Will SAW recognize I/O over ethernet?

[UpTilDawn]

In a few weeks I may need to record a multitrack concert taking a split from a Roland M-480 Digital Mixer, which only outputs multi-track audio through the ethernet port (no usb audio). I'm not clear about it yet, but it may also require a piece of hardware from their (discontinued) REAC digital splitter, which I may have access to from our long-retired school system. Whether a direct out, or through extra hardware, my only digital input option will be via ethernet.

So, will SAW/SAC recognize audio coming in over ethernet in general and over this Roland REAC version (likely proprietary, IIRC) at all?

I remember using Sonar 7 or 8 at school back then to record concerts (not the same venue at all) and having to bring the hard drive home to copy the wav files to the pc in order to work with them in SAW. That was long ago and I never owned a copy of Sonar. So, I also don't know if the current version of Sonar/Cakewalk will work with the M-480's ethernet audio either. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

If nothing else, I at least have the option of bringing an analog splitter, preamps and a desktop pc to sit backstage and record that way. But I'd rather sit out front at foh console and catch the show for a change.

[cgrafx]

In a few weeks I may need to record a multitrack concert taking a split from a Roland M-480 Digital Mixer, which only outputs multi-track audio through the ethernet port (no usb audio). I'm not clear about it yet, but it may also require a piece of hardware from their (discontinued) REAC digital splitter, which I may have access to from our long-retired school system. Whether a direct out, or through extra hardware, my only digital input option will be via ethernet.

So, will SAW/SAC recognize audio coming in over ethernet in general and over this Roland REAC version (likely proprietary, IIRC) at all?

I remember using Sonar 7 or 8 at school back then to record concerts (not the same venue at all) and having to bring the hard drive home to copy the wav files to the pc in order to work with them in SAW. That was long ago and I never owned a copy of Sonar. So, I also don't know if the current version of Sonar/Cakewalk will work with the M-480's ethernet audio either. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

If nothing else, I at least have the option of bringing an analog splitter, preamps and a desktop pc to sit backstage and record that way. But I'd rather sit out front at foh console and catch the show for a change.

Short answer is maybe. Will depend on your SAW Studio computer. If your using Win 7 or 8 then there is a pretty good chance it would work.

From the Roland Website:

If using a Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer, the REAC driver enables users to capture up to 40 audio channels from a Digital Snake or Roland V-Mixer directly into most ASIO-based DAWs such as SONAR, Cubase, Reaper, etc - all via one Cat5e/6 cable to the PC's Ethernet Port.

Notes:
Windows 10 and Apple computers (i.e. macOS, Mac OS X, etc) are not supported. The driver has been discontinued and there will be no more updates made to the driver.

While the REAC driver was tested in the past with Sonar X1, X2 and X3, we cannot guarantee compatibility all other DAW software.
REAC Driver Download (Windows 7 and Windows 8 only):
https://proav.roland.com/global/supp...dates_drivers/

The following document guided through setting up the REAC driver with Sonar:
https://static.roland.com/assets/med...20guide_en.pdf

[UpTilDawn]

Short answer is maybe. Will depend on your SAW Studio computer. If your using Win 7 or 8 then there is a pretty good chance it would work.

[I]From the Roland Website:

If using a Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer, the REAC driver enables users to capture up to 40 audio channels from a Digital Snake or Roland V-Mixer directly into most ASIO-based DAWs such as SONAR, Cubase, Reaper, etc - all via one Cat5e/6 cable to the PC's Ethernet Port....

Thanks for this.
I did find the driver download last night and knew it worked with Sonar.
I hadn't noticed this quote about it possibly working with other asio-based daws. I need to schedule a meeting with the sound people at this venue soon, I think, so I can test it with SAW and SAC.

[jmh]

I've had a Behringer x18 & a presonus series iii - both of which have rj45 audio outs, as does an allen&heath sq7 I'm involved with at work. Do any of you know if there is a standard where these are all likely work with that driver - or is there several proprietary formats?

Does the driver detect how many channels, bit rate, and depth? ...or do you set that up by hand. Now that I think of it, it seems the stream would periodically bundle metadata packets carrying that info. Maybe I'll wire-shark the one of those outputs and see what I get.

I'm pretty sure each of the manufacturers I mentioned call it something different and also think that avb has some low latency spec - but maybe that driver it would work okay for audio that is just being recorded where you might have a big buffer to accommodate variable network latency over IP? I also wonder if avb existed in the days of win7.

It might be like sip which is used in VoIP (or even be a flavor of sip), where there is a common basic functionality but a manufacturer may add proprietary extensions?

[cgrafx]

I've had a Behringer x18 & a presonus series iii - both of which have rj45 audio outs, as does an allen&heath sq7 I'm involved with at work. Do any of you know if there is a standard where these are all likely work with that driver - or is there several proprietary formats?

Does the driver detect how many channels, bit rate, and depth? ...or do you set that up by hand. Now that I think of it, it seems the stream would periodically bundle metadata packets carrying that info. Maybe I'll wire-shark the one of those outputs and see what I get.

I'm pretty sure each of the manufacturers I mentioned call it something different and also think that avb has some low latency spec - but maybe that driver it would work okay for audio that is just being recorded where you might have a big buffer to accommodate variable network latency over IP? I also wonder if avb existed in the days of win7.

It might be like sip which is used in VoIP (or even be a flavor of sip), where there is a common basic functionality but a manufacturer may add proprietary extensions?

The Roland interface uses the REAC protocol/interface which has its own ASIO driver and if working would show up in SAW/SAC in the Audio Driver section with inputs and outputs just like an RME card or other physical interface.

There are multiple protocols that connect over physical Ethernet cables

AES50, AVB, Dante, MADI, etc

None of these are directly compatible with each other and require hardware/software to interconnect.

The Behringer uses AES50 to connect to its stage boxes and has an optional DANTE interface to do Audio Over Ethernet

The Presonus uses AVB (as do MOTU).

Dante has a Virtual interface driver that is suitable for recording inputs, but not for doing live mixes with outputs as the latency is too high.

AVB currently requires a physical box/interface to connect to your computer (RME makes both Dante and AVB to USB interfaces for example)

I'm not 100% sure how settings are configured (bit depth/rate, buffer size, etc), but expect it will be driver/brand specific, just like it is for any other audio interface.

[John F]

In a few weeks I may need to record a multitrack concert taking a split from a Roland M-480 Digital Mixer, which only outputs multi-track audio through the ethernet port (no usb audio). I'm not clear about it yet, but it may also require a piece of hardware from their (discontinued) REAC digital splitter, which I may have access to from our long-retired school system. Whether a direct out, or through extra hardware, my only digital input option will be via ethernet.

So, will SAW/SAC recognize audio coming in over ethernet in general and over this Roland REAC version (likely proprietary, IIRC) at all?

I remember using Sonar 7 or 8 at school back then to record concerts (not the same venue at all) and having to bring the hard drive home to copy the wav files to the pc in order to work with them in SAW. That was long ago and I never owned a copy of Sonar. So, I also don't know if the current version of Sonar/Cakewalk will work with the M-480's ethernet audio either. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

If nothing else, I at least have the option of bringing an analog splitter, preamps and a desktop pc to sit backstage and record that way. But I'd rather sit out front at foh console and catch the show for a change.

Please keep us posted on your progress with this! I use a Roland M5000 console at my church, which talks to SAWStudio just fine over its USB connection, but for 16 channels only. Supposedly, you can get 40 channels with a Windows 7 or 8 machine and the Roland driver, but I haven't gotten it to work via either Ethernet or USB with the M5000, so it may only be with the M-480. I do think that you will absolutely need a Win 7 or 8 machine to get this to work. Feel free to PM me if you want to comiserate more with all things Roland....

John Francis
Rolla, MO
jfrancis@fidnet.com

[UpTilDawn]

First test was half a success.

I made all the changes to my Win7 x60 Thinkpad that the REAC manual says are need, if I hadn't already changed to work efficiently with SAW and (later) SAC as a front end to SAW. Then, took it over to the venue and hooked it up to their M-480 while they se up for an artist's concert/sound check. They are very easy to work with and helped as far as their understanding of the system could take them.

It took a couple of reboots of the pc, but we did get signal to SAW, SAC and an old trial version of Sonar 8. However, we never did get an actual multi-track set of channels to show up. Instead, we managed to get the master L/R out on ch 1/2 and a mirror of the master outs they send to their front side fills out, on ch 7/8 into the Thinkpad and on the meters.

I don't know Sonar well at all and probably didn't assign the 24-ch test properly, because all i ever got was 12 pairs of the mains across the 24 track meters, no matter how I tried to set up I/O, or change the input on a track-by-track basis. I didn't bother to record that, since I knew what I was seeing by that time.

SAW only showed meter activity on the two pairs - 1/2 and 7/8. I see that as at least a positive step, because we could confirm what was being sent out of their board by adjusting levels and muting sources. I think that we weren't routing things properly out of the consoles "split" out, but we hadn't figured it out by the time they had to break before the show.

SAC, on the other hand baffled me - as it would simply crash and close within 5-6 seconds of going live. - This was without SAW coupled to it. I simply started my tests with SAC, anticipating using it as a front end to SAW, as I do all the time on my laptop pcs.

I will be meeting with another guy mid-week at the same venue, when he will bring his laptop and we can compare systems, settings, etc. This is the laptop he set up a few years ago to specifically record from this M-480 board. The guy I worked with this week also felt that other people had changed the default routing awhile back, which might explain why we couldn't get a 1 to 1 channel output through the REAC split output (which is the default output to send multi-track to a pc.


I'm all ears, if anyone has questions, comments or suggestions at this stage.

[cgrafx]

Great to hear back about your progress. Not sure anybody here can be much help as your treading into fairly uncharted waters with the REAC driver.

I do think your on the right track with respect to channel mapping, its most likely a misconfigured matrix on the console.

Saw/SAC should see 12 or more input pairs that ideally will correspond to the input channels 1-24 (or more if possible) on the console.

As far as SAC crashing, try taking a look at the buffer settings and increase them to see if that helps with stability.

if you are only going to record, I would be inclined to just use SAW Studio directly and eliminate the extra step.

[UpTilDawn]

...
Saw/SAC should see 12 or more input pairs that ideally will correspond to the input channels 1-24 (or more if possible) on the console...

Agreed. They tell me this group will very likely need fewer than 24ch, so I initially configured only 24ch. If I can get that, then I certainly should be able to get up to the 40ch limit.

... As far as SAC crashing, try taking a look at the buffer settings and increase them to see if that helps with stability.

if you are only going to record, I would be inclined to just use SAW Studio directly and eliminate the extra step.

Buffers are quite large to begin with in this REAC system - 1152ms record buffer set by the REAC software. I thought I was running at least 4 buffers, but maybe only 2? I will be sure to try more. There's no possibility of my monitoring the laptop, since SAC can't be set to use a different device for playback than that for recording, nor any need to mix in SAC. I was simply planning on SAC taking some of the load off the pc, as it usually does well when using the usb connection with the x32 console at school.

But your point is well taken and that's partly why I tested recording 24ch in SAW by itself (even though only 4 tracks had active signals). In fact, I was pleased that SAW didn't seem stressed at all, although I had managed to push it too far on this pc in the past (before combining with SAC).

The REAC control software interface has very few user settings in 3 of the 4 modes - Playback only, Record only and Locked. Freewheel (auto-resync) has some playback/monitoring buffer setting which won't help me.

As you've said, Philip, the key might well be in the matrix config. I do hope that's all it is. The crew there doesn't seem put out by the idea of having to reconfigure it, if needed.

[cgrafx]

you don't have to worry about saw studio system load when your running higher buffer settings. think 1024 or 2048 or even 4096, you don't need low latency, your not supplying live playback feeds/mixes.