The sidebar on the left side of the plugin lists all of the equipment located at the server to which you are connected.  After connecting to the server with the proper credentials in the top panel, this list will show all of the equipment that is located at that server.  Each piece of hardware can be in one of five states:

1.  Unavailable – the equipment is currently in use by another user, or it has been taken offline for repair and maintenance.
2. Available – the equipment is not in use and available to reserve or use on demand if you have more than 1 credit.  Dragging the hardware into the routing panel will start an on demand use after a 30 second preview, and your credits will be deducted accordingly after that at a rate that is equivalent to the hourly reservation rate.
3. Reserved – the equipment is currently reserved for you and available to be used in the routing panel.  Your credits will not be reduced when using reserved equipment since it has already been purchased on the website.
4. In Rack – the equipment is currently being actively used by you in the routing panel or in another instance of the plugin.
5. Update Plugin – the equipment was added to the service after your version of the plugin was released.  Go to the Downloads page on the website and install the latest plugin.

You can hover the mouse over any equipment and a tooltip that shows the rate at which credits will be deducted when using the equipment in on demand mode.  It will also show any upcoming reservations for the equipment so that you can plan your on demand use.

The routing panel is used to show the path of mono and stereo audio through the system, build analog chains with multiple pieces of equipment, and select equipment so that you can use the front panel in the equipment section.  The source audio coming into the plugin is represented on the left side of the panel.  The left audio channel is the top row and the right audio channel is the bottom row.

1. The first piece of equipment of your analog chain is inserted into the left column of the panel by dragging your reserved equipment from the sidebar.  Dragging equipment to subsequent columns to the right will insert them later in the analog chain and audio will flow through them in series from left to right.  Clicking on an equipment name will highlight it and show the corresponding equipment faceplate in the equipment panel so that you can adjust the controls.  A stereo device will occupy both the left and right boxes of a column.
2. Mono pieces can be inserted on either the left or right audio channel.  When two mono pieces are inserted in the same column, they are in a “dual mono” configuration where the left audio goes through one device and the right audio goes through the second device.
3. If both pieces of equipment are the same model, they can be linked with the link button.  When linked, control changes to the device on the left channel (using the equipment panel described later) will be duplicated to the box on the right.  When linked, control changes to the box on the right channel can be adjusted independently of the left channel to compensate for minor hardware differences between the two devices.
4.  A gain slider is provided for each box in the analog chain.  This gain adjusts the level of the signal being sent to the box.  A mix knob is also provided to mix the signal from the box with a dry signal that bypasses that box.
5. The “In” button gives the ability to easily insert and remove a box from the audio path while audio is playing.  Similarly, the solo button will insert the box into the audio path while removing all other boxes.
6. The final gain slider adjusts the level of the signal after the last box in the analog chain and just after the final A/D conversion.  This effectively adjusts the output of the plugin and will always be the last slider on the right, regardless of the number of boxes in the chain.
7. Meters (0 dBFS) show the RMS signal level at all stages of the audio path.  If a sample reaches full scale, the clip indicator will light.  Click on the meter to clear the clip indication.  The clipping is handled by the A/D converter and can sometimes be desirable at moderate levels depending on your specific application.

Equipment can be removed from the chain by clicking the ‘x’ to the top right of the equipment name.  Any columns that are empty will simply pass through audio unchanged.  You can drag and drop equipment from one box to another inside the equipment panel in real time with audio playing to compare different analog chain equipment sequences with ease.  Devices will swap positions or move to new points in the analog chain and the hardware will immediately be re-routed at the server to reflect the new configuration.

The equipment panel shows the likeness of the equipment currently highlighted in the routing panel.

1. If you currently have the equipment reserved, the remaining time shows the time left in the current reservation that you made on the website.  If you are using the equipment on demand, the remaining time shows the time until the next credit is deducted.
2. The title shows the equipment name which indicates the model and instance.  If there is more than one device of a particular model at the server, they are numbered #1, #2, etc.
3. The preset menu contains a list of factory presets for the device, followed by user presets.  Add a user preset by setting the controls of the front panel as desired, then click the ‘+’ button and name the preset.  User presets can be removed by selected them and then clicking the ‘-‘ button.
4. The equipment controls occupy the main area of the window.  These control the robotics at the server.  Use the equipment manual online (links on our equipment page) if you want to dive deep and understand how these controls work.

The offline processor is located at the bottom of the plugin and can be used to capture a clip of audio locally at the plugin, upload it to the server, process it at the server, and collect the full  resolution 24 bit samples back at the plugin.  The final processed audio sample rate is selected in the menu at the left of the processor.  The nature of this process makes it unaffected by internet interruptions.  This method can be used on any internet connection to safely capture the final processed audio for your reservation.  The real time streaming format at the top of the plugin does not affect offline processing, which is always processed at the user selected sample rate in lossless 24 bit sample format.  To process audio in your DAW, you can follow this sequence of steps:

1. Start with playback idle and locate your DAW play head at the start of the audio you want to process.
2. Select the desired sample rate of the final processed wav file using the selection on the left (1).
3. Setup the active rack with the hardware you want to use.  Use it in real time as many times as you want to dial in the settings.  Do not worry if you use a compressed audio format during this time, the final audio will be full resolution as noted above.
4. The arm button (2) is used to arm the processor to record audio, so click that next.
5. Start playback in your DAW.  The offline processor will begin uploading the audio to the server.
6. When you get to the end of the audio you want to process, stop playback.  The processor will finish uploading and you will see a representation of your unprocessed audio in the window, now stored at the server.
7. If everything looks right, click process (3) to send the audio to the server for processing, or click cancel (3) and return to step 1.  When you click process, the offline processing interface will display “Processing…”.   The server will begin sending the audio through the hardware and the processed samples will be collected back at the plugin at the sample rate you specified.  During this processing time you can continue working locally, and the plugin will simply pass through the local audio unchanged, because the server is busy processing your stored audio.
8. Once the server finishes processing, the interface will display the audio and the “Processing…” message will go away.
9. At this point you can click save (4) to save the processed audio to a wav file at the sample rate you specified, and it can be subsequently imported into your DAW.  Alternately you can click cancel (3) to return to step 1.

If you have a wav file outside of your DAW that you want to process, you can follow a similar procedure to process it.  Instead of arming the processor, you use the load button to load the wav file into the plugin which immediately beings uploading the audio.  Then proceed with the process button as described above.

If you have more than one wav file to process with the same hardware at the same settings (like all stems in a project), then you can use the batch button:

Choose the output directory for the processed files at the top of the window.  Processed filenames will be appended with “-aa” and can coexist with the unprocessed files.  Use the add button to add one or more wav files to the list.  When you click process, each wav file will be uploaded to the server, processed, and saved as a new wav file with the “-aa” extension.  Each wav file will go through the offline processing sequence described above.  During this time, you can close the plugin window and work on other things.

1. Check this box to show or hide the equipment thumbnails in the sidebar.
2. This checkbox can be used to automatically process audio after uploading when using the offline processor.  When this is enabled, there is no need to click the process button once audio has finished uploading.  Instead, processing at the server will automatically begin.
3. This checkbox can override the address of the server.  This is reserved for future use and should not be checked under normal opration.
4. This checkbox can turn on some debug logging for the plugin.  Use this to create a log file that can be emailed to technical support when issues arise.