Patent ID: 8315727

Claim:
A channel patching apparatus, for a network audio system including a plurality of audio devices each connected by an audio network through which audio signals are transmittable between the plurality of audio devices in real time basis, for allocating internal channels of each audio device and transmission channels of the audio network, the channel patching apparatus comprising: a controller configured to provide: an output patch setting that assigns a name defined according to input by a user to an audio signal of one of the internal channels of a first audio device among the plurality of audio devices, which first audio device outputs the audio signal to one of the transmission channels of the audio network; a transmission channel allocation setting part that allocates one transmission channel among the transmission channels of the audio network to the name-assigned audio signal, and that sets the first audio device so that the name-assigned audio signal is output from the one internal channel associated with the name-assigned audio signal to the allocated one transmission channel; and an input patch setting that assigns a name, which is selectable by the user from a list of the names assigned to the respective audio signals, to one of the internal channels of a second audio device among the plurality of audio devices, to which the audio signal transmitted via the allocated one transmission channel of the audio network is input, and that sets the second audio device so that the audio signal of the assigned one transmission channel corresponding to the name selected from the list of the names is input to the one internal channel of the second audio device.