Hi there,
I’m using an avantis solo and an i/o d ante card v3. I’m using DVS and my computer to run super rack performer.
But too mutch latency, so any body have used a RME DIGIFACE DANTE with? Can I have like 1ms latency with the digiface Dante if I want to run waves super rack with Dante?
Thanks
Using a hardware Dante device for your computer will certainly produce much lower latency times than using DVS. Options include PCIe Dante cards (which I use) or external Dante devices like the DME Digiface Dante device which connected to the computer via USB, but has custom drivers that reduce the latency far below that of a USB device that just uses the standard USB drivers.
I haven’t checked the specs on the Digiface device, but they should be available on the RME website. Typical latency should be listed. That being said, you are not going to get 1ms transport times with this setup Dante. 2-3ms latency times are much more realistic.
If you are shooting for that 1ms transport time, the Waves Superrack system (cards and servers) are the only way to achieve it. Dante is realistically going to be 2+ms for transmit and receive times.
Furthermore, all of these latency times are strictly for the TRANSPORT of the audio, you still have the added latency of whatever software you are going to be using. Again, the fastest times will be achieved by going “all in” on a Waves system where you use both their cards (transport method) and servers (software).
My goal here is that I have Dante Virtual Soundcard on my PC with Waves SuperRack Performer and my Avantis with a Dante card. I would maybe like to replace Dante Virtual Soundcard with the RME Digiface Dante to reduce latency, given that in most cases I use 0-latency plugins. So for FOH, 3 ms is totally fine. Do you think this approach is good and will give me lower latency than Dante Virtual Soundcard?
I doubt that. Most USB interfaces will not have less than 5ms latency.
All hardware solutions will have lower latency than DVS.
Keep in mind that latency times are each way. So when I say 2-3ms, that is actually going to be 4-6ms roundtrip (out and then back into the console)…. plus whatever potential software or plugin latency there is.
So while there is 100% certainty that using a Dante hardware device like the RME Digiface Dante interface will give you much faster latency times vs DVS, it isn’t going to be close to 0-3ms roundtrip.
I’m not trying to convince you to use Waves, but it is the only option that is going to get you the latency times you apparently are desiring. That is why it is so popular - because it is hands down the quickest external plugin host/transport system available. Using Dante can be quick with the right equipment, but it is never going to beat a Waves Superrack system/server - which has sub 1ms one way transport latency (so sub 2ms roundtrip latency). Dante is going to have at least 2ms of latency EACH WAY plus some plugin host software latency.
Please keep in mind that in order to get the latency times down as low as possible using a Waves system, you must use the full Superrack system including the dedicated Superrack servers to process the audio. You can’t run the Waves Superrack Performer on your laptop and expect the same fast latency times that the dedicated Superrack servers achieve.
You also have to ask yourself if the latency even matters. The advantage to the Waves system is that it is fast enough to allow for multiple roundtrips to/from Waves in audio paths in the same overall chain. So you can roundtrip a channel to Waves, then send that channel back to Waves in a group, and then send it back to Waves a third time with some output/matrix processing, etc.
With Dante, you might only be able to get one or two roundtrips before the total latency became a problem. But if your situation only needs one or two roundtrips, then using Dante won’t likely be a problem even with it’s longer overall latency times.
Yes, for sure, but in this case it’s because I already have DVS and a Dante I/O V3 card in my console. I also have a lot of Waves plugins for the studio, plus SuperRack Performer and a very good laptop optimized for audio.
So I think it would be a shame not to be able to use SuperRack Performer with a few plugins — like 16 racks with 0-latency plugins. It would be a pity to miss out when I already have the gear, and this is for FOH. Of course, with Waves hardware I would get much better results, but here the goal is just to have acceptable latency for FOH with what I already own, and maybe buy the Digiface Dante to really be on top. Originally I was only doing multitrack recordings.
So do you think it’s gona be good for FOH and super rack wiath the digiface Dante hardware ? maybe 6ms it’s good for the FOH
Yeah, a single round trip with a Dante card and Dante hardware for the computer (PCIe card or another interface style like the Digiface Dante USB interface) and a software host like Superrack Performer (or LiveProfessor, etc) will be completely fine for FOH use. You can probably even squeeze two round trips in before the total latency will start to be noticeable for FOH.
Ok so many thanks for your response
Hi! If you use a Waves card with Waves Rack without a server, is the latency the same or better than Dante? Maybe I wouldn’t need the Dante license on the PC. I’ve seen someone using LiveProfessor with a Waves card.
To get the lowest latency with Waves, you need to use the Soundgrid servers. This is because Waves has really customized their OS to being down the latency as much as possible.
That being said, you can use the Waves card without utilizing Soundgrid servers by using the drivers available on the Waves website. Using a “regular” OS and these drivers will result in longer latencies. I haven’t used it to know how much longer the latency would be, but I think it probably is in line with Dante DVS latency.
As you noted, there is still an advantage to using the Waves system over Dante - cost. This is because you can use up to 128x128 on the computer using the free drivers from the Waves website. There is no licensing fee like there is with Dante DVS (which only handles 64x64) nor do you have to pay a subscription to get 128x128 via a computer like you do with Dante DVS Pro.
So while Dante can add extra flexibility because it has such a large ecosystem (ie there are a lot more devices that work over Dante), Waves certainly has an advantage when it comes to large channel counts interfacing with a computer for plug-in processing or multitrack recording.
I'll have to think about it. I've been using Avantis for a while now, and with Dpack I noticed that the plugins I used with Waves Superrack (USB with SQ7) are already present (160, La2a Bus, etc.) and work well. Autotune is missing (present on Dlive), let's hope for a vocal fx update for Avantis too.
What I can add to the above is that the biggest bottleneck for both Waves and Dante is Windows. It’s simply not designed for it, nor is it optimized for it, it can be configured afterwards, to some extent, but it will never be like a stripped-down Linux for this purpose.
And if we want to take Windows out of the equation, we practically come to 2 solutions:
Waves Soundgrid Server: the official one, or the cheaper DIY one (there are solutions for this, you can even use an older machine for this purpose, in short: A suitable motherboard, a suitable Intel processor with as many cores as possible, with a faster clock speed, a suitable Intel network card, a smaller pendrive from which the Linux Server loads, a few GB of RAM, at least a GPU built into the processor, but if the machine loads stably, this can be turned off), A Waves server, can only calculate/run its own Waves plugins, so it is not equivalent to a Windows Performer, there is no “any VST”.
Fourier Audio - transform.engine: expensive!, but… it does the calculation itself, runs the software, Linux-based, built-in Dante or Madi communication, you need a PC/laptop for remote control. It runs any VST. It is more stable than a Waves server, due to the redundant power and communication, and because it runs the plugins individually with a sandbox solution, so if one of them crashes, the others continue to run. By the way, in case of a crash, the given plugin automatically restarts. (I don’t know much about this solution, you’ll have to look into it if you have the money)
One more thing: If you absolutely have to use Windows, make sure you’re at 96khz, then the latency will be about halved, but since each VST works with 2x as much data, you may need a more powerful machine. (At least this is my experience with the Waves card, I haven’t used Dante yet.)
Digiface dante can run at 0.25ms latency. I’ve done this many times. RME USB is not normal USB. Be aware you only get 32 channels each of Dante and Madi at 96K.
I haven’t measured the difference between a waves card and the various dante cards on the dLive, the waves card seems to be more stable and gives you 128x128 @96K96K.
I agree with Steffen that hardware is better than DVS!
I have a Dante PCIe hardware card (which is going to see similar latency times as the RME USB device) and while the minimum latency setting available in the hardware is .25ms, that doesn’t mean that you are actually going to achieve anything close to .25ms total latency in real life. Total latency is made of all the various components in your audio path. Every device is going to add to the latency and anytime you add a computer for hosting plugins, that dramatically increases the latency times. I measured my system (Avantis console with Dante card → Dante PCIe card (set at .25ms latency) → Computer running host software (no plugins active however) → Dante PCIe card → Dante Card in Avantis console) and it was closer to 6-8ms round trip or 3-4ms each way. That’s about as fast as you can expect when you use Dante for transport to some plugin hosting solution. Of course it’s not Dante being slow here, but it’s the plugin hosting solutions currently available that is most latent part of the audio path.
So while there is no question that using a Dante hardware interface with your computer is going to be less latent than using Dante Virtual Soundcard (probably by a factor of 2), it still doesn’t really compare to some of the fastest non-Dante solutions out there. Both the Waves Sound Grid and Fourier solutions are considerably faster than Dante because they have customized the OS used for plugin hosting.
Again, I’m not trying to bash on Dante. If you have a Dante hardware computer interface, it is perfectly acceptable for one to two roundtrip audio paths for plugin processing if you are using it for FOH. If you are using it when latency really doesn’t matter (multitrack recording, broadcast use, etc) then you can add even more roundtrips without any worry. But if/when you need the absolute lowest latency solution (the most likely scenario is wanting to use plugin chains with IEM monitoring) then there are solutions with far less latency.
May I ask what your full setup is? Especially OS, how your PCIe card is connected to your machine (in an external PCIe case using USB or Thunderbolt or actually mounted to a PCIe slot in your hardware) and what machine you’re using for processing? Also, what PCIe card do you have?
The Dante interface is a Focusrite Rednet Dante PCIeR card. It’s an older device - one of the original Dante PCIe cards available - and it offers 128x128 at 96k. It’s installed internally directly into a PCI slot. The computer has an i5-12x00 processor (either the 12400 or 12600) with 32gb of RAM and is running Windows 11. I’ve used several plugin host software over time. Initially I was using Reaper, then I switched to LiveProfessor for a while. Both worked just fine. I honestly don’t remember which software I was using when I measured the latency, but I believe it was Reaper.
While I still have and use the Dante set up, I am not currently using it for plugins. We switched from the Avantis to the DLive which has the RackUltra FX card installed. The new FX models have replaced what I was doing externally with regards to plugins. The computer right now is primarily multi-track recording our events via the Dante interface.
Thanks a lot for sharing! I’m about to start some own experiments as soon as I can get my hands on a PCIe card. I’d prefer a fully builtin solution like the RackUltra FX, but given that it’s not available for Avantis (yet; let’s see about NAMM and ISE) and given the potential price point of an update, I’m hoping to find latencies low enough for processing via external processing.