibility
By its modular design, Stereoscope is not limited to a specific mixer, vendor or even protocol. Stereoscope currently supports 10 different mixer models from three vendors and there are more to come. In Stereoscope 2.x you can even control several mixers at a time with a virtually unlimited amount of client devices. The software is based on Java technology which means that it is not limited to a specific hardware or operating system. Currently there are stable versions for OSX and Windows, with Stereoscope 2.x an additional Linux version will be available.
Customization
Stereoscope comes with default layouts for TouchOSC, which has a powerful and free frontend editor. Together with our well documented, OSC based message specification you can build your own user interfaces that exactly fit your needs. Because we rely on an open standard with a published parameter namespace you are not restricted to TouchOSC, but can also use other surfaces like Lemur or build your own client, for example in Ableton.
- Restrict some clients to certain parameters with a tailor-made frontend.
- Integrate media automation systems or build your whole media infrastructure upon an open protocol
- Customize the value range of controls
- Build a frontend that perfectly suits your needs. Maybe you are tired of always navigating to that menu hidden deep in your mixer.
Scalability
Stereoscope currently has two versions: The older 1.7 is a reliable server that supports one client connection at a time. When you want newer features and support for multiple clients at the same time, you can simply upgrade to the 2.x development line. This is the version we are currently actively developing.
The DDX3216 Plugin is free and fully enabled in the demo version (because of the limited control abilities of that mixer).
For mixer specific features see the table below.
Mixer implementation chart
This table shows which features are available for the supported mixers.
| 01V96 | 02R96 | LS9 | DM1000 | DM2000 | M7CL | PM5D | DDX3216 | M-380 | M-400 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Duplex | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes(*) | yes | yes |
| Input Level | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Input Master | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Mute Buttons | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Panning | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Parametric EQs | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Dynamics | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | - | yes | yes |
| Aux Level | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Aux Master | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Channel Names | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | - | yes | yes |
| Graphical EQs | - | - | yes | - | yes | yes | yes | - | yes | yes |
| Flex15 GEQ | - | - | yes | - | - | yes | - | - | - | - |
| GEQ Band Reset | - | - | yes | - | yes | yes | yes | - | yes | yes |
| GEQ Full Reset | - | - | yes | - | yes | yes | yes | - | yes | yes |
| Delay Lines | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | - | - | - |
Full Duplex means, that the mixer responds to the received signals or sends its actual status per request. This is needed for sync and realtime operation.
* On the DDX3216 Direct Par Sysex has to be enabled in both directions ('MMC/MIDI' -> 'RX/TX').
Delay Lines is a feature to delay audio signals in large or difficult installations. It has nothing to do with the delay sound effect.
Requirements
There are a few things besides the mixer that are required for stereoscope to run flawlessly:
- A PC with Wifi capabilities running Microsoft Windows XP or later or Mac OS X 10.6 or later
- Java Runtime Environment 6 or higher
- An iPad iPhone or iPod touch as client (iPad highly recommended! Additional work by the customer needed to make all parameters accessible on the iPhone and iPod touch.)
- TouchOSC from the AppStore (additional costs of 3,99 $/€ at the time)
- Additionally TouchOSC Editor from the Hexler homepage
- Additionally a Midi interface, depending on your mixer.
