Dante Compatibility

[AudioGuruPDX]

Hi Bob,

I've been working on several projects where SAC is still the best fit. I was wondering if you've had any luck incorporating Dante hardware into your system?

I'm here at InfoComm and the Focusrite guy, said you've been working on it.

Will it be possible to route some inputs and outputs to and from a Dante card in a system that's currently using the RME RayDAT?

[AudioGuruPDX]

I think my question may have been answered in seminar. Dante Via is a new feature that allows you to assign by application, but Bob is really the only one who knows for sure.

[Bob L]

You should be able to use the Dante audio card and their driver to act just like any other soundcard... although that would mean that only one driver at a time can be used... so it would be either the RME or the Dante.

Personally, I have not seen a good and stable Dante setup in SAC yet... still hoping to see one soon though.

Bob L

[jlklein]

Is there any reason you would not be able to use Dante Virtual Soundcard with SAC? I've not tried it, but I have it on my PC and it shows up as an optional input in SAC's setup. I just haven't had any hardware to try it with yet.

Jeff

[Mattseymour]

In theory that should work, but in practice I believe there can be latency issues. It probably depends a lot on the NIC being used. That's why the focusrite rednet card exists, at such an astronomical price. Essentially I suspect it's a standard ethernet card but with tricked drivers so windows doesn't try to use it for networking.

Interestingly OS X now has AVB built in and AVB compliant NIC in macs built since 2011. Since Dante is supposed to be AVB compatible, it'll be interesting to see if MS build AVB into the next windows.

[RBIngraham]

Is there any reason you would not be able to use Dante Virtual Soundcard with SAC? I've not tried it, but I have it on my PC and it shows up as an optional input in SAC's setup. I just haven't had any hardware to try it with yet.

Jeff

Way too much latency in any set up of the Dante VSC. It's fine for recording or playback, but not mixing. I don't think that was ever their intent to route through the VSC.

I suspect this is why Focusrite went out and made their own hardware card. That REDNet stuff has always been very appealing to me, but no one seems to have wanted to be the guinea pig and open their wallet. At least not with regards to SAC.

[kylesoundman]

Digigrid will be another option for Dante enabled devices.

[brent]

Way too much latency in any set up of the Dante VSC. It's fine for recording or playback, but not mixing. I don't think that was ever their intent to route through the VSC.

I suspect this is why Focusrite went out and made their own hardware card. That REDNet stuff has always been very appealing to me, but no one seems to have wanted to be the guinea pig and open their wallet. At least not with regards to SAC.

We have done a mega church and a studio with large scale RedNet/Dante systems. It works very well. Very little latency. Dante latency with RedNet, Symetrix SymNet, etc is less than a ms. It is when a switch is introduced to the network that slows it down. Still we are talking under a couple of ms. The hardware is only expensive to those who have no demonstrable need for it. For those who need and use it, it is a bargain and actually saves money.

Virtual Sound Card is not meant for live mixing. It is meant for tracking or transferring files. If you want to live sound with Dante, buy a mixer with dedicated DSP and I/O.

[Larry Burger]

We have two Dante systems up and running with the same system load as an rme 9652. We have not dropped any buffers over 6 months.
There is one problem though when the live is set to off we have to go in and recheck asio to dante even though it is highlighted then it's up and running again.

[RBIngraham]

We have two Dante systems up and running with the same system load as an rme 9652. We have not dropped any buffers over 6 months.
There is one problem though when the live is set to off we have to go in and recheck asio to dante even though it is highlighted then it's up and running again.

Is this using the Dante Virtual Sound Card? If so...

System Load is one thing. I wouldn't expect that to be drastically different with the same buffer size and number. But that's not the same thing as overall system throughput latency. Have you measured your system latency from analog in to analog out? Or speaker out, if you're really being fancy and using an amp with digital inputs.

The Dante protocol itself has very low latency added when you hop on and off the network. But everything I've heard or seen has shown that the virtual sound card driver adds a significant amount of latency regardless of what application you're using.

But I would love to hear real world experience negating that.