OT: SAC Overview

[RBIngraham]

That is awesome!!!!!!! I'm thinking about putting the engine on stage with another PC with flying faders running SAC Remote for FOH. Eliminating most of the snakes and cables.

You'll want to search through the forum on this topic. There some limitations. If you want to be able to PFL into headphones at FOH (which most will want to do) you need to figure out a way to do that. Using IEM, or running a small snake with headphone amp, etc... several different ways to do it that have been covered numerous times.

While you can do it over a wi-fi connection, you'll want to be careful. That can be very unreliable and typically your FOH mix is not something you want to be unreliable. Things can work great during set up and then an audience shows up that each has at least one device in their pocket and your access point is slammed and you're hosed. Again... this topic has been beat to death, so best to just search the forum archives for all sorts of wired and wireless solutions.

Lastly when working with plug ins (VST plugs) you don't get instant control at the remote location. You have to make the change and then send an update command back to the host. I never found it to be a big deal but it is an extra step and you have to remember that and know how to make it work.

Also you will likely have to spend some time playing with sharing drives on your system if you want to be able to save mix files and write scenes from your remote machine. Saving the mix file I typically got to work reasonably well. But I always had issues getting the remote to write scenes back to the host. I played all sorts of games and it was never reliable. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't, even with the same host and remote machines and switches.

[mr_es335]

Richard,

Also you will likely have to spend some time playing with sharing drives on your system if you want to be able to save mix files and write scenes from your remote machine. Saving the mix file I typically got to work reasonably well. But I always had issues getting the remote to write scenes back to the host. I played all sorts of games and it was never reliable. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't, even with the same host and remote machines and switches.

...I do find this interesting!

I have been working with SAC and SACRemote and found that - under Windows 7 at least, as long as you have:

• the same username on each system
• the same password on each system
• that Drive C: is shared assigning only that username to that share
• that your data/session drive is shared assigning only that username to that share

...then it all works as it should!

Also, is this point not covered in the Help File:

"Using the TCP/IP Options
All connected remote computers should have read and write access to all drives and folders which SAC will be using, or remote file operations will be limited. You should also be signed on to the network and have entered any required passwords in Windows before attempting to connect within SAC. You should verify that you can copy and paste files from and to the host computer in the Windows explorer before attempting the SAC connection." (emphasis mine)

[RBIngraham]

Richard,

...I do find this interesting!

I have been working with SAC and SACRemote and found that - under Windows 7 at least, as long as you have:

• the same username on each system
• the same password on each system
• that Drive C: is shared assigning only that username to that share
• that your data/session drive is shared assigning only that username to that share

...then it all works as it should!

Also, is this point not covered in the Help File:

"Using the TCP/IP Options
All connected remote computers should have read and write access to all drives and folders which SAC will be using, or remote file operations will be limited. You should also be signed on to the network and have entered any required passwords in Windows before attempting to connect within SAC. You should verify that you can copy and paste files from and to the host computer in the Windows explorer before attempting the SAC connection." (emphasis mine)

Yeah I figured you would chime in with that. (Yes I have looked at your guides)

What you have outlined above was not my experience. Granted it's been a while since I've bothered... so maybe things have changed, don't know.

But all of my production computers shared the same simple user name and password... always have.
I shared every damn drive in the world with full permissions...

And yes I could easily copy files back and forth all day on my systems.

And I rarely was able to create or update scenes via a remote. I found that you also have to have a router in place so it was handling host names. In other words you couldn't just hard assign IPs and use a simple gigabit switch. I had much better luck once I went with a router so name resolution was handled by that device. But it was still never 100% reliable.

I even had issues when all machines involved were XP machines. But yeah mix and match OS set ups did cause more issues than if all machines were the same version of Windows.

My main point... plan on spending a good deal of time tinkering in order for that aspect to work. It's not as simple as just setting up a basic network between two or more machines. Which I always found to be unfortunate. When it worked... it was great. But it took some time and you had to be patient. Don't be trying to sort it out in a hurry or you will want to throw you remote across the room.

[mr_es335]

Richard,

It is always nice to have you "chime in" as well...it keeps things "fun"!

I have tested this all out with, 1) LAN direct, non cross-over cabling - , 2) LAN direct cross-over cabling, 3) LAN, with a switch, with both cabling types, 4) a router, as shown in the tutorials...and all of them worked, saving both sessions and scenes across the network.

Interestingly, using MAC addressing and a LAN direct cross-over cabling scenario seemed to work the best overall, and will be the way in which I will use SACRemote - for the simple reason that I can.

Note: The only thing that I have been unable to do is to open sessions across the LAN. I thought that I was able to do that once...but have been unsuccessful...which is really not a big deal.

Update: "...unable to do is to open sessions across the LAN..." has been resolved via the use of UNC paths. DK