Re: Additional Slink commands for Slink Tuners/Amp

The commands I documented in my previous two posts apply only to the Tuner section of your AMP.

Your Sony Amp has, as far as Slink is concerned, '3' distinct components inside it, each with a unique command set and device address.

For the 'Amp' and video/audio switching part of the Amp this is accessed via the ampsls.cde file. For the Tuner section you need the tunersls.cde file. For the surround sound and related stuff [e.g. Genres] you need a third file the surrsls.cde file.

The Amp commands are pretty well documented in the ampsls.cde file UNLESS you have a newer Sony AMP e.g. 825 or 925 Amp, in which case there are device files for the Amp section and the Surround sound section which have the additional inputs and other features which apply to the particular model you have.

Note: These 3 device files are used when sending commands to the Amp, Tuner or Surround sound system from your slink-e [or Slink-e application].

For processing any replies from these sections inside your Amp, you need to load the equivalent *slr.cde files [e.g tunerslr.cde] , which document the *replies* the Amp will send to slink-e.

Note the tunersls.cde file documents the commands Sent to the tuner, the tunerslr.cde file documents the replies expected from the tuner.

Since Slink is a two-way bus you need to document the commands and the replies, but these are documented in two seperate files.

For proper 'two-way' command control of the Amp you need to load BOTH the *sls and the *slr files loaded in your App or in CDJ. Thats 6 files need to work with all three component sections in your Amp.

If you want to do 'probing' of the Amp,Tuner or surround Sound modules you have two options:

Each device has in the *sls.cde file a test command, which lets you send any commands to the device concerned.

This lets you probe the commands and what they do but you have no easy way of always seeing the resulting reply strings [you should get a 'error' reply if that command is not supported].

So, to cater for this situation [where you want to probe a device but don't yet know the replies you will get] there is a special 'lowlevel' device called lowlevel.cde in the 'Misc' directory of the device files tree under your slinke install directory. [Add the lowlevel.cde device to your CDJ devices with the name raw].

This device lets you send commands to ANY Slink device on a particular Slink port [the slink-e has 4 Slink ports, sl0,sl1,sl2 and sl3. You can then also see any command replies and then workout for yourself what the commands do and mean.

In order to use this low level device you have to also know the 'device address' of the devices being talked to as this device address is sent before each Slink command on the slink bus [and is normally part of the .cde file for each device].

For the Amp the Device code is hex 'C0' for the Tuner its 'C1' and for the Surround sound section its 'C3'. In addition you need to know that the reply from a device has a device address of the original device address + 8. So the reply messages from the Amp have a 'device address' of 'C8', the Tuner 'C9' and the Surround sound section of 'CB'.

Then to send a 'mode' Command [the mode command is supported by all Slink devices and has the hex value of '0F'] to the Amp in the CDJ Slink 'window' I enter raw:sl0[C00F] and press Enter or Send [assuming the Amp is one Slink port 0 on the slink-e if its on say Slink port 3 [sl3] then replace the sl0 with sl3.

I will then get a reply back of something like: raw:slX[C8101001FF] where slX is the same as the slX I used in the command line [in the above case slX is sl0 as I sent the lowlevel slink command to slink-e port sl0.

The reply message means, device address 'C8' sends a string of hex '101001FF' which shows what the current Audio/Video input is and other stuff e.g. sound system settings. As C8 is the 'reply device address' for the Amp, we can subtract 8 from the address and work out what the device was that 'originated' the message, in this case C8-8 = C0 = the Amp section. the same goes for the Tuner section, e.g. send a raw:sl0[C10F] command and you will get a reply like: raw:sl0[C970020300238C] which says device C1 [C9 - 8 = C1] sent a message of '70020300238C', [which indicates what preset and frequency and band is selected on the Tuner section right now.]

Note: On my Amp the Tuner section ONLY replies to slink commands when the Tuner section is active, i.e. the input is set to Tuner. Other times the slink commands to the tuner section are ignored and there are no replies.

Another technique is to simply load the lowlevel device in cdj and then do stuff with your Amp via the remote controller, you will see all Slink commands on the bus being sent and received [effectively making a onscreen log of the bus traffic]. This can be a help to working out what devices send and expect in reply.

Not all commands will be sent on the slink bus, some link mode messages are sent anytime the video or audio source is changed and/or the device is powered on or the Tuner station changes etc.

This should give you some where to start.

CDJ's slink device window provides a good place to explore the slink bus from with the right devices loaded into CDJ you can control and probe any slink device as needed.

Regards