Outline’s Newton FPGA-based signal processor is being ‘promoted to address new and significant workflow improvements’ via a new firmware update.
Offered in response to a steady request from its users base, Newton firmware update 98 implements a significant workflow improvement that allows users to save and recall whole-platform snapshots of all functional parameters and settings onboard.
‘The possibility of saving and recalling a complete Newton operational status as snapshot turns in handy for addressing different usage scenarios in multipurpose rooms and venues,’ the company says. ‘Different portions of sound system need to be activated (and/or optimised) at specific configurations of walls’ and floor partitioning, for example – or when specific event types in the same venue rely on different suppliers of technical services, each with their own production setups, to minimise setup times, and avoid any mismatch in routing, clocking, sub-systems balance and tuning.’
Concert-wise, as well as in festival settings, snapshots allow users to precisely manage guests’ and main artists’ injection set-ups, each of them starting off a clean slate at soundcheck, for saving the achieved operational balance at the end of rehearsal, to load it back again by exact running order at show time regardless of whichever host is actually hooked to the system (as snapshots reside right within Newton).
As firmware update 98 allows Newton users to choose which specific elements of its logic blocks are saved in each snapshot instance, system engineers tasked with the alignment and optimisation of (even the most) complex PA systems, will now be able to run checkup and troubleshooting test routines in compliance with previous service status.
Safe areas to protect outputs groups that can’t be overridden by snapshot recall are also implemented in firmware update 98, as well as user-defined safety switching for whichever type of control function that can be locked to its current status as ‘recall safe’.
Backward compatibility of firmware is maintained update 98, covering all generations of Newton hardware – ‘no Outline Newton is too old to enjoy the new snapshot functionality’.
The update comes at no cost to users.
More: https://outline.it