Controls on the strip
Gain and 48V appear on LV1's own channel strip. No window floating over the mixer.
For Behringer WING + Waves eMotion LV1
Your WING's gain and 48V, right on the LV1 strip.
Turn the gain in LV1 and the desk follows. Turn it on the desk and LV1 follows. Headlink only sends control data, so your audio path doesn't change.
Core · free · available now
Already running on the maker's own rig.
The difference
No more walking to the desk for gain.
A vocal comes in hot mid-soundcheck. Today that's a walk, or a tablet you have to unlock and search. With Headlink it's the knob already in front of you.
Without Headlink
- Notice a channel needs gain
- Put down what you're doing
- Walk to the desk, or unlock the tablet
- Find that channel over there
- Set it, walk back, find your place in LV1
With Headlink
- Turn the gain knob on the strip
What it does
It already knows your desk.
The WSG card can't tell LV1 which preamp feeds which input. Headlink reads that from the WING and keeps reading it.
Finds the desk itself
Discovers your WING or X32/M32 on the network and reads its model and firmware. No IP to type.
Follows repatching
Repatch on the desk mid-session and gain follows the new source; knobs appear and disappear on their own. No restart.
Recalls with your scenes
Preamp gain and 48V are stored in LV1’s scenes and sessions and come back on recall, the way Waves’ own preamp boxes do.
Every input its own range
Local XLR and AES50 stageboxes have different ranges and steps. Each is read per channel.
Works both ways
Turn it in LV1 and the desk follows. Turn it on the desk and the strip follows, at the value the console actually applied.
Follows stereo links
Link a pair on the WING and both legs move together. LV1 reflects it: turn either side and both follow.
Updates itself
New versions arrive in the background, checked against Headlink’s signature, and take effect without closing LV1. What can’t change mid-session waits for the next time LV1 closes.
Picks the right desk
FOH and monitor desks on one network? Headlink drives only the one whose card is in this LV1. If it can’t tell, Setup asks once and remembers.
Safe on a show night
Your audio never passes through Headlink.
Audio stays on the SoundGrid card. Headlink only uses the network link to the desk, so if Headlink stops, the show keeps going.
The desk stops answering
The tray icon turns red and the strip's gain and 48V go inert. They never show a stale number. Audio is unaffected.
Waves ships a new LV1
Since 2.0 Headlink doesn't depend on LV1's internals, so a new LV1 keeps working. If Headlink ever can't start, LV1 runs with the stock Waves module as before.
You want it gone
Headlink lives in its own bundle beside Waves’. Switch a console off and LV1 uses Waves’ stock module at once; remove Headlink and nothing of Waves’ was ever changed.
Phantom power
48V only goes to the channel that asked for it, and never moves when you link a pair or repatch. With Pro you can lock 48V off on ribbon inputs.
Setup
Set up in three steps.
One small app, no drivers, nothing installed on the desk.
Open Headlink
Windows: right-click the zip, choose Extract All, and run Headlink.exe; keep Headlink.exe, Headlink.dll and the modules folder together. Mac: open the DMG, drag Headlink to Applications and open it from there. Headlink searches your network and shows every console it finds.
Click Install
Headlink installs into LV1 and switches on the consoles it found — Waves’ files are not touched. Each console switches off and on later, even while LV1 runs. Updating from Headlink 2? Setup offers the move once LV1 is closed.
Start LV1 and assign the card
In LV1: Setup › System Inventory. Gain and 48V appear on the strip.
Headlink-Core.zip · v3.2.0 · 872 KB · Windows 11
SHA-256 e29312153eecb56ac8c28a48fbd0735e9afbbdbf712a02eae807434ef72b4697
Headlink-Core-macos.dmg · v3.2.0 · 5.8 MB · macOS 12+
SHA-256 01d452073c0f7f99ab4cfd97a1ceadcd85a6b7c822a93f6f9a216e16c3069025
Release plan
Core is out now. Pro comes later.
Core puts WING gain and 48V on the LV1 strip. It's free, and you can download it today. Pro is a later release that adds a dashboard to see and change the patch and watch input levels.
Core
Free · available nowFor engineers who just want the knob in front of them. Nothing extra to open.
Download Core, free- Gain and 48V on LV1's strip, both directions
- Finds your WING or X32/M32 on the network automatically
- Follows repatching on the console, live
- Correct gain range and steps for every input, and follows stereo links set on the WING
- Setup app: one switch per console
- Tray icon shows at a glance whether the link to the desk is live
- Updates itself in the background, signed and verified
- Windows and Mac
Pro
Later releaseSee and change which preamp feeds each input, and how hard it's running.
- Everything in Core
- Dashboard with all 64 inputs at a glance
- Names, gains, 48V and which inputs are stereo-linked, for every input
- Repatch from the dashboard: send any WING source to any WSG card channel without going to the desk
- Input meters at the physical input, with peak hold and clip latch
- Filter to inputs with signal, clipped, or 48V on
- Lock 48V off on chosen inputs, so ribbon mics can't get phantom from LV1
- Both consoles of a WING + X32 rig in one dashboard, a click apart
- Several consoles of one type in one LV1, matched by the name you give each card in LV1 (coming)
Compatibility
What you need, and what's been tested.
| Console | WING Rack tested. WING and WING Compact use the same protocol, not yet tested. X32 / M32 (beta): tested on an M32C and an X32 Rack with an X-WSG card; DN32-WSG card, full-size consoles and DL stageboxes not yet. |
|---|---|
| LV1 & computer | eMotion LV1 17.3 and 16.5 on Windows 11; LV1 17.3 on macOS 15 (Intel). Since 2.0 no LV1 version needs adding first. Windows 10, older macOS and Apple Silicon Macs untested. |
| Connection | WSG card (WING) or X-WSG / DN32-WSG card (X32/M32) for audio, plus a network link to the console. The console is found automatically. |
| Inputs | 64 channels. Local XLR and AES50 A tested. AES50 B, C and StageConnect are reported by the desk but untested. |
| On the desk | Nothing to install. Headlink runs on the LV1 computer. |
Questions
The details.
What happens when I repatch an input?
Repatch on the WING as you normally would. Headlink re-reads the patch and gain and 48V follow the new source straight away. With Pro you can also change the WSG patch from the dashboard.
Why does turning one channel's gain move another?
Those two inputs are stereo-linked on the WING. When you link a pair, the desk sets the right leg to match the left and then moves both together, and Headlink shows that in LV1. If LV1 treats them as two mono channels, unlink them on the WING.
What if the network connection drops?
The tray icon turns red and gain and 48V go inert on the strip. Audio carries on over SoundGrid. When the desk comes back, Headlink reads the current state before sending anything.
What happens after an LV1 update?
It keeps working. Since 2.0 Headlink uses the module interface LV1 gives every I/O card, not LV1's internals, so a new LV1 build doesn't need adding first.
Windows warns about unrecognised software. Is that normal?
Every Headlink file is signed and timestamped, so Smart App Control lets it run. The first time you open Headlink.exe, SmartScreen may still say “unknown publisher”: choose More info › Run anyway. If Windows ever refuses a file, nothing is changed and LV1 runs on Waves' stock modules — Setup tells you.
My Mac won’t open Headlink the first time.
Headlink for Mac isn’t notarised by Apple yet, so macOS asks once. Open Headlink from Applications and click Done, then go to System Settings › Privacy & Security, click Open Anyway and enter your password. Headlink’s menu-bar item has macOS Permissions…, which shows everything else macOS has to allow — Local Network for Headlink and for eMotion LV1 — and where to switch it on.
How do updates work?
Headlink checks for a new version a minute after it starts and every six hours after that. Each file is checked against Headlink’s signature before it is used. New console modules go into the running LV1 straight away, without a restart; a new Headlink app or loader installs the next time LV1 is closed. Your audio is never interrupted.
I have two WINGs (or two X32s) on the network.
Headlink drives only the console whose card is in this LV1: the one you chose in Setup, or the only one with a SoundGrid card fitted. If it can’t tell, it waits and Setup asks you once. Two consoles of the same type in one LV1 is coming to Pro; Core drives one of each type.
Does it work with other consoles?
Behringer WING, and Behringer X32 / Midas M32 through an X-WSG or DN32-WSG card (beta).
Do preamps follow LV1 scenes?
Yes: scene recall and opening a session bring back each preamp’s gain and 48V. LV1 itself leaves out inputs patched to two LV1 channels and strips marked recall safe, exactly as it does with Waves’ own preamps.
From the maker
"I built Headlink because I was tired of walking to my own WING Rack every time a channel needed gain. It runs on my rig today, all 64 channels, both directions."
Tell me how it goes
Found a bug, or want to hear when Pro is ready? Email me and tell me about your rig. I answer every message myself.