The purpose of this article is to show how we can hard wire a tablet into the Soundcraft Ui24R.
This is handy if you are using the Mixer for portable band gigs, and you find yourself in a venue where the WIFI is flooded. By carrying a little extra gear, you can hardwire your existing Android tablet to the mixer to control it.
You need to set this up before your gig in a relatively WIFI uncongested zone. You won't be able to set this up in an place of WIFI congestion.
Before using this method, we were trying a small HDMI monitor and USB mouse, but we found this method clunky, and after leaving the HDMI cable connected in the mixer for many months, our HDMI connection became damaged and unreliable.
So - we will be using the Ethernet port instead. In the Soundcraft Ui24R- use the lower Ethernet port... the one closest to the HDMI socket.
What you need:
- Android tablet that supports USB-C ethernet. We use the "top of the line" Lenovo tablets around the AU$250 as they are cheap and fast. Like the Lenovo Tab M10.1 FHD, or Tab M11.
- USB-C to Ethernet adaptor. The Cable Matters USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter worked well for us - particularly one that has an extra USB-C charging port (to prevent your tablet going flat). (link)
- A router with at least 2 ethernet ports. We use the GL.iNet GL-SFT1200 as it is compact. (link). It needs to be a router (not just a switch). Turn off WIFI on the router as it just adds to the WIFI congestion... we will be using the Ethernet Ports.
- Two standard ethernet network cables.
In our experience, when using Android Tablets... you do need to use a router. You cannot plug your Tablet ethernet cable straight into the mixer Ethernet port. Even when using a "cross-over" ethernet cable, it did not work for us.
It seems as if the SoundCraft mixer does not use its own inbuilt router when connected via LAN.
The wiring is as follows:
- Plug the first Ethernet cable from the Mixer to a Router LAN port. (WAN may not work - unless it is configured as a LAN).
- Plug the second Ethernet cable from another Router LAN port into your USB-C to Ethernet adaptor.
- Plug the Ethernet adaptor in the tablet.
You can use the Souncraft Ui24R Hotspot and the LAN connection at the same time. Careful if using the Souncraft Ui24R WIFI connection - it broke our Hotspot connection... so I'd recommend keeping this disabled.
Connect to the mixer using its hotspot and get into the Network settings.
In the Souncraft Ui24R Network Settings, hit the "Config" button.
The user is "admin" and the password is "admin".
We need to edit the LAN configuration. This is the wired Ethernet connection that we are using.
Select DHCP. This is so the router will choose the IP for the mixer and we don't need to mess with the router settings.
(You can use Manual... but you will then need to configure your router to use similar IP's ranges. The Manual settings will give the Mixer a "Static IP" which means the mixer IP will always be the same. Using DHCP, the mixer IP could change if you plug other equipment into the router before the mixer).
Click Save/Update.
Reboot the mixer - go to the mixer's Internet settings page again and look at your mixer's new Ethernet LAN IP. Write that down for future use, maybe on the mixer. It might be something like 192.168.1.101.
Now test with the tablet.
- Turn the tablet WIFI off
- Open up Chrome
- Put the mixer IP into your URL bar (ie: http://192.168.1.101).