Digigram LX6464ESe User manual

LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
LX6464ESe
LX1616ESe
EtherSound PCI Express Sound Cards
User guide v1.00

LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
Table of Contents
1 Information for the user
2 Features
2.1 LX1616ESe main hardware features
2.2 LX6464ESe main hardware features
2.3 Main software features
2.4 EtherSound features
3 Requirements
3.1 Minimum requirements
3.2 Software requirements
3.3 Supported operating systems
4 Hardware installation
5 Software installation
5.1 Installation under Windows
5.2 Removing the driver under Windows
6 How to check the installation
7 DirectSound mixer panel
8 Asio control panel
9 Clock and routing
10 Specifications
11 Schematic diagram
12 Connectors
Copyright 2007 - 2010 Digigram. All rights reserved.
No portion of this manual may be reproduced without prior written consent from Digigram. The copyright protection claimed here includes photocopying, translation and/or
reformatting of the information contained in this manual.
While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, Digigram is not responsible for errors and omissions, and reserves the right to make improvements or changes in the products
and programs described without notice.
Digigram, the Digigram logo, LX1616ESe and LX6464ESe are registered trademarks or trademarks of Digigram S.A.. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders.
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
1 Information for the user
This device complies with part 15 of FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1)
This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) This device must accept any interference
received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a CLASS B digital device,
pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection
against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses, and can
radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions
contained in this data sheet, may cause harmful interference to radio and television communications.
However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation.
If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be
determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference
by one or more of the following measures:
* reorient or relocate the receiving antenna
* increase the separation between the equipment and the receiver
* connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that of the receiver
* consult the dealer or an experienced audio television technician.
Note:  Connecting this device to peripheral devices that do not comply with CLASS B
requirements or using an unshielded peripheral data cable could also result in harmful
interference to radio or television reception.
To ensure that the use of this product does not contribute to interference, it is necessary to
use shielded I/O cables.
The user is cautioned that any changes or modifications not expressly approved by
Digigram could void the user’s authority to operate this equipment.
Warning:
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) can damage several
components on the board. To avoid such damage in handling
the board, take the following precautions:
Bring the device and everything that contacts it to ground
potential by providing a conductive surface and discharge
paths. As a minimum, observe these precautions:
●Disconnect all power and signal sources.
●Place the device on a grounded conductive work surface.
●Ground yourself via a grounding wrist strap or by holding a grounded object.
●Ground any tool that will contact the device.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
This card has been tested and found to comply with the following standards:
● International: CISPR22 Class B.
● Europe: EMC 89/336/CEE (1992) specifications.
● United States: FCC Rules-Part 15-Class B (digital device).
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
2 Features
LX1616ESe and LX6464ESe are audio cards for PCI EXPRESSTM x1 (PCIe®) bus, and can be inserted
in PCIe® (x1, x4, x8 ou x16) slots.
2.1 LX1616ESe main hardware features
● 16 EtherSound ES-100 mono inputs at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz
● 16 EtherSound ES-100 mono outputs at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz
●1 standard Word Clock input with selectable input impedance (jumper)
On the LX1616ESe, EtherSound I/Os can be added by up to three bundles of 16/16 channels
through a software key. For this option, please contact your system supplier  .
2.2 LX6464ESe main hardware features
● 64 EtherSound ES-100 mono inputs at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz
● 64 EtherSound ES-100 mono outputs at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz
●1 standard Word Clock input with selectable input impedance
2.3 Main software features
● Real-time, simultaneous record and playback in PCM (16 and 24 bits)
● Low latency WDM DirectSound and ASIO drivers.
●Card can be used through the following programming interfaces (APIs): WDM DirectSound,
WASAPI, ASIO.
2.4 EtherSound features
● EtherSound ES-100 compatible
● The card can generate the network audio clock, or it can synchronize on the network audio clock
● Network clock and audio clock frequencies supported:
- 48 kHz if the card generates the audio clock source for the network
- 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz if the card synchronizes on the EtherSound network or on an external Word
Clock
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
3 Requirements
3.1 Minimum requirements
PC with one free PCI Express slot (x1, x2, x4, x8, x16).
CPU power and memory required depend on the operating system and on the audio application used.
3.2 Software requirements
LX1616ESe and LX6464ESe require installation of the drivers included in the LXES Kit version 1.12 or
higher. This kit includes:
● a WDM DirectSound driver
● an ASIO driver
3.3 Supported operating systems
LX1616ESe and LX6464ESe cards run under Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 2008
Server, Windows 10, 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
4 Hardware installation
The card has to be installed in the computer prior to installing its driver.
Installing the card
Gently plug the card in a free PCI Express slot and press it down to position it firmly. Tighten the screw
to attach the card to the PC chassis so that it does not move.
Interrupt and memory address
Hardware interrupt and addresses are automatically set up at start-up by the PC Bios.
5 Software installation
The installation of the driver package requires administrator rights on your computer.
Please visit the Digigram web site at www.digigram.com for the most recent driver.
In case you run a specific application developed or installed by a Digigram Partner, this application might
require the use of a given driver version. In this case, make sure that the updated driver has been
approved by your supplier.
5.1 Installation under Windows
● Shutdown your computer and insert your card.
● Restart your computer.
● Click on Cancel if the “Found New Hardware” Wizard appears.
● Double-click on the LXES Kit vxx.msi  icon to launch the driver installation.
● A welcome message is displayed, click Next  to continue.
● The “License Agreement” window appears: read it, and click on
“I accept the terms in the license agreement”  to approve it.
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
● In the “Custom Setup  ” window, the “Drivers for the LX6464ESe board” are displayed.
In case you do not need the ASIO driver to be installed, click on the arrow on the left of “ASIO
LX”, and select “This feature will not be available”.
By default, the WDM DirectSound driver and the ASIO driver are installed.
Click Next  .
● In the “Ready to Install the Program Window  ”, click on Install  to start copying the files.
●In case the “Digital Signature Not Found” message appears, click on  Continue  in the
“Hardware installation”  window.
● Click on Continue  in the “Hardware installation” window.
●Once the files have been copied to your disk and the driver has been started, the firmware version of
your card will be checked against the version included in the driver package.
WARNING: if the firmware of your card requires an update, it will start automatically at this stage. The update
is recommended, it ensures optimal performances and robustness of the system. The update  MUST IN NO
CASE BE INTERRUPTED  . If you do so, the card will have to be returned to our After Sales Service.
● The “DirectSound Device Builder application” is then displayed to define the DirectSound
devices that will be used.
By default, only one DirectSound stereo device is declared (first two channels of the card). You
can declare additional devices by using the “+” button (if they are not already listed). For each
new device, enter the first channel used by this device (it cannot be used by another one), the
number of channels of the device, and the name of the device under Windows Server 2003 and
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
XP. For more recent Windows flavours, the name of the device can only be changed from the
Windows ‘Sound’ Control Panel . A DirectSound device can be multichannel (the application
must be able to manage this type of device). For more details, please refer to the online help of
this application.
Note:  The  “DirectSound Device Builder”  application can be launched at any time once
the driver of the LX6464ESe is installed ( from  <Start>, <Programs>, <Digigram>,
<Digigram Control Center>  ). It is necessary to reboot the computer to apply the
changes.
● From the “Digigram drivers” window that is displayed, in the LX-ES tab, select the processing
granularity of the card, expressed in samples.
A granularity of 64 samples is the default value (recommended). Under DirectSound, selecting a
lower value (32) will decrease the latency, but may limit the number of devices that can be used
simultaneously without dropouts.
When using the ASIO interface, the granularity may be set to 32 samples (the ASIO driver uses
a single 64-channel device, which is much more efficient than using multiple separate devices).
For more details, please see the Control Panel online help or the “Performance  ” section of the
DirectSound Device Builder, or the ASIO control panel online help.
Click on Ok  .
● Click on the Finish  button to complete the driver installation.
5.2 Removing the driver under Windows
● Open the Windows Control Panel and double-click on the Programs and Features icon.
● Select “Digigram LXES Kit …”  , and Change/Remove.
● Select Uninstall.
● Follow the instructions to finish removing the driver.
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
6 How to check the installation
Once the driver and the card are installed according to the procedure described in this manual, you can
verify that the card works correctly as follows.
● Open the Digigram Control Center panel from the Start menu, Digigram group.
The LX card should be listed.
● To check that the card works fine, it is possible to play a sine signal on all the outputs of the card (64
mono outputs routed to the EtherSound channels). Select the “Diagnostics” tab.
Right click on the icon of the card, and select “Play sine”. The vu-meter reflects the audio activity. To
stop the playback, right click on the icon of the card, and select “Stop”.
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
● To check that the DirectSound devices are well installed, go to <Control Panel>,<Hardware and
Sound>, <Sound> (Tab Playback, Recording): the declared DirectSound devices are displayed.
The first stereo device of the LX card is named LX6464ES-01.
Under Windows XP, other devices have the names defined from the DirectSound Device Builder
application.
For more recent Windows versions, the other declared playback devices are listed as “Line output”,
and the recording devices are listed as “Line inputs”.
You may change their names by right clicking on the device name, and selecting “Properties”,
“General” tab.
● For testing a DirectSound playback device, right click on it, and select “Test”. The vu-meter should
indicate the audio level that is played out.
● If the ASIO option has been selected during installation, the card is visible through any ASIO
compliant application, and through the ASIO control panel.
The ASIO control panel can be launched from the Start menu, Digigram group, ASIO ES settings.
If the card is not displayed in the Digigram Control Center panel:
● Make sure that the card is correctly inserted in the PCI Express slot, and screwed on the PC
chassis.
● Make sure that the golden tracks of the PCI Express connector of the LX card are clean. You may
use a rag to clean the connector if it is a bit dirty.
●If necessary, uninstall the driver as described in this manual, and re-install it.
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LX6464ESe & LX1616ESe user guide
7 DirectSound mixer panel
The card does not dispose of digital gain. Under the Windows ‘Volume’ control panel only a ‘Mute’ is available.
8 Asio control panel
To use the card through an ASIO based application, make sure the ASIO driver option has been checked during
the installation, as described above. The ASIO driver parameters can be configured from the “ASIO ES Settings”
panel, available from <Start>, <Programs>, <Digigram>, <Digigram ASIO ES Settings>.
It can also be launched directly from the ASIO software applications, as most of them feature a “Preferences” or
equivalent menu allowing to configure the ASIO devices to be used.
Buffer size
The buffer size determines the size in samples per buffer used by the Asio driver to transfer audio data from/to
the board's Input/Output. The lower the buffer size, the lower the latency.
The range of the buffer size settings depends on the stream granularity defined in the Digigram Control Center.
You can access this parameter by clicking on the "Change DSP granularity  " button.
Note that, audio dropouts may be experienced when using very small buffer size.
It is possible to check if audio dropouts are experienced. First of all start the ASIO based application. Allocate the
ASIO channels in this application. Open this ASIO control panel, and click on the “Test” button.
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