Patent ID: 8527076

Claim:
A music system comprising a plurality of devices connected together via a network and a control apparatus that remote-controls respective settings of the plurality of devices via the network, at least one of the plurality of devices including an engine capable of implementing a software module, said control apparatus comprising: memory storing respective settings of said devices; an allocation section that allocates the respective settings of said plurality of devices to corresponding ones of said devices in said music system, wherein said allocation section makes a search for any engine capable of implementing a software module equivalent in function to a particular device and allocates the settings of the particular device to the engine capable of substituting for the particular device; and a synchronization processing section that performs a synchronization process to cause the respective settings of said plurality of devices stored in said memory to correspond with the respective settings of the corresponding devices in said system, to which the respective settings are allocated by said allocation section, wherein the synchronization is performed so as to cause the settings of the engine capable of substituting for the particular device, allocated as a substitute for the particular device, to correspond with the settings of the particular device.