The ISOLATE bay function can be used to isolate one or more channel bays so that they are unaffected by the centre section BANK and LAYER switching. It allows the surface to be split, to support more than operator, or can be used for convenience when mixing alone.

If there is more than one operator, isolated bays can feed a separate AFL/PFL bus (for independent headphone monitoring), and can be excluded from snapshot loads. 

This function is only available on a 32 or 48-fader console (with a Channel Bay). 16-fader consoles do not have channel bays and so ISOLATE bay is not supported.

Isolating a Channel Bay

Press the ISOLATE button on the Channel Display to enable (or disable) the isolate function.

Bank and Layer Switching

The BANK 1 to 6 and LAYER FLIP buttons provide local bank and layer switching for the 16 fader strips. They can be used with the ISOLATE bay option on or off.

  • If ISOLATE is off, then the bank and layer is reset by the global BANK/LAYER buttons in the centre section.
  • If ISOLATE is on, then the bay is unaffected by the global BANK/LAYER switching.

If there is more than one operator, then turn ISOLATE on so that the second operator can use the local BANK/LAYER switching, while the main operator uses the global BANK/LAYER controls.

Independent AFL and PFL

AFL and PFL selections made within isolated bay(s) can be split away from the main console, and routed onto a second AFL and PFL bus, by enabling the "Console → Bay → ISO AFL2/PFL2" option (in the System Settings display).

If there is more than one operator, you can use this to provide the second operator with independent headphone monitoring. For example: switch PFL 2 to the CRM 2 output (to feed headphones 2), or route the PFL 2 bus output to an external headphone preamp (via the Signal List display).

Fader SEL Behaviour (Channel In Access)

Use the " Console → Bay → Select Isolate" option (in the System Settings display) to determine what happens when a channel is selected. When Select Isolate is on, if you enable and disable ISOLATE (for the channel bay), the console remembers the selected channel within the isolated bay. This makes it easy to go in and out of ISO bay.

Snapshot Isolate

If there is more than one operator, then it can be desirable to exclude the isolated bay(s) from snapshot loads. This allows the main operator to use snapshots without affecting the second engineer.

This is done in two stages:

1.     First, isolate the bay from the snapshot load by turning on the "Global Snapshot ISO" BAY option (in the Snapshots List display).

This isolates the fader strip assignments, and current bank/layer selection, in all isolated bays. It means that when the main operator loads a snapshot, it will not affect the surface layout for the second engineer.

2.    Then, isolate the channel(s) assigned to the isolated bay(s) by turning on SNAP ISO (either from a fader strip user button or CHANNEL controls).

This isolates the channel DSP settings. It means that if a channel is accidentally assigned to both the main surface and an isolated bay, a snapshot load will not affect its DSP parameters.

Remember to check the SNAP ISO status for all channels in the isolated bay(s), on all banks and layers.