Installing D&R Airlite Control for communication between software & Airlite
In this series of articles you’ll find step-by-step tutorials to get the most out of your D&R Airlite broadcasting mixer console.
In the previous articles you’ve learned how to connect the Airlite’s Main USB port, how to connect the VoIP USB port and how to manage it’s audio devices in Windows.
In this article you’ll learn about Airlite Control, a small software utility that relays control commands between the Airlite and software.
Series contents
- Introduction: Getting the most out of your D&R Airlite broadcasting mixer console.
- Connecting the D&R Airlite VoIP USB port to your computer and managing audio devices in Windows.
- Managing & renaming D&R Airlite Playback devices (channel faders) in Windows.
- Managing & renaming D&R Airlite Recording devices (audio busses) in Windows.
- Installing D&R Airlite Control for communication between software and Airlite (this article).
- Installing and using D&R Airlite Configuration Manager to configure Airlite settings.
- Installing and using D&R Airlite Meters to monitor output levels and settings (planned for November 5th).
Introduction to Airlite Control
Airlite Control needs to be installed on the computer that is connected to the Main USB port on the Airlite. It functions as a gateway to your mixing console. Airlite Control communicates over USB with the Airlite and communicates over UDP/IP with other networked computers, relaying data to and from the Airlite. This way, multiple computers and software applications can communicate with the Airlite so you can run software like Airlite Meters (to monitor the mixer) and Airlite Configuration Manager (to change mixer settings) on separate computers.
Downloading Airlite Control
You can download Airlite Control for free from the D&R Broadcast.com website. Use the top menu to go to Support > User Manuals and click on ‘Software’ next to the Airlite. This will open the Airlite Wiki page where you can download all software and manuals for the Airlite.
Click on the Airlite Control link in the Windows column to download the installer.
Installing Airlite Control
As said, Airlite Control needs to be installed on the computer that is connected to the Airlite’s USB Main port. This is your main playout computer.
Double-click the download installer to start the installation process. This is a very simple ‘next’, ‘next’, ‘install’, ‘finish’ type of installation, where you can accept all defaul values.
Allowing Airlite Control to communicate over the Local Area Network (LAN)
When you’re using the default Windows Defender Firewall on your computer, it will ask if you want to allow Airlite Control to communicate with other computers over your local network. This is only necessary if you would like to run Airlite Meters or Airlite Configuration Manager on another computer than the main playout PC. Please note: Airlite Control does not communicate over the internet. These ports are for the local network only.
Starting Airlite Control
Airlite Control will automatically start with Windows. You can open the main user interface through a small icon in the Windows system tray which is located in the lower right corner of your screen. The green icon might be hidden behind the ‘arrow’ button. Right-click it and select ‘Settings’ to open the user interface.
Airlite Control User Interface
Airlite Control has a very simple interface.
UDP/IP Ports
The ‘UDP/IP Ports’ section lets you select ports that the software will use to sent data to other apps. The Transmit ports are used to send data to other software:
- Metering: Sends data to Airlite Meters;
- Config: Sends data to Airlite Configuration Manager;
- Custom: Sends data to third party software, including playout software like ProppFrexx On-Air (PFOA).
The Receive port receives data from all software programs that communicate with Airlite Control.
Normally, you would keep the default port number values. Should you need to change a port, remember to open the new port in the firewall and configure the corresponding relying application to use this port as well.
Status
The status section shows how many packets Airlite Control has received, transmitted and how many clients (computers) are currently connected. One client can host multiple software applications.
Interface
This allows you to start and stop the USB software interface that communicates with the Airlite. If the ‘Interface’ is stopped, no control commands can be sent to or received from the Airlite. I highly recommend leaving this to ‘Auto Connect’ so Airlite Control automatically connects to the mixer once the software is started (which happens automatically when Windows is started).
In Conclusion
You’ve learned that Airlite Control is a very small but very important utility. Without Airlite Control we would not be able to use fader start and control buttons to interface with our playout software en we could not configure or monitor the Airlite.
Now that we’ve installed Airlite Control, it’s time to configure the Airlite!
- Installing and using D&R Airlite Configuration Manager to configure Airlite settings.
