1. Firstly configure the EHX as follows:This will work for both ProGrid and LAWO / RME setups Sample ProGrid setup file attached  

2. If you are using ProGrid devices you can configure using consecutive channels, but it is tricky to configure the ProGrid to route the channels

3.Configure MADI to AES in both directions. See attached config for further information.

This config routes to two PG2-MADI and PG-AES boxes so you can attach 32 panels.

The following is taken from the manual

E-MADI cards now support the addition of up to 32 V-Series Panels in Cards & Ports, which can be configured in any available port on a MADI card. If the user attempts to configure more than 32 ports, EHX will alert them that this is not allowed.

When the addition of panels to MADI cards is requested (via multi-select) panels will only be added if the entire request is valid i.e. no MADI card will end up with more than 32 ports.

The E-MADI card can now also support the Panel Aux option to enable binaural use of Panels, which will work in an identical to way to Panel Aux on the MVX card.

Note – The pairing of the two channels to a panel is flexible and done in the  EHX  setup by the system administrator to suit when configuring the 3rd part MADI routers / ProGrid etc.

For this reason the aux port is not linked to the master and e.g. is not indented in the style of the hosted IP direct ports where the coupling needs to be known by the software. The MADI aux port configuration UI is therefore consistent with that of the MVX aux port configuration.

The data comms for the panel is carried with the main channel audio on the first ('A') channel of the AES. In order to achieve this the following configuration rules need to be followed.

A maximum of 32 total panels are allowed per MADI Interface – this is enforced by EHX, which prevents more being defined and by the config card / MADI card which, as a precaution, will ignore any defined beyond the 32nd.

General Case:

Most 3rd party equipment (e.g. RME, Lawo) treat the AES streams in a MADI interface as 32 stereo pairs, A and B channel together – So in the general case, the following strategy should be used:

In the card/port configuration in EHX, the panels should be defined on the odd numbered ports (Taking the first port as 1) of the E-MADI card.

The even numbered ports may be left 'unused', leaving the panel with only the main channel audio (mono operation) or set to 'Panel Aux' to allow the aux audio channel for the associated panel to be used (stereo
operation). 

It is not necessary to define a contiguous block of panels, e.g. Ports 1,3,9,11,51 could be defined as panels with all others unused, or used for other purposes if required.

Some audio routers (such as the Optocore/ProGrid) allow each channel of the MADI to be routed individually to any channel of any destination to create mono AES streams (with an 'empty' B channel).

Where this is the case, it is possible to pack 'mono' panels together on contiguous ports with the ProGrid handling the routing to the A channels of the AES panels.

If the 3rd party equipment allows fully flexible routing (as the ProGrid does) it is possible to mix close packed mono and conventional stereo pairs on one MADI interface.

In any case it is the routing matrix in the 3rd party equipment that is used to get get the main panel port to the 'A' channel of the AES interface.

For example If ports 1,2,3,4,5,7,9,11.. are defined as panels, the ProGrid must be used to ensure that channels 1,2,3,4,5,7,9,11.. are routed to and from the 'A' channels of the AES interfaces.

Because of the free routing capabilities of the ProGrid, the routing of panel data is totally free format so it is possible, for example, to define stereo panels where the main and aux channels are not defined on adjacent ports of the MADI. (In fact since the ProGrid has 2 MADI interfaces, the main ports and aux ports in theory could be defined on different E-MADI cards!)

In all cases, when using a router such as ProGrid, great care must be taken that the configuration of the E-MADI card and the configuration of the ProGrid matrix are consistent with each other.V-series AES panels send panel data in the AES user control bit. Any 3rd party router must pass the user control bits for V-series panels to work.