Question

• ********* can do it on a product costing 40% less with the same xlr channel count.
• SMAART tools are available separately for the iPad.
• WiFi is capable of streaming audio at acceptable latencies for using the SMAART tools when ringing out a room.

If Presonus is in fact the premium consumer grade digital rack mount mixer surely they can provide near real time FFT to iPad.  A connected PC should not be needed; it is asinine to think someone who purchases a rack mount mixer as their primary mixing device wants to control it with something bigger or more bulky and less portable than an iPad.  The AVB card has more than enough bandwidth to send the audio.  WiFi has more than enough bandwidth to send the audio.  iPad has more than enough power to show the mixer GUI and process 1-2 streams of audio for FFT display.

My current process for ringing out the room is maddeningly complicated and requires the use of two devices, one to control the board and one to send white noise and handle the result via aux8 (wasted channels).  Please correct this obvious feature gap.  Future purchase decisions will be affected when comparing the value package of Presonus to that of its competitors.  In the past, perceived poor quality of the competitors' options prevented users from purchasing them, but it has become clear when surveying the landscape they have made large strides capturing market share.  RTA over the air is surely a key decision maker for some of those choosing the competitor product.

Answer 1

Thank you for the feature request. 

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Answer 2

Smaart itself is always computer based. You are talking about "Audio Tools" and Smaart (RTA + Spectral Analyzer) as an add-on. This works only with the built-in microphone or with an audio conncection (cable or dock). In no case Smaart works wireless and nobody knows if it ever will. But there are alternatives, as other companies have proved already.

Actually measuring the room is not that important for most of the users. In the PreSonus forums it is heavy in demand to have RTA/Spectra integrated in the Equalizers (GEQ and PEQ), because this makes users "see" what is happening and if something needs to be corrected.

Let's see what the new ideas the SL 16+32 mixers will bring. At least Firewire is gone now and the mixers have full WiFi capacity, so you don't need a router any longer. Also direct USB and SD recording is possible now. Hopefully they will also present a new solution for "RTA & friends", which could also be "implemented" in the RM/CL and SL machines. But the screen on the new boards is much too small, so it looks like an external screen (computer or tablet) will anyway be needed for using RTA.

Answer 3

One thing I will experiment with is remote controlling/screen sharing my Mac running the SMAART connected directly via firewire to my RM16AI interface. I'll post on this forum and the facebook page for SL users after I test, might not get to it right away but...

Chrome browser already does this so you can screen share/control a Mac or PC from an iPad or Android device, I have checked that out for other uses, no reason it shouldn't work for the purpose of controlling and seeing the RTA/SMAART display on a tablet or iPad.