Discuss using Dante, Audinate Software and Dante enabled consoles, etc.
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My church is planning on buying a RM32 to use as a stagebox and connecting it to our studiolive 32ai with he Dante option card. Currently our computer is connected by FireWire for recording/audio playback. My question is would it be better to connect the computer via Eathernet to the Dante system or keep it plugged into our FOH mixer via FireWire? And a short explanation of why or pros and cons would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Jason
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by Karyn on Sat Feb 06, 2016 8:00 am
This is an easy one, the Dante inputs don't appear on the firewire output of the FOH mixer, so that option is a non-starter.

You could use the firewire on the RM for recording, but that would leave your computer on stage with the RM.
Your computer should be on the network anyway, so just load up Dante VCS and record to Studio1 or any other DAW.

Karyn

-------------------------------------------------------
SL32ai, RM32ai, SL328AI x2, SL18sAI x2, all Dante.
Studio 192, Digimax FS, Faderport,
Sonar Platinum, Studio One.
http://refer.waves.com/dzDVn
Dante Level2 certified.
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by tourtelot on Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:48 am
Hi Karyn-

You seem to have the "ear" of Presonus (are you an employee perhaps?) and seem super-in-the-know about Presonus Dante. You helped me in my early struggles with Dante; thanks!

"so just load up Dante VSC and record to Studio1 or any other DAW."

For a simple backup recording (I use a JoeCo BBR1 as my main recorder), Capture2 would be such an excellent choice, but it doesn't work on a Dante network. I have been forced to use Waves Tracks Live as my backup recorder but would be really happy to go back to Capture. Any chance you could pass this feature request on to someone at Presonus that might actually get this to come to life?

Thanks for any help.

Doug
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by Karyn on Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:39 am
Hi again Doug

No, I don't work for Presonus and I don't even play someone on TV who does.. I'm just a thorn in their side when it comes to certain bugs and the way "certain features" should work from a sound engineers point of view as opposed to a programmers point of view...

I'm actually glad you posed this question here, because the advice I gave the OP is now out of date and no longer accurate, and is about to be the subject of another thorn stabbing ;)

Lets say you have an RM32 on stage and an SL32 at FOH. The internal routing of the SL32 has been marginally altered so that when Network is selected on a channel input (to receive the Dante feed from the RM32) the FireWire output for that channel is re-routed to tap the incoming Dante and NOT the mic pre. This obviously means that if you have your computer at FOH you can connect it with FireWire and use Capture to record.

That is great, it does exactly what the devs intended. BUT, they put the same function in the RM firmware as well and there's no way to turn it off... and it makes no sense for the RM to have it.. It's the stage box!!
So why is that important? Because most of the time the RM will be used as a stand alone rack mixer where the Dante send/return can be used as an external FX insert, (think Waves MultiRack running all your favourite Waves plugins live) or a digital input for backing tracks.. or any other type of digital input. And again it works great like that.. BUT because the FireWire output gets re-routed to the Dante return simply by selecting Network as the channel input, you CANT record the basic dry mic input, only what is being input from the Network port, which may be heavily processed and you DON'T want to be recording that..

So, the fix is GREAT for a console, you can record Network (Dante) feeds from the RM on stage direct to FireWire. But it's a disaster for the RM, it shouldn't behave like that... or it should at least be an option (defaulted to OFF)

Ah, But if you've got a console and no RM, it still behaves that way.. so you get the same issues as you do with only an RM... you can't record the dry mic signal if the Network input is selected..

How's that for a thorn.. ;)

(Still loving Dante btw)

Karyn

-------------------------------------------------------
SL32ai, RM32ai, SL328AI x2, SL18sAI x2, all Dante.
Studio 192, Digimax FS, Faderport,
Sonar Platinum, Studio One.
http://refer.waves.com/dzDVn
Dante Level2 certified.
User avatar
by matthewseymour on Tue Mar 01, 2016 2:32 pm
Personally I think the move to Dante is worth it. Once you've got dante networking for your consoles, adding it to the PC using the Dante Virtual Soundcard is really cheap and easy. It means your PC doesn't need to be within firewire cable range of a console, it could go somewhere else. It also means if that PC dies and you want to use something else, you don't have to worry about firewire... More to the point you don't have to worry about the right kind of firewire chipset.
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by tonyman108 on Wed Mar 02, 2016 8:18 pm
I have a follow-up question... re: stability. My past experiences with FW connections to the SL series are that a PC crash or yanking the FireWire cable will typically crash/mute the mixer...

Can a crash or unplanned disconnection of a Dante-connected recording rig (Studio One?) take out the RM ?

How about when using Multirack for inserts or fx... Do you lose only the affected channels, or does the whole mix go down?

Thanks in advance for any insights.
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by Karyn on Thu Mar 03, 2016 6:51 am
In very simplistic terms, a device connected to a computer with FW becomes part of the computer, a bit like connecting an external HDD with USB. If anything goes wrong with it, or the computer, the whole system could crash. (as several folk have discovered)

Dante being a network solution is more like a remote device, or network storage. There is a layer of separation between the computer and the devices, so if one fails the other is not affected.

If you start pulling network cables out then you loose any Dante audio that was going through the (now disconnected) device, but it won't affect anything else. When you plug the cable back in, the audio returns almost instantly...

eg. I use 8 channels of wireless mics which are looped out their channels to MultiRack for processing, If the computer running MultiRack dies, or some idiot pulls the network cable from the switch, the loop is broken and the mics go silent but the rest of the mix is not affected. Reboot the computer (or re-connect the cable!!) and the mics spring back into life again (most likely at ear splitting feedback volume after 5 mins of playing with levels and pre-amp gains trying to find out why they'd gone quiet in the first place...)

Karyn

-------------------------------------------------------
SL32ai, RM32ai, SL328AI x2, SL18sAI x2, all Dante.
Studio 192, Digimax FS, Faderport,
Sonar Platinum, Studio One.
http://refer.waves.com/dzDVn
Dante Level2 certified.
User avatar
by tonyman108 on Thu Mar 03, 2016 9:00 am
Thank you. I was hoping that was the answer, but it wasn't a given.
I think that reason alone would push me in the Dante direction... unless Presonus can get enough of this stuff working via AVB to avoid the expense... It's a bit galling to shell out $300 for a tweaky AVB-capable router just to get the CS18ai's meager IO to work, and then drop another $500 for a Dante card (whose protocol doesn't need an oddball router's features) to get everything else to work.

Back on topic... if I understand correctly, due to the routing issues you mentioned, you can't really run MultiRack via Dante for channel inserts and still get a dry recording in a RM-only rig.

Would one be able to work around this by hosting the plugins in S1 and doing the recording there as well?

Tony
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by Karyn on Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:12 am
Yes, that is a workaround, but once you're Dante enabled you can connect ANY computer and use ANY multitrack software to record the Dante outputs from the channels, from anywhere you can run the Cat5 cable. All you need is Dante VSC loaded.

Remember Dante isn't just point to point, you could send a channel to a laptop, or windows touch surface computer for processing in MultiRack, and also send it to a MacMini or Intel Nuc (really small) hidden in your rack just to record everything. oh yes, and also send the same signals to a broadcast desk for separate mixing... or the house main PA... or a monitor desk..

The only thing you CAN'T do is use Capture, because Presonus have locked it down to using the UC FireWire driver. Likewise for SMAART. It would be useful if they opened up Capture and UC Surface to allow them to connect to Dante VSC as the audio source.

Karyn

-------------------------------------------------------
SL32ai, RM32ai, SL328AI x2, SL18sAI x2, all Dante.
Studio 192, Digimax FS, Faderport,
Sonar Platinum, Studio One.
http://refer.waves.com/dzDVn
Dante Level2 certified.
User avatar
by Karyn on Thu Mar 03, 2016 10:16 am
tonyman108 wroteIt's a bit galling to shell out $300 for a tweaky AVB-capable router just to get the CS18ai's meager IO to work, and then drop another $500 for a Dante card (whose protocol doesn't need an oddball router's features) to get everything else to work.


Don't forget, when you add the Dante card you loose the AVB audio from the CS... If you're thinking of getting a Dante card, don't buy a Motu AVB switch first. Make up your mind and go one way or the other...

Karyn

-------------------------------------------------------
SL32ai, RM32ai, SL328AI x2, SL18sAI x2, all Dante.
Studio 192, Digimax FS, Faderport,
Sonar Platinum, Studio One.
http://refer.waves.com/dzDVn
Dante Level2 certified.
User avatar
by roblof on Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:16 am
Karyn wrote
tonyman108 wroteIt's a bit galling to shell out $300 for a tweaky AVB-capable router just to get the CS18ai's meager IO to work, and then drop another $500 for a Dante card (whose protocol doesn't need an oddball router's features) to get everything else to work.


Don't forget, when you add the Dante card you loose the AVB audio from the CS... If you're thinking of getting a Dante card, don't buy a Motu AVB switch first. Make up your mind and go one way or the other...

But avb is still installed on the rm mixer when you install a dante card. Do you say that avb becomes disabled if you install a dante card?

Studio One Pro v5, Notion 6, Nuendo 11, BitWig v3, Reaper v4, Ableton Live 8 Suite, iMac late 2015, Behringer Wing/x32-BigBoy/x32-rack all with Dante/aes67 and s16/sd16 stageboxes, Flow8, Waves x-wsg with SoundGrid server, Behringer X-Touch, X-Touch ONE, M-Air mr18, X-Air xr18, DP48, Hub4 and p16 monitor systems, TurboSound iQ-speakers, Motör 61, BCR-2000, FirePod 10, Apogee Ensemble, Alesis HD24, NI Komplete 12 Ultimate Collectors, Halion 6, True Temperament Frets on basses and guitars, Katana-100, DT-50, JSX, JCM800, Korg Kronos, Roland vk-7, Behringer Deepmind 12, Behringer Neutron
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by sjc193 on Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:33 am
If I'm not mistaken, you have to pull the AVB card out to install the Daunte card. . .

RMs just happen to ship with an enabled AVB card

Steve

StudioLive RM32AI
Rackmount Windows 8.1 PC Quad core 8G ram
ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Router
IPad2, IPad Air 2, Studio One 3 Pro, 1 DBX Driverack 260
2 QSC KW 153's, 2 Turbosound TMS-1's
2 OHM MR450D Subs with Kilomax 18inch drivers
4 EV ZLX-12P's, 1 TurboSound iX15, 2 Yamaha S115V's
1 Crest Pro-Lite 7.5 (7500 watts) amp, 2 Behringer EP4000 amps
10 58/57 mics, 1 SM86, 1 sE8, 1 sE2200, 1 AT2020, 2 AT2021
1 beta52 kick mic, 2 e609, 2 Radial J48 DI's, 1 PRO48 DI
2 4Bar lights, 1 4Play, 1 6Spot, 1 fog machine
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by roblof on Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:41 am
sjc193 wroteIf I'm not mistaken, you have to pull the AVB card out to install the Daunte card. . .

RMs just happen to ship with an enabled AVB card

Steve

Argh, yes you are correct... :oops:

Studio One Pro v5, Notion 6, Nuendo 11, BitWig v3, Reaper v4, Ableton Live 8 Suite, iMac late 2015, Behringer Wing/x32-BigBoy/x32-rack all with Dante/aes67 and s16/sd16 stageboxes, Flow8, Waves x-wsg with SoundGrid server, Behringer X-Touch, X-Touch ONE, M-Air mr18, X-Air xr18, DP48, Hub4 and p16 monitor systems, TurboSound iQ-speakers, Motör 61, BCR-2000, FirePod 10, Apogee Ensemble, Alesis HD24, NI Komplete 12 Ultimate Collectors, Halion 6, True Temperament Frets on basses and guitars, Katana-100, DT-50, JSX, JCM800, Korg Kronos, Roland vk-7, Behringer Deepmind 12, Behringer Neutron
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by tonyman108 on Thu Mar 03, 2016 11:53 am
If it's true that the RM's Dante card don't also support AVB (????), then the CS18 was an even worse investment than I'd thought. As puny as its IO count is, right now I can at least use the CS's hardware for headphone monitoring and talkback.

How are you Dante users handling that issue?

The CS would seem to be an orphan right out of the gate, unless more thorough ABV support is on the map.

Tony
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by sjc193 on Thu Mar 03, 2016 12:03 pm
I suppose you could find a relatively cheap 2 to 4 channel daunte interface that live next to the CS to use a Talkback and headphones?

Even cheaper, I wonder if you could use a cheap USB interface with the Computer running the Daunte VSC, then connect those streams to/from the network?

StudioLive RM32AI
Rackmount Windows 8.1 PC Quad core 8G ram
ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Router
IPad2, IPad Air 2, Studio One 3 Pro, 1 DBX Driverack 260
2 QSC KW 153's, 2 Turbosound TMS-1's
2 OHM MR450D Subs with Kilomax 18inch drivers
4 EV ZLX-12P's, 1 TurboSound iX15, 2 Yamaha S115V's
1 Crest Pro-Lite 7.5 (7500 watts) amp, 2 Behringer EP4000 amps
10 58/57 mics, 1 SM86, 1 sE8, 1 sE2200, 1 AT2020, 2 AT2021
1 beta52 kick mic, 2 e609, 2 Radial J48 DI's, 1 PRO48 DI
2 4Bar lights, 1 4Play, 1 6Spot, 1 fog machine
User avatar
by matthewseymour on Fri Mar 04, 2016 3:20 am
The way I handle playback inputs, talkback and monitoring is using Dante Via. It's a software piece of software that, like Virtual Soundcard, lets a computer participate in the dante network. Unlike Virtual Soundcard it interfaces between general applications and audio hardware, rather than providing ASIO or coreaudio for a DAW.

Basically it lets you make application audio from, say, iTunes available as a dante transmitter. If you have an audio interface you can use that for transmitting and receiving audio. With Via you can use any firewire or USB audio interface that provides a compatible driver model to connect onto the Dante network.

The only downside, that I can see, is latency. Dante via has a 10ms transmit buffer (don't know about receive) plus the latency of your audio interface. So if you used a basic USB audio interface you could see about 20ms latency. That would be a nightmare for your main console audio but for playback, talkback and headphone monitoring it's no big deal.

Regarding the stability of Dante, consider it like watching a youtube video. If you pull the network connection the video stops playing, but your computer doesn't crash.
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by Direttafis on Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:28 pm
Hello!!

Sorry if this is hijacking your thread but I had a couple questions about this as well and didn't want to spam the forums with what may be a repeat thread.

Anyways, I just bought a RM16ai that just got here!! Extremely excited to use it! Its pretty sexy ;)

But I do not have a computer to plug into it as my Asus G75 does not have thunderbolt (so I just discovered; its just a display port). I am looking at one of two options:

1. Sell my Asus and upgrade to the G750, G751, G752 or a macbook pro.
2. Just buy a dante card for the RM16ai and plug the mixer into the ethernet port on the Asus G75 I already have. (I can do that right? please excuse my EXTREMELY newb questions, my experience is limited)... Wouldn't it have been great if I could take this card from the RM16ai and send it in for a swap to dante!? : )

with this question keep in mind I have no near future plans of getting the dante speakers or CS... Only the RM16ai...

Here is the plan for live performance:

1. Computer, running a DAW, plugged into the RM16ai. We will be using the DAW for click tracks and possibly some backing tracks/samples... I was also thinking that after creating these tracks I would like to automate effects as well. Such as a delay and pan (or ping pong delay) for the singer at a certain point in the song.
2. Using this DAW to record our live shows as well.
3. Use my tablet PC or iPad for UC surface.

So!! I was just planning on the computer swap and running firewire UNTIL I read this thread and saw the whole thing about losing ALL mics, mains, audio if there is a problem with the computer and the firewire... well... that would be horrible!! I kinda like the idea of: if the computer goes down we lose our click track, effect automation, backing tracks, etc... but we just go on playing and are basically back to where we are now: standard mixer, yada yada.

That immediately led me to ... Well, I need Dante if there isn't a fail safe of sorts with the firewire.

but then I see a loss of AVB... and at the risk of sounding like a complete idiot. I have absolutely no idea what AVB is.

So I am here for some assistance.

I suppose my real question is then:
1. What is AVB and why do I need it for live performance, effect automation within the DAW, recording, wireless control with UC Surface.
2. Do you really completely lose the mixer if Firewire fails? This would be a disaster if it where to happen in the middle of a song or set!!
3. What are your suggestions? Should I go Dante and buy the card or Firewire and upgrade the computer?

I would honestly prefer the firewire route on a new computer just because I can sell mine to go towards another computer and since I have no soon plans for the Dante Speakers or CS18 it seems a waste. However, reliability is extremely important here... my drummer is already getting nervous about my plans... He is not allowed to get cold feet on this though as I have already invested in the RM16ai!!

Thank you very much... and sorry for hijacking your thread (Lets just say I borrowed it)
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by sjc193 on Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:20 am
Being that you are doing live performance, I would suggest you work on a Firewire route first. Why? Because the SMAART tools don't work with Daunte or AVB yet and I believe they are one of the best reasons to buy an AI mixer. On a computer that is Firewired to the RM, using UC Surface on that computer you can see a spectragraph or RTA of every channel in and every channel out, it's very helpful when EQing a channel or finding a feedback frequency. And my favorite is the Smaart wizard which is used to tune your PA and monitors before the gig using pink noise with a dual FFT anylization. But none of this will work unless you have a computer connected with firewire first.

Does your computer have a PCie card slot? If so you can buy a Firewire card for it. . . you need a Texas instrument chip firewire card, not all firewire is create equal. . .

I have not tried pulling my firewire cable out, so I can't be sure if that really freezes the mixer, but I personally don't think it would. The RM and AI mixers seem to be much more stable to me than the classic StudioLive mixers were, and I don't remember that freezing my old classic SL mixer either, it would just freeze the capture recording sometimes if I bumped into it. Hot-plugging or unplugging of firewire is not recommended so I'm not about to try it, but maybe someone else would and let us know if their mixer freezes. I'd be surprized if it did.

Steve

StudioLive RM32AI
Rackmount Windows 8.1 PC Quad core 8G ram
ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Router
IPad2, IPad Air 2, Studio One 3 Pro, 1 DBX Driverack 260
2 QSC KW 153's, 2 Turbosound TMS-1's
2 OHM MR450D Subs with Kilomax 18inch drivers
4 EV ZLX-12P's, 1 TurboSound iX15, 2 Yamaha S115V's
1 Crest Pro-Lite 7.5 (7500 watts) amp, 2 Behringer EP4000 amps
10 58/57 mics, 1 SM86, 1 sE8, 1 sE2200, 1 AT2020, 2 AT2021
1 beta52 kick mic, 2 e609, 2 Radial J48 DI's, 1 PRO48 DI
2 4Bar lights, 1 4Play, 1 6Spot, 1 fog machine
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by Direttafis on Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:00 am
okay thank you.

I did think about just doing a quick experiment with it and grabbing a friends macbook, running one of the outs to my studio monitors and pulling the firewire or just shutting down the computer and seeing how it handles an input when this happens.

No unfortunately my computer doesn't have an express card slot either. Part of me thought about trying to pop the internal wifi card from the mPCIe slot and trying to rig in a firewire card that way... but I would need to modify the computer case to pull this off, and that just does't seem like an attractive option.

We will be using a couple computers. The computer running UC surface would be on a wifi network with the mixer and the computer running the DAW will be plugged in to the firewire port. You said the SMAART won't work unless connected firewire. Any suggestions? Is it possible to run UC Surface on the computer that is recording as well as running it on the tablet PC without screwing up any of the mixes on the wireless tablet? .... Or would SMAART and the spectrograph work on the wifi tablet if I used to hardwired computer as a wifi host to the tablet?

This is my first dive into this type of mixer so my questions and lack of knowledge and experience is endless.

But thank you VERY much. This makes the decision a bit easier.
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by matthewgorman on Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:34 am
Is it possible to run UC Surface on the computer that is recording as well as running it on the tablet PC without screwing up any of the mixes on the wireless tablet?


Yes you can. This is where permissions would come in, so you can prevent devices from changing certain mixes, etc. Regardless of how I control my mixer, I always have a PC on side of stage. The computer is connected via firewire, and recording via capture. I am also using the FW connection to UC Surface. I use this as a back up to network failure or glitch, and I can always grab that pc an control the mixer. A built in redundancy if you will. Handles both just fine.

Matt

Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 Win 10 64bit, 8GB RAM, Intel Xeon
Lenovo Thinkpad E520, Windows 7 64bit, 8 GB RAM, Intel i5 Processor

S1Pro V5

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