Rack IEM on a WING

Rack IEM works with any interface. With the WING Extension the in-ears and the desk work as one: the musicians can hear any desk channel, not only the ones on the rack; each mix leaves through whichever desk output you pick, labelled on the desk with the musician's name; and if the in-ear engine ever stops, the WING keeps them going on a bus.

Desk channels in the in-ears since 0.4#

With the WING, the SOURCES page has two groups of tiles:

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1. 1Rack channels: after their plugins
2. 2In the in-ears: the lamp says POST or RAW
3. 3Desk channels that aren't on the rack: raw
4. 4A desk channel in the in-ears, with its desk strip and source
5. 5Dimmed: not in the in-ears
6. 6Interface inputs only the musicians hear

• RACK CHANNELS - CLICK: IN / OUT OF THE IN-EARS - channels that go through Shadow Rack. The in-ears get them after their plugins, so the singer hears the same vocal as the PA (see sources).
• WING CHANNELS NOT ON THE RACK - ONLY IN THE IN-EARS (RAW) - every desk input channel that has a source and isn't on the rack, with the desk's name, colour and icon and a small label like CH 1 A 1 (the desk strip and its source).

Click a desk channel's tile and it's in the in-ears, raw. Behind the scenes the desk sends that channel's source to the Mac on a free USB output by itself - nothing to patch. Click again to take it out; the USB output is switched off again, unless a rack channel reads it. In the source panel on MIX such a source says where it comes from, e.g. WING CH 25 RAW.

One source, wherever the channel is#

A desk channel stays one source in the in-ears when it moves:

• Put it on the rack later (with RACK in routing) and the in-ears switch to it after its plugins - same place around the head, same level in every mix. Its tile moves to the rack group (IN EARS - POST).
• Take it off the rack and it's heard raw again, still in the same place.

With Rack IEM alone (no Rack FX) nothing is on the rack, so every desk channel comes in raw.

Renaming a desk channel, changing its colour or icon from the in-ear pages changes it on the desk as well (see desk sync).

Mixes out of the desk's outputs since 0.4#

Each musician's mix plays on a pair of the WING's USB inputs. You choose which desk output it leaves on, and Shadow Rack patches the USB return to it.

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1. 1The musician
2. 2Where the mix goes out now
3. 3The desk's output groups
4. 4Taken by another musician: their name
5. 5This musician's pair
6. 6The backup bus if the in-ear engine is gone
7. 7The bus picked as backup
8. 8Take the mix off every output

• Pairs another musician uses show their name; pairs the desk uses for something else show what's there (BUS 3 Drums, Local 5) and can't be picked.
• Shadow Rack names the musician's USB return on the desk after the musician (16 characters), gives it their colour and icon, and makes it stereo - so on the desk's own routing screen you see Vox Lead, not USB 41.
• Moving a musician to another output switches the old one off.
• Repatch it at the desk and Shadow Rack follows; it never patches back over the desk. If the output is taken for something else on the desk, the musician goes NOWHERE.
• NOWHERE takes the mix off every output.
• When the desk isn't connected the picker says The Wing isn't connected.

The output line on each strip shows where the mix goes, e.g. → LOCAL 1–2.

USB inputs used by the in-ear mixes are kept from the rack: putting a channel on the rack never takes them. USB inputs the desk already uses are never offered to the in-ears.

A backup bus if the in-ear engine stops since 0.4#

Under the outputs, IF THE IN-EAR ENGINE IS GONE, THEY HEAR lists None and the desk's 16 buses by their names. Pick a bus for each musician - a simple monitor mix you keep on the desk.

If the in-ear engine is gone for more than 1.5 seconds, Shadow Rack patches each musician's output on the desk to their backup bus. The strip and the picker say BACKUP in yellow. When the engine is back, the outputs go back to the in-ear mixes. Quitting the in-ear engine on purpose doesn't switch to backup.

Never straight to the WING#

The in-ear engine never plays to a WING on its own. macOS adds up every app's output on a device, so the in-ears would land in the USB channels Shadow Rack sends back to the desk. The engine only plays to the WING through Shadow Rack, which knows which USB channels are free. A WING - or an aggregate or multi-output device with a WING inside - is refused on its own: The in-ears don't play to ... (it would reach the Wing).

The in-ears also need the interface at 48 kHz; at another rate they say ... runs at 44.1 kHz - the in-ear mixes need 48 kHz.