#This article is out of date as Soundweb has been replaced by a Biamp Tesiraforte AVB VI

In the rack in the Tardis, we use a Soundweb 9088iis DSP to provide speaker-specific EQs and most importantly limiters. This specific DSP used to run the main PA in The Cube as part of the old SUSU system before they upgraded to Soundweb Blu

You can read more about this model of Soundweb here: Product Page

So i'm going to start straight off by saying, Soundweb Green software leads a lot to be desired. It only works in certain ways and will crash if you try and do something not-the-way-it-likes-it. It takes a bit of getting used to. The nice thing is they fixed all this in Soundweb Blu, which is lovely to use! (but that's kinda useless to you reading this document).

You can change two settings on the Soundweb without opening the software. These are setting the input to either SOUND LOOM or 3.5mm Jack (for tunes) using a two-pole switch, and setting the VOLUME for the 3.5mm Jack input only. Volume control is bypassed when LOOM is set to the source.

So before we continue, i'd just like to say DONT REMOVE THE LIMITERS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOURE DOING. They've been set so you should be able to turn any of the main PA (Blackline F10s + Sub) to max, connected through the main 4-channel amp specifically, and nothing bad should happen. Anyway we've sidetracked, how to configure the Soundweb.

Open up Soundweb designer on the Sound PC. This should auto-connect to the soundweb over RS232 and display the design. If it doesn't, load the design from disk and then go to “Network”→“Search for devices”. If it asks you to “Load” the device, you've selected the wrong file (try again), or someone's changed it and not saved it. Notably, you can't extract the design file from the soundweb (it's compiled), so someone should keep a backup of it somewhere. If in doubt, ask someone.

So when you've got the design loaded, it will present a control page with all the settings you should need to change. You should be able to change any settings here without doing anything bad.

For more advanced settings and the actual block-based design, go File→Login, and then login with the password (ask someone). This will open up the full design for editing.

Edit the design only if you need to shoe-horn the DSP into doing naughty things to make something work. It (should) be configured to work for most shows in its standard configuration. Always back the file up before you change it.

Always back up the design, and know where the backup is (only if you're doing a full-edit with password, it's fine if you're just changing parameters). You might need to hurriedly restore it if you break something.

When you load the DSP after editing, don't do it during a show as it will cause a 5 second drop in audio as the DSP reprograms itself.

Always “Pull” parameters from the DSP if it asks you. This pulls volumes/eq settings/limiters from whatever the currently stored values are so you don't overwrite IPOD volume for instance and deafen everyone.