SQ Mixpad – on which tcp port is the SQ-5 listening on?

[h2k]

I need to allow remote access to my SQ-5 via MixPad by another mixing engineer to get familiar with the desk and to prepare for an upcoming gig. I need to allow him access through a firewall…using NAT/PAT. On which TCP (or UDP) port is the SQ-5 listening? I’m guessing it’s something like 51000 but I need to confirm. Thank you.

[KeithJ A&H]

@h2k

SQ-MixPad is only designed to work on a local connection and will almost certainly suffer lots of drop outs (if it connects at all) if trying to use it remotely.
For this kind of thing we would recommend you run SQ-MixPad on a computer local to the mixer and then use a remote desktop/screen sharing platform to control the app remotely instead.

Thanks,
Keith.

[h2k]

Thanks for your response. The purpose of remote access is not for mixing remotely, it was more for training and familiarization and preping prior to the job. Having said that, it turns out I have a few IP networking skills. According to my sniffer, SQ-5 listens on TCP port 51326. This port appears to be used as a control channel, but the real work is done on upper UDP ports…..somewhere around port 51000 and above (although the starting range could be lower…this is just what I observed). Once the SQ MixPad creates the control channel, The SQ5 initiates a UDP connection on one of these ports back to the SQ MixPad client. It appears there is no requirement for the SQ-5 and the SQ MixPad to be on the same network (it’s probably advantageous for these to be on the same high speed campus network to minimize latency)… but the issues occur whenever a NAT/PAT or firewall is introduced into the mix. The firewall rules are easy…especially for one you control…but you would have to really have control of both sides to have a policy that will work. You would also need a public IP at each end. So from my iPad on the cellular network (using a private IP that the carrier translates to an actual IP) I can get the application running, but it shortly times out. If both sides had a static public IP address, I could get it to work. If I hosted a VPN server adjacent to the SQ5, I could get it to work. And yes, if I allowed remote access (like MS RDP or VNC) to a computer adjacent to the SQ-5, I could get it to work.
If I had a wishlist for MixPad, it would be to allow an option for a MixPad client to initiate a TCP connection to the SQ-5 over a single TCP port and have control. Or, to allow a well known port to be used for the SQ-5 to MixPad connection over UDP.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond and for your excellent suggestion of using screen sharing.

[Author]

Posts