Edirol FA-66 Quick Start Guide

The Edirol Firebox is a professional grade firewire (1394) sound card. When setup properly for use with the SDR-1000, the result is truly world-class radio performance. This page is designed to help you setup your new sound card for use with the SDR-1000. Below you will find a step-by-step guide along with tips for getting the fastest support. If you have questions that are not addressed in this guide, the [Flexradio] Email Reflector and the Teamspeak Server are available for fast, friendly support. The retail version of the Edirol FA-66 that FlexRadio Systems ships comes with several components: The device itself (pictured above) 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable 4-pin to 6-pin firewire cable (typically used with laptop computers) Driver CD The 110/220 VAC to 9 VDC power adapter.

FlexRadio offers a cable set with everything you need to connect the sound card to the SDR-1000. For a list of firewire cards (including two that are confirmed to work w/ the FA-66), check out: http://kb.flex-radio.com/article.aspx?id=10250

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Step 1: Install the Driver.

Use either the driver CD that comes with the unit or a downloaded copy of the latest driver at the following address to install the driver. http://www.roland.com/products/en/_support/dld.cfm?ln=en&dsp=0&iCncd=688 Begin installing the driver in accordance with the instructions found in the FA-66 Operators Guide on pages 24-27. Do not plug in the firewire cable until instructed to do so by the driver installation program.

Step 2: Connect the cables

Once installation is complete (including any necessary reboots), use the following photographs as a guide to connect the FA-66 to the SDR-1000, speakers, and microphone. FlexRadio offers a cable set that provides all the cables you need to hook the FA-66 to the SDR. BACK PANEL

A. Connect Outputs 1&2 Speaker output to your computer speakers. Please note that the red colored lead [the ring] connects to the EVEN numbered jacks.

B. Connect Outputs 3&4 Line Out to SDR1K To Line Out.

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C. Connect Inputs 3 & 4 Line In to SDR1K To Line In. FRONT PANEL

A. Connect your microphone to input 1. The jack will accept an XLR, TRS or TS plug. If your microphone requires phantom power to operate, slide the +48V switch to ON. The switch is located on the rear panel.

B. Set the MIX control to fully counter clockwise (CCW); and the Soft CTRL button should be pressed IN.

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REAR PANEL

A. The OFF BUS switch is used to determine how you are going to power the FA66. You can power the FA-66 from either the 6-pin Firewire cable or the external power supply. To get power from the Firewire bus, slide the switch to the BUS position. When the external AC power adapter is used, slide the switch to the OFF position. A Blue LED on the front panel will come on when power is correctly applied to the FA-66. B. Sample Rate. Choose the rate you want to use. A 192 KHz sampling rate increases the Panadapter size and reduces latency but requires more CPU usage. Note that in order to change the sampling rate, the FA-66 power must switched off. C. Phantom +48V is normally off unless you are using a microphone that requires it, such as a large diaphragm condenser microphone. Applying +48 VDC to a microphone that does not require it may result in damaging the microphone. D. The Limiter can be left in either the on or off position. If you tend to run your audio hot it is recommended that you turn the limiter ON. Using the limiter will apply mild compression on strong voice peaks to prevent clipping from occurring at the A/D converter. The Peak/Limit LED on the front panel will light up to indicate that the limiter is engaged. When Input 1 has the appropriate gain setting, the LED should only come on occasionally. If not, decrease the input gain until it flashes intermittently. E. Connect the included firewire cable to the large (6-pin) firewire jack seen in the bottom left corner.

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REAR PANEL (cont.)

F. Input level adjustment knob (bottom right). Set knob to center 12 oclock position. If at any time this knob is moved, the receiver will need to be recalibrated. Turning the pot to the right increases the gain level (similar to increasing the RF gain/AGC level in the PowerSDR control panel) and will give optimal results for weak signal work. Turning this knob to the left decreases the level and will increase the large signal handling capabilities at the cost of not hearing weaker signals as well. As a general rule this knob should remain in the center position or very close to center for general use. You may want to experiment with this control but always remember for optimal results (and accurate readouts), you must recalibrate the receiver after adjusting this control.

STEP 3. Set the FA-66 Buffer settings (found in Control Panel)

LOOK FOR THIS ICON IN THE CONTROL PANEL Double click on the Icon seen above in the Control Panel. The default settings appear in figure A below. Start with these settings.
EDIROL FA-66.lnk

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Figure A. Default buffer settings If you do not notice audio drop outs or glitches during operation, consider decreasing the buffer size as seen in figure B below.

Figure B Reduced buffer size settings

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Step 4. Setup the PowerSDR software

PowerSDRTM v1.6.3 SVN 692 or later is required. Audio Tab: Start with Buffer Size set to 2048 and Sample rate at 192000.

DSP Tab: Start with 4096 Buffer size

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Step 5: Calibrate the microphone input

Set the MIC control on the main PowerSDR console to a low value (5-10). Select Mic on the TX Meter in the upper right corner. Click the MOX button to begin transmitting. Speak in a normal voice and adjust the SENSITIVITY CONTROL on the front panel of the FA-66 (see front panel figure above) until the voice peaks are reading near 0dB on the multimeter. If the Peak/Limit LED on the FA-66 is frequently coming on, decrease the mic gain on the FA-66 until it comes on occasionally. It will probably be necessary to adjust the MIC control on the PowerSDR front panel in combination with the SENS control on the FA-66 front panel to attain 0dB peaks.

Miscellaneous When properly setup for 192 KHz operation in other than the SPEC mode, the display should look like the picture below. When using the 192KHz sampling rate, 80 kHz of spectrum will be shown in the default 1x zoom Panadapter display (and more when zoomed out).

When using the Mode-SPEC you will notice two humps as shown below. THIS IS NORMAL. The humps are caused by hardware inside the FA-66 and are typically only encounted in the SPEC mode. You can avoid this phenomenon by

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switching to the 96 KHz sampling rate or by using a mode other than the SPEC mode as shown above.

This concludes the FA-66 Quick Start Guide. At this point you should be able to receive and transmit with the Edirol Firewire. If you are still having problems, please refer to the support links mentioned at the top of this guide.

Updated: 09/27/06

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