Video Transcript
Signal Snakes & Pagination
3m 54s
0:08
Welcome back! Let’s continue from where we left off.
0:11
So the last way to wire components together is with something called the Signal Snake.
0:17
The Signal Snake will take a bunch of inputs and collapse them into one graphical wire,
0:22
for you to expand somewhere else. Now you can make a Signal Snake in a few ways,
0:27
first let’s get rid of our old ones. Now the one way you could make a Signal Snake
0:31
is you could go over to your Schematic Library under Layout,
0:35
you can grab a Signal Snake and pull it into your Schematic.
0:39
Now then you’d have to go over to your Channel Count
0:41
and you’d have to change it to the number of pins that you want, but there’s an easier way to do this
0:45
let’s get rid of this guy. An easier way is to simply select all of your desired pins,
0:50
pull them aside as if you’re going to be doing traditional wiring,
0:53
and hit the space bar and now we’ve created our Signal Snake.
0:58
So you can wire all of your pins to one Signal Snake on one side,
1:01
and you can see it’s already got the right number of pins,
1:03
you can wire all of the other side to another Signal Snake,
1:08
and then all you have to do now is wire these two signal snakes together
1:12
now you’ll notice that the signal snake have this unique little icon for their pin,
1:16
this little sideways hour-glass figure
1:18
and that’s to prevent you from wiring anything to a signal snake other than another signal snake.
1:23
So you can wire these two signal snakes together however you’d like
1:26
you could use traditional wiring, you could make a signal name, and then connect it over here, select Snake.
1:34
One of the major advantages of using both the Signal Names
1:37
and the Signal Snake is that you can wire components together that are on different pages.
1:42
You see, when you’ve got a really large design you’re
1:45
able to make multiple pages in your Schematic to keep things organized.
1:48
And you can add pages in a few different ways.
1:51
You can go up here and hit the little Plus button that says “Add Schematic Page"
1:55
and you’ll see we now have a new tab. You can also go to your Schematic Pages section of your Left-Side Pane
2:01
and you can hit the Plus icon here and that will also create a new page.
2:05
And you can rename these pages however you want, this is going to be my,
2:08
let’s rename this my DSP page for instance, and you can reorganize them,
2:14
reorder them however you like as well.
2:17
You can also close them by clicking the X icon in the tab – you’ll notice that doesn’t delete them,
2:23
they’re still over here and they live in your Schematic Pages – that just cleans things up.
2:27
Look I got it back, here they are, they're alive,
2:29
the only way to delete a page is to actually click on it over here and hit the delete key.
2:35
So let’s put all this into action in a real-world example. Let’s grab some amplifiers into our design.
2:42
We’ll go to the Inventory, we’ll hit our plus icon, and then we’ll add some amplifiers.
2:47
Let’s add a PowerLight 340 and a PL380,
2:52
and you’ll notice that we can see these being added here in our Inventory.
2:55
And let’s also add a loudspeaker, we’ll add, let’s say a Wideline-8.
2:59
Now we’re going to drag the components for all of our new Inventory items into our Schematic
3:05
the two PowerLights and the Wideline-8, and now we’re going to wire them together.
3:09
So we’ll use the DataPort to send our audio to the 340,
3:14
and then we’ll use that 340 to power the high frequency of the Wideline,
3:19
you can see that the pin tells us what it is – it’s the high frequency – HF.
3:23
Then we’ll use the other DataPort outs to power our 380,
3:27
and we’ll use these to power the medium frequency and the low frequency here.
3:32
And there you have it - a fully-functional wired system.
3:36
Now there’s obviously no EQ or DSP going on in this design
3:39
we were only wiring components together so you could learn about wiring.
3:43
In the next few tutorials you’ll learn more about the DSP components
3:46
that the Q-SYS Designer software has to offer. Thanks a lot, and we’ll see you next time.
Lesson Description
Signal Snakes & Pagination
3m 54s
This lesson demonstrates the use of Signal Snakes, and also shows how to paginate across multiple schematic pages.
Tips and Definitions
Signal Snakes & Pagination
3m 54s
Signal Snakes: Provide a way to reduce a set of signals to a single graphical wire.
To create a Signal Snake: Select a number of pins on a single component Drag them away from the component into the Schematic While continuing to hold the mouse button, press the Space Bar.Adding a Schematic Page: The easiest way is to click the “+” sign in the upper right-hand corner of the center Schematic pane.
Pagination: Use Signal Names or Signal Snakes to create designs that span multiple pages.
Downloads and Links
Signal Snakes & Pagination
3m 54s