Cognio DesignOps Walkthrough

This walkthrough introduces Cognio DesignOps software to help you get your bearings. It covers the main views and the key concepts you will use most often, following the natural order in which you design a system: create spaces, build signal flows, route audio, design control screens, and test everything before you go on site.

This is an overview, not a full training. Each topic here is covered in more depth elsewhere in the documentation.

Site View

When you open DesignOps, you start in Site View. This is the top-level view of your project, and it is where you add and organize spaces.

This is very different from most other software, where you begin by choosing the hardware you will use. In Cognio you begin with spaces.

Add and Name Spaces

A single site file can contain multiple spaces. A space can represent any organizational unit, but most often it represents a room or physical space.

To set up the spaces for a site:

1. In Site View, add a space for each room you want to design. For a school, you might add an office, a gym, and a classroom.
2. Select a Space to open the Properties in the Modifier Panel, then give it a name that identifies it.
3. Optionally, use the Modifier Panel to assign each space a color to make it easy to identify at a glance.

Each space is completely independent from a signal flow standpoint, but audio and control can still be transferred between spaces. A touchscreen or remote in one space can control parameters in any or all of the others.

Open a Space

Double-click a space to open it. Each space has its own signal flow and its own control.

Assign Hardware (When You're Ready)

A new space is not tied to a specific product. Until you choose one, it appears as an unspecified Cognio device. This lets you do a large amount of design work before committing to hardware, and lets you change your mind at any time.

When you are ready, assign a product to each space. For example:

• Run every space on a single C100 server, or
• Assign a C20 to a space that needs more processing, and run the other spaces on touchscreens such as a TC10 for the office and a TC5 for the classroom.

You can make this decision at the beginning of the design or at the end.

Take Spaces Online and Offline Independently

Each Space can be pushed online or taken offline on its own, even when several spaces run on the same device.

In practice, you can leave the office and gym online and in use while you take the classroom offline, make changes, and push them, without affecting audio in the other spaces. When you are done, bring the classroom back online with its final design.

Signal Flow View

Inside a Space, the Signal Flow view is where you design the audio processing. Cognio rethinks several long-standing habits of DSP design to make this much faster.

The toolkit on the left lists every module you can add to the signal flow.

Add Modules and Let Cognio Wire Them

The biggest time saver is that you do not draw wires. What matters is the connection, not the act of dragging from one point to another. Cognio's automatic wiring (now patented) handles it for you.

1. Drag a module, such as an audio input, into the signal flow.
2. Drag another module, such as a gain, onto the same row after the input. It connects to the previous module automatically.
3. Add an output after it, and Cognio makes the connection for you.

Automatic wiring also makes editing fast:

• Insert into a wire — Drop a module directly onto an existing wire and Cognio places it inline, making the connections automatically.
• Insert between modules — Drop a module to shift the downstream modules to the right and make room.
• Replace a module — Drag a module on top of an existing one. It highlights red to show it will replace what is there.
• Delete a module — Click the X to remove a module and the wire reconnects across the gap.

Change Inputs and Outputs on a Module

Many modules let you change how many inputs and outputs they have. For example, to give a matrix mixer three inputs:

1. Add a matrix module to the signal flow.
2. Click the plus control to add inputs, one at a time, until you have three.

Build a Large Mixer Quickly

Repetitive designs are where Cognio's speed really shows. Real designs are rarely three channels; they are 8, 10, or 12. To build them quickly:

1. Select multiple cells in a column.
2. Double-click a module in the Toolkit to insert it into all the target cells and advance the target to the right, ready for the next module.
3. Inserting a matrix will create inputs and outputs relative to the number of cells selected.

Using this approach you can build an 8-in / 8-out mixer, complete with parametric EQ, compressor, limiter, and alignment delay on each output leg, in moments. Everything stays dynamic, so you can still add channels, delete modules, or expand the matrix afterward.

Editing Modules with the Modifier Panel

In other tools, editing usually means double-clicking module after module, arranging small floating windows, making changes, and closing them again. Cognio replaces that with the Modifier Panel on the right.

• Edit one module — Select a module and the Modifier Panel shows its controls.
• Edit several at once — Select multiple modules and the panel shows them together, in signal flow order, like a channel strip you can scroll through. Select an input and its input leg, for example, to edit the whole strip in context.
• Move through the design — Select the next batch of modules, or use the keyboard shortcut to move your selection up or down a row, so you can work leg by leg.
• Edit vertically and relatively — Select a column of like modules, such as all of your alignment delays, to see them in context. Change one and see how it relates to the others, or hold Shift while you make a change to adjust all of them relative to one another.

This makes editing fast and keeps everything in context, which is unlike most other design tools.

Routing and Software Patching

Cognio uses software patching: any input can be routed to any output, and the endpoints do not have to be physical connectors.

Create Multiple Outputs From One Signal

To send one signal to more than one place:

1. Hover over an output to reveal its copy button.
2. Click the copy button to create a duplicate, giving you output 1A and output 1B.
3. Drag the duplicates where you need them.

Patch a Signal

When you patch an input, you choose its source from the patching panel:

1. Hover over an input and click its patching button.
2. On the left, choose a source. Sources are grouped into:
   • Physical inputs — such as USB and Dante channels.
   • Virtual inputs — other signals within the design.

Because patching is done in software, a signal can come from a physical connector or from another point in the design. This is also how audio moves between spaces: patch an output in one space to an input in another.

Building Control Screens with Control Panel Groups

A control panel group is a group of related control panels. Spaces that use touchscreens start with a control panel group already in place.

Add a Control Panel Group and Panels

1. In a space, add a control panel group.
2. Open the all control panel groups tab at the top.
3. Add as many panels to the group as you need.
4. Double-click a panel to start editing it.

Set Up Navigation

Because a control panel group knows which panels belong together, navigation is easy to create:

1. Open the toolkit and add a radio button.
2. In the Modifier Panel, set the Mode to be used for Navigation.
3. Set the Command to "Navigate to Control Panel List"
4. Set the control to Show on all Panels.
5. Select each panel and name it (for example, name the first panel Home).

Cognio then shows a navigation button for each panel automatically, and updates every panel as you add more.

Assign Controls to Parameters

You can map a control to a parameter in two ways:

• From the control — Select the control, open its Function settings, and assign it to a parameter, such as the main gain of a module.
• From the design — Select a control in a signal flow (such as an output fader), in the Modifier Panel and select the + button at the bottom right and select Control Panel, select the target control panel group, and drag it onto the panel. A preview shows where it will drop.

To test what you have built, switch to Operation Mode to preview the functionality and navigate between panels.

Styling Controls with Themes

Cognio separates how a control looks from how it works. The Function tab defines behavior; the Design tab defines appearance.

Recall a Theme

The fastest way to change appearance is to apply a theme:

1. Select the controls you want to restyle (or press Ctrl+A to select everything).
2. Recall a theme. Cognio includes a variety of built-in themes, including one that reuses the Composer look and feel.

Recalling a theme restyles every selected control at once, with no CSS, code, or external design software.

Create a Custom Theme

Themes are user-creatable in the custom control theme manager:

1. From the Custom Control Theme Manager
2. Select a control and adjust its properties. These are properties that make sense for an AV control system, such as:
   • Cap style, size, and shape (for example, square or round).
   • Fill color, cap color, and highlight color.
   • Glow or drop shadow, added with a single slider.
   • Borders.
   • Scale or up/down buttons.
   • Value readouts, including position, background color, font, and text color.
3. Export the theme to share it, or import a theme from someone else.

Because themes are decoupled from the design, one person can build the look and feel while another builds the function, and a theme can be reused from site to site.

Use External Assets

Anywhere there is a color, you can use an image instead. This lets you add custom fader caps, custom backgrounds, custom icons, and other graphics.

Testing Offline with Emulation

One of the most valuable things you can do in DesignOps is test your system before you ever go on site. Cognio offers full offline emulation, not simulation: the core capabilities of Cognio OS actually run inside the design software.

Time on site is expensive. The more work you can move to the design phase, with one person at a desk instead of a crew waiting on site, the better.

To line-check and gain-stage a design offline:

1. Switch from Design Mode to Operation Mode.
2. Click the button in the bottom right to turn on a built-in signal generator and choose a source, then set its level.
3. Patch the signal generator into one or more modules in your design.
4. Watch the live meters. They bounce with real audio activity, so you can confirm signal is flowing where you expect.

You can troubleshoot from here too. If audio enters a matrix but does not come out, open the matrix and check the routing, then route the inputs to the outputs you intended and watch the meters respond. Grab a gain and raise it, and you will see the signal start to clip and turn red, so you can stage gain through the entire system.

Doing this offline means that when you arrive on site and audio is not coming out of a speaker, you know it is a hardware or wiring issue, not a design problem, which saves significant time and money.

Monitoring System Status and the Log

In Operation Mode, the Toolkit changes to show a summary of the health of the system across categories such as hardware, software, network, audio, site, and other. Each category shows green when it is healthy.

If something needs attention it will show a yellow or red indicator. Select it to view the log for those issues. The log gathers messages from your software and from every piece of hardware on the network in one place, so you can troubleshoot without checking each device individually.

Pull a Site From Hardware for Support

1. Choose File > Pull Site From Hardware to retrieve the latest site file directly from the hardware.
2. You are connected immediately and get the status of every device on the system.
3. Identify the device with an issue, select it, and troubleshoot the problem.

This makes troubleshooting easier, both at commissioning and later in the life of a system.

Next Steps

This tour covers the essentials, but there is much more to each area. Continue with the Key Concepts pages for the ideas behind the software, and watch for the deeper, software-focused material that expands on signal flow editing, control design, and routing.