Core Manager: Users and Audio Files

Welcome back. Let’s continue our tour of the Core Manager.

In the Users section, you can define different user profiles and limit their user privileges.

By default, anyone who accesses Core Manager has full privileges,

so it’s a good idea to Enable Access Control early on.

The first User you create with have Administrator level access,

which you can give any name or password that you like.

You’ll then be redirected to log-in with this user,

and from this point forward you’ll see that you are logged in as this user in the top toolbar.

You can select Manage Account if you want to change your username or password.

As an Administrator you have access to everything,

including the ability to now create other Users in the Users tab that have their own privilege level.

An Administrator has full rights just like you do,

a Technician has access to everything except for the ability to create and edit Users like you’re doing now,

and a Viewer can only look at each page but make no changes, except for the ability to reboot the Core.

As an Administrator, you’ll notice that you can edit or delete another user’s profile or change their password.

If you'd prefer to not have to log in to your Core (which we don’t really recommend for security purposes)

you can Disable Access Control which will delete all users and return to default mode.

Next on the list is Network Services,

which allows you to enable or disable different network protocols on each LAN port.

You should definitely not change any settings here unless you understand what you’re doing.

Check out our Network Security Considerations video for a description of what’s going on here.

Next up: Audio Files! Ah, this is so much easier than Network Services.

The Core has an onboard media drive that you can use to store audio files to playback within Q-SYS,

such as from an Audio Player component.

There are five root directories which cannot be changed or added to,

because different components are wired to access these specific folders.

For instance, “Ringtones” will be accessed by your Softphone component,

“Preambles”, “Page Archives” and “Messages” will be accessed by your Public Address components,

and “Audio” can be used for anything else.

Whichever folder you select, you are then welcome to create subfolders and name them whatever you like.

To load a file to the Core, select the Upload button, and browse your PC for your files.

Only MP3, WAV, or FLAC files can be played back as audio.

You can audition them using this play button that will utilize your PC’s sound driver, not your Q-SYS system.

You can rename or delete a file by selecting it first and then using one of these tools.

The total drive space available is listed in the top right of this page.

You can also create a Playlist,

which can be accessed by an Audio Player that has its “Playlist Enabled” property engaged.

Create a playlist using this plus button and give your playlist a name,

and then add songs to it by selecting those files and using the “Add to Playlist” tool.

Once your Playlist is created, you can view the files in it, remove them, rename the playlist, or delete the playlist.

Keep in mind that your audio files are saved directly to the Core

and are not contained within your Q-SYS Designer file.

So if you were to design a system on one Core and then deploy it on another,

you would have to reload all the same audio files you used into the same directories on the new Core.

It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re using a redundant Core,

the Audio files and directories of your primary Core will be automatically copied

and remain in-sync with the redundant Core, so don’t worry about loading all that media to both Cores.

For more information on the sizes of available media drives

and how to upgrade your Core’s capacity for playing back simultaneous tracks,

check out our Multi-Track Player Demonstration video.

Moving along we have a Utilities section.

Here you can reboot your Core or download a System log file,

which would be useful if you’re speaking with a QSC technical support team member who may request this.

Finally, you have your Reflect section,

where you can create an Authorization Code if you’re registering your Core to Q-SYS Reflect.

Q-SYS Reflect is a secure, web platform hosted on a mainstream service provider

that enables a whole host of cloud-based solutions and services, like Enterprise Manager,

our remote monitoring and management solution platform.

For example, you’ll be able to access much of the information found in Core Manager

from a web browser anywhere in the world.

Check out our training curriculum on Q-SYS Reflect and Enterprise Manager for more information.

Let’s take a quick break here, and we’ll come back to look at the System Management sections.