The 16/12's Control Panel is somewhat limited in the possibilities it offers compared to those of certain competitors; the real processing is handled by your software. The Control Panel lets you make only certain configuration choices (channels are configurable in pairs) and set the sensitivity of the various inputs and select whether they're balanced or unbalanced. Don't try to use it as a mixing board, however; the input levels are adjustable only in 3 dB increments. Again this is only for configuration, with a choice of two standard values - consumer line level (-10 dBV) and professional line level (+4 dBu). In fact, the gain on each pair of channels is adjustable from 0 to +12 dB, with 0 corresponding to 4 dBu and +9 to -10 dBV.

The Control Panel is very simple and easy to use

Advanced Properties let you configure the output channels for the WDM driver for multimedia applications (we'll get back to this), control the size of the DMA buffer and the corresponding latency, manage copy protection (SCMS), and choose input channels for DirectX operation.

You can configure your card in 7.1 for surround sound when playing DVDs!

Adjustment of the buffer size, which determines latency.