Patent ID: 8358791

Claim:
A method of processing audio signals in a distributed audio signal processing system, comprising: linking together a plurality of audio signal processing units, each audio signal processing unit comprising: a high-bandwidth link interface for exchanging audio signals with other linked audio signal processing units; a plurality of physical input channels for receiving local audio signals; and a matrix processor; assigning a corresponding global channel to each of the physical input channels of all of the linked audio signal processing units; creating and storing a map structure that relates each physical input channel to its corresponding global channel; defining one or more virtual channels comprising two or more global channels; generating one or more logical channel group control commands defining one or more logical channel groups each comprising two or more virtual channels and transmitting the logical channel group control commands to the audio signal processing units; and at the matrix processor of at least one of the audio signal processing units, operating on an audio signal based on the logical channel group control command and the map structure.