TOPIC:

I have a question regarding the GUI of the miniDSP when using 2 or more boards with plugins.
Is there a way to see both board’s plug-ins and make changes real time without having to save and load each one individually? I’ll give an example for car audio use:
With the Zapco DC amplifier, which has built in DSP, one has to save config on one amp before switching to another. What’s annoying about this is if you have tweeters/mid on one amp, and midbass/sub on another. Say you then want to mute the entire left side (for whatever reason, and I do this a lot actually via my bitone). To do this, you’d have to mute the channels on one amp, save, load other amp, mute, save, go back to first amp to start playing, save, load other amp, play around, save… this kind of process is horrible and I know others use other methods which require a process similar to what I’ve illustrated.
That’s the SOLE reason I dropped the Zapco setup I had. That was a MAJOR pain in my side. The audison bitone allows you to mute/eq/etc any channels you want without switching GUI’s because it’s all on one screen: all 8 channels. The output levels can be controlled via one tab, and all the EQ, time alignment, and crossover functions are on another tab. This is an extremely nice feature to have because you can do whatever you like with extreme ease.
If the miniDSP would allow you some sort of tabbed networking interface so that you would be able to work with multiple DSPs and associated channels of output without going through a save/load procedure that would be wonderful. Is this possible?


I'm sure I'll have other suggestions to come.

Thank you

I'm using 2 miniDSP boards in order to have 2*3 way crossover.
As of today, you can't manage two board from same plug-in interface.
I was, like you seems to be now, a bit annoyed at the beginning with the need of defining configuration on one side then connect to the other board and apply the same.
Of course, doing everything in one operation would have been easier but it's really not as painful as you main think.

I will not reply on technical constraints but chaining or linking multiple boards in order to control all at the same time, especially with example you provide is, to me, a major change in the plug-in concept: it's no more plug-in but heavier software.

Furthermore, crossover setting is not something you're going to change every day. I'm not doing measurement in stereo thus I play with various setting on one side and the duplicate on the other side when I'm ready to listen.

Erin,

Christian is dead on the technical complexity with having multiple boards to control whether in software or hardware. For one, on the hardware side, it would be impossible to stack 2 boards without 2 USB cables (otherwise would need a hub on the miniDSP kit).
On the software side, while it's not impossible to achieve, like anything in life, there is not such thing as "free lunch". Whether it's a "fancy Ice cream spoon" or a piece of software, the more complex engineering intensive features you add to any product, the more engineering time that is required, the higher the price of the product. It's 101 product design. While I'm not trying to get into a price war, the products you're mentioning are quite a lot more expensive (MRSP) than 1 or even 2 miniDSP so maybe there is a relationship... Comparing apples to apples matters to us and our readers.

Anyway, my point being that while there is a lot of value to having more features added to miniDSP platforms (or any products as a matter of fact), like in any decision we make, we always perform due diligence from our point of view of running a company dedicated to the community but still a company with some operating cost. In the end we always listen to ideas, whether we get to implement them really depends on if it's 1)feasible engineering wise and 2)cost effective to keep adding complex features to a product while never increasing its price.

Hope this explanation gives you an idea of how things work over here in our miniDSP community. Will your idea ever happen in the future? It "depends" and isn't a yes/no answer just based on a "I want a new feature" request...

Hope this makes sense.

DevTeam