Wireless PA controlled remotely by tablet

[Silvia Bluejay]

Thanks Si! We'll ask Jack's helpful bandmate a lot of relevant questions when we see him.

We have tried the system with three tablets, all rather old but seemingly doing the job perfectly. The app doesn't appear to go heavy on the tablet's system resources: so far we have had no lag, no freezes or crashes, nothing. Not even any loss of signal, although admittedly the places we used the system at were relatively small. The actual distance between the PA and me was between, say, 4 and 8 metres, most of the time without obstacles (pillars etc.) other than people on the dancefloor.

[Woodinblack]

  On 11/03/2019 at 21:47, Silvia Bluejay said:

Thanks Si! We'll ask Jack's helpful bandmate a lot of relevant questions when we see him.

We have tried the system with three tablets, all rather old but seemingly doing the job perfectly. The app doesn't appear to go heavy on the tablet's system resources: so far we have had no lag, no freezes or crashes, nothing. Not even any loss of signal, although admittedly the places we used the system at were relatively small. The actual distance between the PA and me was between, say, 4 and 8 metres, most of the time without obstacles (pillars etc.) other than people on the dancefloor.

Expand  

Be careful with the wifi though - I used the internal wifi for a year and a half without any trouble and then one day (at an open air gig), i just lost control of it completely. So I bought a little wifi portable usb powered router from pcworld (for around a tenner - maybe 15) and used that since, never had any trouble since.

Not something you need to run out and get straight away but something worth picking up at some point

[Silvia Bluejay]

We'll bear that in mind. Thanks.

[Woodinblack]

  On 11/03/2019 at 18:44, Silvia Bluejay said:

Thanks, we will. It was also my impression that, for a direct connection with no switch or router in between we might need something more than a normal Ethernet cable.

Expand  

Back in the day you used to have to have a cross over cable but any decent laptop made in the last few years should be able to automatically configure itself to be the right way round.

[Silvia Bluejay]

But rather worryingly, it doesn't! 😮

[Woodinblack]

  On 11/03/2019 at 23:34, Silvia Bluejay said:

But rather worryingly, it doesn't! 😮

Expand  

Oh that is a bit odd. Means you either need a crossover lead or a hub of some kind.

I must admit that I only ever used a direct ethernet connection to the X18 from a Macbook and an iPad, both of which autoswitch (actually my PC laptops do too). Never live though, only just for testing etc. Never had a need to go to ethernet, I always had this idea that if it went bad I could go with an ethernet cable to the iPad, but turns out that I trust it implicitly now, so I don't even carry the cable any more (and I carry cables for everything). Its done 100 gigs or so with us now, and apart from that one time* it has never had a problem.

* I noticed you saying about the distance - the connection problem isn't caused by a distance issue or anything like that, I was right next to the mixer when I had the problem, it is caused by the rubbish quality wireless in the XR, it used an old wireless protocol and only allows 4 connections. Everyone on that dancefloor and at that gig has a mobile phone with wifi, and all those phones are hunting out a wifi network. Each of those phones are testing to see if they can automatically connect to your mixer. They can't, but they don't know until the try, and they will keep trying. When there are enough of them your mixer is too busy answering queries to talk to you, and that is when stuff goes bad, and when it does it doesn't matter if you are 50M or 5cm, connection will be the same.

[Silvia Bluejay]

Interesting. One of the things I intend to sort out asap is adding security (WEP or similar), something that's mentioned in the manual, but in a rather obscure, unhelpful way. In general, if a person with a mobile phone is looking for a connection, noticing that it's secured should be a deterrent.

[Woodinblack]

The built in wifi has WEP, which is fairly useless for security but better than nothing (it won't stop anyone hacking but it will stop casual connections) but it is not securing that is the issue, it is not a person looking for a connection, it is the phones themselves, it is just what they do. All the time you are walking round with a mobile phone it is trying to find a wifi it can connect to. When there are a lot of mobile phones together in the same place, like a gig, and there is no good wifi, the wifi connections are going mad, that is why for us it fell over at a rather packed outdoor gig. 

That is why people always say to get a decent router. It can handle it better.

[intime-nick]

Seriously, get an external router, run it on 5GHz only and hide the SSID (plus a wired option as a backup).  I would trust the security and reliability of the in-built WiFi on the XR18 as much as I trust car dealers to tell the truth (it’s been that sort of a week so far !!!)

[DanOwens]

  On 11/03/2019 at 23:57, Silvia Bluejay said:

 In general, if a person with a mobile phone is looking for a connection, noticing that it's secured should be a deterrent.

Expand  

You're right from a user's perspective but the phone knows no better; it's a stupid goldfish: "Can I get my email from you? No? You're locked! OK..... Can I get my email from you?..."etc.

I bought an Archer router by TP Link and it had an awesome set up wizard. I could easily turn off 2.4Ghz, turn on 5Ghz, set a simple WEP password and SSID, then HIDE THE SSID. This way those pesky stupid phones can't even see the mixer to ask it for anything.

[EBS_freak]

  On 12/03/2019 at 09:56, DanOwens said:

This way those pesky stupid phones can't even see the mixer.

Expand  

Oh yes they can.

[stingrayPete1977]

When you link up the external router you have to switch the switch over to ethernet which turns off the internal router, we've had zero problems since throwing the free router that nearly went in the bin at it. 

I'm waiting to go to a gig with a standard xr router so I can 'help their mix out'. 

[Happy Jack]

Well that's you banned, Pete!

[BigRedX]

  On 12/03/2019 at 10:20, stingrayPete1977 said:

When you link up the external router you have to switch the switch over to ethernet which turns off the internal router

Expand  

@Happy Jack @Silvia Bluejay That might be why you can't get the ethernet connection to work. It looks as though you have to turn off the internal WiFi on the mixer to enable the ethernet connection. I have found several sources on the internet that appeared to imply this also. Time to get a good quality external router to allow simultaneous wired and wireless connections.

[Silvia Bluejay]

I've just dug out my old Plusnet Technicolor router I removed from my flat in Chiswick. We'll bring it with us to the 'tutorial'.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Silvia Bluejay

[EBS_freak]

  On 12/03/2019 at 10:31, Silvia Bluejay said:

I've just dug out my old Plusnet Technicolor router I removed from my flat in Chiswick. We'll bring it with us to the 'tutorial'.

Expand  

How old is it? Got a model number on it? Only reason I say, a lot of the older plus net routers were 2.4 only. Will be better than the inbuilt one... but still a half way house solution, especially if there's other 2.4ghz stuff going on - like 2.4ghz wireless guitar systems etc.

[Silvia Bluejay]

Oh it must be 5-6 years old. We are planning to do our testing with it, and then, if we learn how to use an external router with the system properly, and decide to go that way permanently, we'll buy a new router with the necessary bells and whistles.

[DanOwens]

  On 12/03/2019 at 09:59, EBS_freak said:

Oh yes they can.

Expand  

Its true. I haven't the foggiest what I'm saying, merely regurgitating half-read forum posts. Please take my experience as valid and my technical know-how as "improvised".

[EBS_freak]

  On 12/03/2019 at 12:02, DanOwens said:

Its true. I haven't the foggiest what I'm saying, merely regurgitating half-read forum posts. Please take my experience as valid and my technical know-how as "improvised".

Expand  

Most of it is to do with people trying to connect to a WiFi point in the hope of blagging free internet. The devices themselves can “see” the SSID but don’t disclose to the user that they are available. Thing is now, it’s becoming ridiculous because software writers now display SSIDS with something like “(hidden)” to the user, hence defeating the whole purpose of the flag.

[DanOwens]

  On 12/03/2019 at 12:09, EBS_freak said:

Most of it is to do with people trying to connect to a WiFi point in the hope of blagging free internet. The devices themselves can “see” the SSID but don’t disclose to the user that they are available. Thing is now, it’s becoming ridiculous because software writers now display SSIDS with something like “(hidden)” to the user, hence defeating the whole purpose of the flag.

Expand  

That's good to know. At the moment it seems to be the most low-risk option (external, 5Ghz, hidden), but it's good to know it isn't as impenetrable as I first thought.

[EBS_freak]

  On 12/03/2019 at 12:45, DanOwens said:

That's good to know. At the moment it seems to be the most low-risk option (external, 5Ghz, hidden), but it's good to know it isn't as impenetrable as I first thought.

Expand  

It will stave off the casual users and that's the source of the majority of the problems. As far as I am aware, phones still obey the hidden SSID regime (unless of course you install a scanner that discloses the SSIDs for you...) in the Wifi settings, so really simple to keep your wifi service more robust.

In terms of being impenetrable, I wouldn't worry too much... the risk of any attacker getting access is super, super, super low. 

[Jack]

  On 12/03/2019 at 12:45, DanOwens said:

That's good to know. At the moment it seems to be the most low-risk option (external, 5Ghz, hidden), but it's good to know it isn't as impenetrable as I first thought.

Expand  

FWIW I always meant to buy a 5GHz router when I outgrew the 2.4GHz one that's in there now but I just haven't gotten around to it. I don't hide the SSID either as the guitarist's phone could never find it again (he uses it for his IEMs) but it is WPA2 protected, so that's enough to throw off anyone who'd connect to it by accident. If someone is determined enough to get onto your wifi they will, no getting around it. Hell I could do it, but long before I sniffed enough packets to work out what the password was you'd have noticed the weird guy sitting with a laptop staring at Kali and kicked me out.

[DanOwens]

The band sound so incredibly, unbelievably amazing that any weekend warrior might get jealous, don his black hat, crack our password and... CRANK THE GAIN!!!!!

 

Or not. I think we're safe

Edited March 13, 2019 by DanOwens

[51m0n]

  On 13/03/2019 at 12:47, DanOwens said:

The band sound so incredibly, unbelievably amazing that any weekend warrior might get jealous, don his black hat, crack our password and... CRANK THE GAIN!!!!!

 

Or not. I think we're safe

Expand  

Nah, I'd probably be so jealous I applied a pitch shifter to the vocalist's monitor send

 

Mwahahahahahahahaaaaahhh!!!!

[DanOwens]

  On 13/03/2019 at 12:53, 51m0n said:

Nah, I'd probably be so jealous I applied a pitch shifter to the vocalist's monitor send

Expand  

Oh yeah and detune by 30 cents? You maniac!