“3/24/2010 ALLEN & HEATH ANNOUNCES MODULE FOR AUDINATE’S DANTE NETWORKING”
I love it!
So, what shall we do with it?
Well, first of all, get rid of all those old-fashioned MD- or CD-desks, iPods.(*) From now on, all audio (also test signals) on my laptop, moreover play/stop of my media player controlled by MIDI, just like the scene changes on the iLive (theater use, scene fading please though!), everything triggered with footswitches, yeah!
(*) and finally also of old-fashioned MADI, dinosaur ADAT and way overpriced Ethersound
Live multitrack recordings directly on my laptop, yeah!
Virtual soundchecking? I guess I’d have to route the Dante inputs to 33-64 and do a complete ganging of all parameters of all pairs of channels 1-33, 2-34, 3-35, etc. for now?
Maybe run the live mix digitally to the Lab.gruppen Power Amp 14000?
Anyone else got more astonishing ideas on how to use this expansion?
Don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying Dante is bad, but it is not the Holy grail of audio distribution. It needs a lot of bandwith if you want to send signals from A to B without any latency problems. So connecting a laptop with Dante virtual soundcard (love that!) trough the ace network from the surface to the mixrack is out of the question. Like i said, cat5 is restricted to 100 mbit in optimal situation, ace use about 90 mbit continously, leaving about 10 mbit for dante. that’s enough for a few channels i guess.
Anyway, i hope to try it in the future, in the mean time i’ll stick to Madi over fibre optics…
Sounds great, thanks for the explanation, jeff. All i wanted to make clear is that it the information from audinate and A&H didn’t comply with the rather wild ideas i read on the forum… Based on the information i have now, it sounds even better!
I’ll reserve my WHOO HOOO AWESOME! comment until we know the $$$ for hardware with virtual soundcard licence fee!
“We are excited about having Dante incorporated into the product offerings of Allen & Heath,” stated Lee Ellison, CEO of Audinate.” Well -So are we if the price is right! Hope it’s not up there with the Ethersound fees.
Edit:
I see that Yamaha’s Dante card with license is not to expensive: “The Dante-MY16-AUD card (Yamaha) is available at MSRP of USD $649. Each card comes with a licensed copy of the Dante Virtual Soundcard capable of up to 64x64 bidirectional channels.”
capable of up to 64x64 bidirectional channels."[/i]
… very hard to hold back the WHOO-HOOO!!
I’m also curious what the price setting will be.
True, one of the most important things is that Dante is based on standard IP-technology, thereby avoiding the need for a Dante interface in the computer. This also allows using standard (but quality) network hardware to build the network. Most computers (also laptops) nowadays are equipped with Gigabit Ethernet cards, and since this is more commonly used hardware, the drivers are often better developed and tested than those of dedicated soundcards (or if they are, the price tag reflects it).
If latency is as low as promised, and if A&H will provide this kind of routing possibilities it could also open the door to integrating (professional) software based effects in the mix. In that case, we should start thinking of options to (automatically?) compensate for (very small) amounts of latency though, just like in DAW systems.
Live recording: So far, we have been using a very simple Linux based freeware to do our live multitrack recordings on a Macbook Pro. Set-up within 5 minutes and running without a hassle.
iLive Firmware and Editor software version 1.7 will be released alongside the release of the iDR-64, supporting the iDR-64 MixRack, as well as the new Dante and Rocknet audio networking cards, which join the ACE, EtherSound, MADI and MMO options currently available. The software will also provide support for an iPhone app.
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Anthony Jackson just said that the release is foreseen in July.
The A&H Dante card will be 64 channels bidirectional.
I didn’t know I could convert cat5 to Adat out so cheap. Good to know.
On the other hand even if I do that, the computer(laptop) side needs a solution like “M-Audio Profire Light bridge Firewire Interface” to accept 32 channels. So it is another expense plus fragile optical cables in the equation. But it is still a solution.
Which interface do you use to accept 32ch Adat outs?
The BIG headache for us at the moment is only one card slot. We’ve always recorded to Alesis HD24 via ADAT but if we do FOH/Mons split, then both mixrack card slots are occupied by an ACE card which means we can’t easily record at the moment. I’d love there to be a solution to this. The iLive/T system is otherwise amazing I have to say. Adrian.
The BIG headache for us at the moment is only one card slot. We’ve always recorded to Alesis HD24 via ADAT but if we do FOH/Mons split, then both mixrack card slots are occupied by an ACE card which means we can’t easily record at the moment. I’d love there to be a solution to this. The iLive/T system is otherwise amazing I have to say. Adrian.
you only need one ace connection in the Slave rack ( port A) to use dual rack configuration from V1.63 on.You can use the portB from the slave rack to get 64 channels out (MADI,DANTE.) or even with the multi output expantion card to have Adat out.
You are right, if you want to connect one surface to the master rack (FOH) and an other to the slave rack (MON) and split digital between them than you use up all the ACE connections and slots
I was referring to the setup with one surface and 2 racks + record. sorry
Well, what are main benefits of using Dante instead of MADI? For some reason I believe there is more MADI hardware arround that can be used for recording or channel splitting. Dante is quite new player and not very popular so far. Correct me if I’m wrong.
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