Over the past year, 10,000 users have experienced Crown’s ground-breaking HiQnet™ Band Manager™ system configuration and control software and are deploying it in a number of portable PA applications from DJs, to bands and singers. The free-of-charge application provides an intuitive user centric, function-driven interface designed to simplify system setup and management while enabling audio professionals, musicians, and engineers to configure and control a rack of Crown XTi series.

Band Manager makes smart use of browser-style navigation and the ‘Home’ screen displays monitor strips for each amplifier in the rack and front-of-house EQ and level control. EQ for stage monitors and all other processing is accessible on an individual amplifier basis. Upon starting Band Manager, all amplifier settings are transferred from the connected devices but they can also be saved to disk for quick recall if the rack is used often in multiple venues.

Band Manager is a cut-down version of its parent software, HiQnet System Architect™, a much larger application which provides full-system control of over 70 professional audio devices from across the entire Harman Pro group, including the XTi Series. Anyone who has already used System Architect with the XTi will instantly be familiar with the amplifier control layout since Band Manager makes use of the same software plug in. Directly tailoring Band Manager to the needs of portable PA market enables far quicker configuration of a rack of XTi amplifiers by bringing only the essential tools into direct focus. For those who need the more advanced control, any rack configurations saved within Band Manager can be opened in System Architect. By using the plug in concept, Band Manager is all ready to control other future portable PA HiQnet devices.

Commenting on the success of Band Manager over the last year, Andy Flint, Crown Marketing Manager for portable PA stated, “Band Manager is successful because it provides real value. It simplifies the process of setting up and optimizing the PA system, while at the same time allowing users to extract the maximum from their system. Put simply, it’s a performance accelerate.”