™ INDIGO ™ INDIGO io ™ INDIGO dj Owner’s manual Version 2.
Important Safety Instructions WARNING: Listening to audio at high volumes over headphones can cause hearing damage. Please be careful to limit the volume level of your Indigo while listening through headphones. 1. Read Instructions - Be sure to read all of the safety and operating instructions before operating this product. 2. Retain Instructions - The safety instructions and owner's manual should be retained for future reference. 3.
Limited Warranty Echo Digital Audio Corporation warrants this product, when purchased at an Authorized Echo Dealer in the United States of America or directly from Echo, to be free of defects in materials and manufacturing workmanship for a period of one year from the date of original purchase. During the warranty period Echo shall, at its option, either repair or replace any product that proves to be defective upon inspection by Echo. Final determination of warranty coverage lies solely with Echo.
Table of contents Limited Warranty......................................................................................... 3 Table of contents ........................................................................................... 4 Introduction................................................................................................... 5 Box contents................................................................................................... 5 System Requirements ..........................
Introduction Thank you for choosing Echo Digital Audio. We think you’ll find your Echo Indigo product to be an extremely flexible, high-performance audio tool for your Laptop. Box contents When you opened the box, you should have found the following: • An Indigo, Indigo io, or Indigo dj CardBus adapter • A CD-ROM containing: • Mac OS X driver • Windows Me/2000/XP driver • .
Installation Driver installation Before you can use Indigo in your PowerBook, you will need to install the driver. Please be aware that Indigo is only supported for Mac OS X, version 10.2 - Jaguar. To install the driver, just insert the Echo Indigo CD-ROM into your laptop. Double-click the icon when it appears on your desktop. First, drag the Indigo Console application to your Applications folder. Then, double-click on “Install Echo Indigo”.
Hardware installation Once the driver is installed, go ahead and insert your Indigo into your PowerBook. Simply insert the card into the CardBus slot. It’s OK to insert the card while your computer is turned on. You will know that Indigo is working when you see the blue power indicator on your Indigo light up. If you want to remove the card with your computer turned on, the card must first be disabled. Please follow this procedure in order to disable and eject your Indigo: 1. Close all audio applications.
Default sound output To be able to enjoy your Indigo, you need to set Indigo as the default sound output. From the Apple menu, select “System Preferences…”. Click on the “Sound” icon and select the “Output” tab. You should see the following screen: Click on “Echo Indigo” and close the window. You will now be able to use Indigo with iTunes, iDVD, and other OS X audio applications. For Indigo io users, you will also want to click on the “Input” tab and select “Echo Indigo io.
Virtual Outputs Most audio cards with a pair of analog outputs will appear to software as having just that, a single pair of outputs. When one application appropriates the card for its use, all other software is “locked-out” from using the card at the same time. Quite often, musicians find it useful to play back from multiple applications simultaneously. A good example would be playing back digital audio while at the same time using a software synthesizer for MIDI.
Echo Indigo Console A “virtual control surface” application called Echo Indigo Console is included with the Indigo driver. The Console allows you to control the audio playback functions of your Echo Indigo product, and it brings these controls to a single easy-to-use location. Running the Console As part of your installation you should have copied the Echo Indigo Console to your applications folder. Start the console by simply double-clicking the Echo Indigo Console icon in your applications folder.
Console Window The basic metaphor for the console interface is a digital mixing board, and it works in terms of output busses. An output bus is a stereo pair of outputs on your hardware. For example, analog outputs 1 and 2 are an output bus. The console window allows you to control what is mixed and sent to that output bus. With Indigo io you will also be able to control input monitoring.
Output Bus select (Indigo dj only) The Output Bus select panel is the area in the middle right of the Console. Each bus has its own button marked with an A (for analog) and a channel number pair. The button that is green is the currently active bus. Clicking on an output bus button simply selects the settings that are displayed. In this case Analog 1-2 (A1-2) is the active bus. This means all parameters such as volume, pan, and mute apply to the audio coming out Analog outputs 1 and 2 of Indigo dj.
Analog Inputs (Indigo io only) The controls for the analog inputs are on the left side of the Console and have the label “Analog In” at the bottom. There is one strip, or input monitor, corresponding to each of Indigo io’s two physical analog inputs.
At the top is the peak meter for this channel, labeled in decibels. Under the peak meter is the monitor pan slider; this pans the input channel between the two channels of the output bus. Note that this does not affect your recording. Below the pan slider is the monitor mute. This controls whether or not you want this input channel to be mixed directly out to the currently selected output bus. Again, this does not affect recording.
Listening to Indigo Your Indigo product was designed for use with high-end headphones. With the original Indigo you can hook up one set of headphones for private listening, or two sets simultaneously; you and a companion can enjoy watching a DVD movie together. If you are only using one set of headphones, just plug the headphones into either headphone jack on Indigo. If you are using two sets of headphones, you will obviously need to use both. The volume knob sets the volume for both sets of headphones.
Registration Registering your Indigo product with Echo allows us to register key information so that we may handle problems faster and inform you of advance information on upgrades and other news. Thanks in advance for registering. We hope you enjoy your Echo product. You can register via our web site - just go to: http://www.echoaudio.com/register.html. Contacting Echo Customer Service If you experience any trouble with your Echo hardware please go to the support area of our website at www.echoaudio.
Appendix A: Introduction to Digital Recording Converting Sound into Numbers In a digital recording system, sound is represented as a series of numbers, with each number representing the voltage, or amplitude, of a sound wave at a particular moment in time. The numbers are generated by an analog-todigital converter, or ADC, which converts the signal from an analog audio source (such as a guitar or a microphone) connected to its input into numbers.
combinations of zeroes and ones, so 65,535 different voltages can be digitally represented. (see figure A above). Figure B. The more bits there are available, the more accurate the representation of the signal and the greater the dynamic range. Your Echo card’s analog inputs use 24-bit ADCs, which means that the incoming signal can be represented by any of over 16 million possible values. The output DACs are also 24-bit; again, over 16 million values are possible.
happens). In addition to aliasing, sampling too slowly will result in reduced high frequency reproduction. Your Echo card allows you to sample sound at up to 96,000 times per second. Once the waveform has been transformed into digital bits, it must be stored. When sampling in stereo at 96kHz using a 24-bit word size, the system has to accommodate 4,608,000 bits per second. In the past, storing this vast amount of data was problematic.
converting dBV levels into dBu levels is as simple as subtracting 2dB (2.21 to be exact). Signals are also occasionally represented with units of dBm. This is an older unit that measures power instead of voltage levels with 0dBm representing 1 milliwatt. Earlier tube-based audio equipment used standardized input and output impedances of 600 ohms, so a 0dBm signal was produced with a voltage of .775 volts.
by having electrons moving around due to heat. Even if the converters could be perfectly designed to read these levels, the low noise requirements of the surrounding circuitry such as power supplies and amplifiers would be so stringent that they would either be impossible or too expensive to build. In answering the second question, consider the fact that music is often compressed or amplified after it is recorded, and that some headroom is necessary when recording to avoid clipping.
