# Dante/RedNet users?



## danbo (Jun 27, 2018)

I've got a exquisite 6' grand in my living room which fortunately has great acoustics, so I'll be doing a lot of recording (not going to bother upgrading my Ivory license  ). Problem I'm not going at being engineer and musician, it's one or the other, plus I don't want lots of wires and stuff by the piano.

So I've got an order place (but won't fulfill for the next week so I can still cancel) for a solution that looks good.


Focusrite Red 4Pre in the studio. Lots of IO, mic pre's for studio work (my garage) and has RedNet & Thunderbolt for a trash can Mac Pro 2013
Focusrite RedNet X2P for the remote. Nice and small, designed for musicians with minimal wiring. I can use the Focusrite Control + Logic Remote Control on my iPad for starting the sessions and listening to them for immediate feedback. Only two channels but that's all I need as I'm just doing various stereo two mic configurations. 

I've downloaded trial versions of their software but they're rather s:(- . Crashes, memory leaks and what not, I'm guessing these are hardware not software guys. But I'm wondering about the robustness of the platform, I just want it to work with low latency.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 27, 2018)

Dante is a solid, but pricey platform. I like the idea of using it for your piano recording and you have me thinking and wondering about my own Piano which is upstairs from my studio... I will be curious to hear how that goes for you. If it were me I'd probably go with the X2P for the remote end by the piano and then try the inexpensive software solution, the dante virtual sound card ($30) and see if I can get it working ok on my home network that way first.

Later I'd probably add the Rednet PCI card to my mac.

But you're needing and wanting more mic pre's then the other one looks cool too. 

I will just say a few things about Dante in general though. Streaming audio over ethernet is interesting and in general I like this technology but most people say that your Dante data should be on its own dedicated network, not shared with anything else in your house. For just recording your piano with a few mics, you might be able to get away with streaming through your home network (wired only)...but you might run into issues too, its hard to say. For just recording your piano, latency doesn't matter as much so you can run a big buffer and it will probably be fine. Personally I would avoid trying to base your entire home studio on using dante...as it will end up in the long run being expensive and highly technical stuff to setup and administration if you grow, etc. That data IT oriented technology is not for the faint of heart. In a big installation, they can justify the costs and wire infrastructure for failover and all that stuff...and for them it makes sense because it is very convenient to use and eliminates a lot of analog cabling, but it is by no means a less expensive approach or less difficult to setup properly.

I do like the idea, however, of using it in a case like that for recording the grand piano from the living room while your studio is downstairs, I have exactly the same issue with a 1920 Mason & Hamlin AA that I'd love to record and you have definitely given me an idea to try that at some point using this kind of technology.


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## danbo (Jun 28, 2018)

Dewdman42 said:


> Dante is a solid, but pricey platform. I like the idea of using it for your piano recording and you have me thinking and wondering about my own Piano which is upstairs from my studio... I will be curious to hear how that goes for you. If it were me I'd probably go with the X2P for the remote end by the piano and then try the inexpensive software solution, the dante virtual sound card ($30) and see if I can get it working ok on my home network that way first.



The virtual sound card doesn't have a free demo (stupid) but the other ones do. Confusingly they have the Dante Via which seems to work much like the virtual sound card and has a free demo. The software is buggy but I was able to verify it worked between two macs with 10mS latency reported via Dante Via. Some of the bugs are crashes, memory leaks on one of my macs (their answer; reinstall the software for gods sake). Even the DanteViaDaemon consumes 15% of my cpu needlessly doing nothing in the background, it spins the fans on my older laptop. So I'm not impressed with the software, though to be fair if you stop the Dante Via process (via a button, not by closing the app because the Daemon still runs) then it quiets down. It appears that Via is doing a lot of audio processing, but I'm surprised it couldn't be handled with less CPU.

I should mention here my house is wired with a Cisco S300 3 switch system, which happily turns out to be their recommended configuration, and they give detailed explanation on how to configure the switches for low latency Dante/audio traffic. Basically it's all QoS/Quality of Service settings where you give priority to the audio traffic. They indicate that unless you're on a busy network or have more than 4 switch hops it shouldn't be necessary but I set it up anyhow. These Cisco switches are a treat by the way, not too expensive (available in 10 and 20 port options which I have) and they essentially run the same OS as the big boys, with all the same features.

So continuing, I got a $120 AVIOAI2 2 channel dongle. It only has 10BaseT (not gigabit) and requires PoE (I got another dongle for that since my Cisco switches don't supply PoE) but it flawlessly connects every time (unlike the software which can be a bit spotty) and has 1mS latency. At least according to the Via software. Performance seems to be fine but I haven't extensively had time to test it, but will do so in the next few days. So this is what led me to think a hardware solution is preferable, I'm a software/hardware engineer and these guys look like the typical hardware company that oh-by-the-way wrote some software. So the hardware looks great from the papers and slides I've seen, but the software isn't up to my standards. But, if you wanted to go cheap, then a few software licenses would probably work fine, or you could pick up the $120 dongle solution.

So my impression is if somebody wanted to setup their home studio as Dante only I think it could be done for _relatively_ cheap with RedNet and a few Cisco switches for $400. So far it doesn't seem prohibitive, and for those of us with the home studio can save running cables everywhere (assuming you're wired with Cat5/6). For example, I also want it for my 'quiet room' (OK it's my large master closet). It's wired with ethernet and power (I had an idea I'd want to use this for something needing internet so had it installed) and it's absolutely dead quiet in there and damped, from all the clothing. A chair, stand, microphone and interface and viola! a solo recording booth for vocals or sampling an instrument (I play the clarinet and sax so want to record/sample those too probably). No worries about noise outside the house like a leaf blower, truck or whatnot.

M&H, now that's an aggressive piano, though I don't know what the older ones are like. My preferred one for Rachmaninov  I have a sleeper piano, the Walter 6'4", designed by Del Fandrich. After tech work and break-in (which took _years_) it's a beautiful home instrument. I'll probably give out a free sample of it sometime.


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## danbo (Jun 28, 2018)

FWIW I got the AVIO going to Dante Via on a laptop. Logic says a slow 21mS roundtrip on the smallest 32 sample buffer size, rising to an enormous 62mS on the largest 1024 sample buffer. Doing a test where I route (using Via) to headphones with both devices (laptop and AVIO) on the same Cisco switch, I get a thump-thump when tapping the mic with a very small, I don't know but less than 100 mS delay (also has to go through software layers). Snapping my fingers seems to give a somewhat larger delay, but of course now we've got the speed of sound to contend with.


Unplugging the PoE (e.g. turning it off) gave a delay of about 10-12 seconds before it hung up. P
owering up again it took about 25 seconds to reconnect, but it seamlessly reconnected the previous routing.
Repeating this procedure it took about 27-30s and then had a warning when it found it. Clicking on the warning light in Via corrected it
Third time it took 18 seconds to disconnect, on reconnect again I got the warning but it figured it out in another 30 seconds when I left it alone. 
So it seems to reconnect connections well. 

I tried another experiment, two computers, two switches and the AVIO. Using Via I routed the AVIO->Remote computer Soundflower input, then routed Soundflower output back to my local computer (with the mic and AVIO location). But this gives the error "Subscription unresolved, cannot find source (Soundflower) on the network". Even though it let me hook it up, hmmm. 

I'll try some more experiments. What I want to do is to hear the loopback delay, but I'm having trouble getting that to work.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

danbo said:


> M&H, now that's an aggressive piano, though I don't know what the older ones are like. My preferred one for Rachmaninov



It was my grandmother’s that I inherited and then I had it restored inside and out by Lindeblad Piano. So I don’t know how it sounds compared to what it was in 1920. What I always liked about M&H is they have a meaty and interesting midrange as I recall playing some new ones in the 90’s but this one doesn’t sound as I recall from the 90’s; but then again my recollection of anything is deteriorating over time. 






Thanks for your detailed report about Dante I will watch this thread closely


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## danbo (Jun 28, 2018)

Dewdman42 said:


> It was my grandmother’s that I inherited and then I had it restored inside and out by Lindeblad Piano. So I don’t know how it sounds compared to what it was in 1920. What I always liked about M&H is they have a meaty and interesting midrange as I recall playing some new ones in the 90’s but this one doesn’t sound as I recall from the 90’s; but then again my recollection of anything is deteriorating over time.



Beautiful. No I meant I wonder how the 1920 Masons sound (e.g. yours) compared to current production. M&H went into bankruptcy in 1980 or something and quality fell off a cliff. IIRC it got bought later and the current pianos are top notch again. Certainly the ones I've played are, but I haven't played any vintage ones, so was just curious if they're as aggressive as the latest, or if they were a bit more mellow back then. 

My favorite might be the Fazioli which I got to play in a famous shop in Stuttgart. Lovely, perfect at everything, but unfortunately in the six figures.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

The guts of mine were all replaced except for the actual “harp”, so it’s really doubtful that it sounds or plays anything like it did in 1920, though Lindeblad did attempt as much as possible to be true to the original thing, it’s using modern parts inside. Unfortunately I am not knowledgeable enough to speak any more authoritatively then that about how it actually sounds or plays now compared to say a Steinway, Yamaha or modern M&H. I would not call it aggressive nor mellow. Not sure what you mean by “aggressive”. One of these days I want to record it and compare it to other pianos


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jun 28, 2018)

There are a number of threads on Dante/Rednet if you search. Here's my story. I am very happy with Dante. It is the audio core of my studio. I run ~40ch across it every time the full template is up and going. I get very low latency and up to 128ch I/O using the PCIe card, but I suspect you'll get similar performance over Thunderbolt. 

So you know, the Dante Virtual Soundcard is NOT an ASIO device. It killed the DPC latency on my DAW until I removed it. I do use Dante Via to play Spotify across the network from my laptop, but that is not latency sensitive. I don't use DVS on my DAW.

Ethernet distribution is quite effective, scalable and simple. i run it on a dedicated Power-over-Ethernet switch. I use the AM2's for monitors and like them a lot. There is only one wire to them as they get power from the Ethernet switch.

I've been very happy with my RedNet boxes and Dante in general. The application you suggest should work just fine.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jun 28, 2018)

The other thing to mention is that the network latency of Dante is a complete non-factor. The latency across ethernet will be 150 microseconds or less. Not milliseconds. Microseconds. The Data audio routing utility keeps track of the latency across the Dante network. If everything is on the same switch, it is quite fast. The ASIO latency swamps any network transit latency by an order of magnitude.

You will want to use a dedicated ethernet switch, or just carve out a couple of ports for a dedicated VLAN (which is where I started). I use dedicated IP interfaces as well in my DAW. I don't share Dante with VEP, general studio management traffic, or Internet traffic. Each has a dedicated Ethernet port in my DAW.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> You will want to use a dedicated ethernet switch, or just carve out a couple of ports for a dedicated VLAN (which is where I started). I use dedicated IP interfaces as well in my DAW. I don't share Dante with VEP, general studio management traffic, or Internet traffic. Each has a dedicated Ethernet port in my DAW.



That is the part that scares me... Sounds like a dream system though once its setup properly. I am about to thrown down for a Midas M32R for my studio, which has dante option, have been trying to decide whether to get into that or not. I'm going to read your thread from last year later today.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jun 28, 2018)

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Gigabit-Lifetime-Protection-GS108PEv3/dp/B00M1C03U2/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1530202489&sr=1-5&keywords=poe+switch (A dedicated switch) costs less than $100, including PoE functionality. This is an incidental cost if switching to Dante, in my opinion.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

If I were going to attempt Dante I personally would definitely want better networking in my house. I have cat5 to every room, so that's great, but I'd need higher quality router and switches and I personally would want to do some of the things you are talking about in terms of isolating the Dante traffic from other traffic, whether its by totally isolated network cards and switches...or VLAN's or whatever...I'm not that knowledgeable about that kind of networking stuff....so its a bit voodoo to me right now. But in my home network, I have numerous other things hitting the network including Netflix, Time machine backups and other kinds of background backups, crash plan backups, etc.. and if I ever get a VEP slave, then there will be that too. So in my mind unless you have pretty minimal things going on in the LAN, its just a good idea to have Dante isolated to its own network. But it sounds like you've had great results with just some cisco configuration, since you have the hardware to configure all that. It would be great to get more info about that kind of configuration.

For the M32R I'm about to get, that is going to replace my MOTU PCI based inputs/outputs. for now it will be via USB, but I want to upgrade it eventually to either Dante, or AES50. Dante is definitely a more sophisticated architecture that can run over existing IP network, PRESUMING, I have configured my LAN smartly, as you have done to isolate dante traffic from all that other crap going on in the house. AES50, its not nearly as sophisticated, but the nice thing is it would by definition be an isolated network separate from ethernet. But its not cabled through my house either...so... 

Ultimately here at my house I don't really need such a sophisticated thing, though the prospect of moving equipment around is interesting, for the most part I'm all in one room...aside form the piano upstairs...

dunno...Anyway...will read your other thread more completely this afternoon, thanks for sharing!


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jun 28, 2018)

All you want is a to buy a cheap switch. Ignore your house network. Put the PCIe card in your DAW. Run from it straight to the M32 if you want. If you plan to add other things, then get the cheap switch. Ethernet cables can be up to 100m long.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

Well if all I need is to connect the DAW to the M32R, then the AES50 solution is actually more affordable at $999 and in some ways preferable since AES50 is at the core of the Midas digital mixer networking strategy. 

Dante PCI + Dante card for the mixer is $1500.

And that won't get connected to my piano upstairs unless I tape into the cat5 wiring of my house that is the rest of my LAN which is where it starts to get a little crazy. I suppose I could just hardwire that one ethernet line near the piano on a separate LAN somehow and have my studio on that same lan, but then my studio won't be connected to the WAN, hehe. so..I dunno...but.. anyway.....


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## danbo (Jun 28, 2018)

Switches aren't a problem, if you get that Cisco I mentioned it will work equally well as dedicated and you can use it for general traffic, according to Audionate documentation which I'm trying to dig up again. They even have screen shot documentation for setting up the QoS so that's easy. 

VLAN's aren't tough and you can do that too, but it only should be an issue if you want to do multicast Dante (which few would need). This also is documented.

Thanks Nathanael for your experience with the virtual sound card. This too is my belief which is why I'm steering towards a hardware solution. 

Ethernet is a pretty sweet solution, I have four recording spots - my study where I do the writing, the garage where I do the 'conducting', the 'quiet room' (master closet) for quiet recording and the living room for the piano, so ethernet is the way to go. 

The Mic4PRE has thunderbolt with low latency and gobs of IO so is the best solution there for me.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

you guys actually have me thinking more also about the possibility to setup a small composing station in my office upstairs also that taps into my main DAW in the basement... Honestly its the LAN configuration that spooks me, but if you guys share specifics about that, its something to think about.


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## danbo (Jun 28, 2018)

Dewdman42 said:


> but if you guys share specifics about that, its something to think about.



I did already, Audionate recommends and I agree that https://www.amazon.com/Cisco-SG300-10-10-port-Gigabit-SRW2008-K9-NA/dp/B0041ORN6U (Cisco business switches) are the bomb, but others will work, that link is for a 10 port and is about $100. They PoE options too. Dig around their support site and you'll find tons of documentation on switches and networking, including a step by step guide to setting up QoS on the Cisco switch (the switch gives you a web interface). That's all you need. 

They specified that as long as your under 5-6 switch hops it won't matter, and if you want a dedicated lan in addition to other traffic and QoS you can add VLAN's in, but that's probably more complicated than you want.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

yea I dunno, my brain already hurts thinking about cisco configuration and networking. hehe.


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## danbo (Jun 28, 2018)

This page has lots of documentation, look at the bottom, if you're technically minded the advanced slides have a lot


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2018)

Read your other thread from last year. I just noticed you also use the M32R. Glad to hear that worked out well for you, I am probably pulling the trigger one of those today. 

Your studio needs are more extensive then mine, which I could see as a motivating factor to try Dante...notwithstanding the scary network configuration. For a multi room studio, with head phone monitors and the need to route audio between different rooms in flexible ways, that is exactly where Dante shines.. Kind of beyond what I really need though, other then being able to record my piano upstairs, like the OP.

in my case, I don't have multiple rooms really, its all in one room, though being able to record my piano would be fun. Aside from that, I'm not sure it would eliminate too many cables in that one room. It would make it possible to put the computer further away from the M32R with a single cable instead of USB (and lower latency). But most likely I would use Midas AES50 boxes as additional inputs for keyboards and stuff like that, which will clean up the cable mess a little bit, not a lot. Each of my 10+ keyboards still has to use old school cables. Might be possible to get some monitors that use dante instead of analog cables..there is that, not in the budget though.

I think Dante starts to shine when you want to setup a multi-room studio, connected by cat5 instead of old school balanced lines.

The one thing is it would be cool to be able to record my piano sometimes from upstairs, and Dante would be splendid for that, presuming I could isolate the dante LAN away from my normal internet LAN, which is not necessarily easy...and yes it makes my brain hurt when you start talking bout VLAN, QoS, etc.. 

I guess if I went down that road my MacPro has two ethernet ports, so I could use one for VEP and the other for internet and then a dante PCI card to cover that. Then I'd need a switch for the isolated dante network, but one thing is my studio room only has one cat5 line wired into it in the wall, which is needed for normal internet. So I still don't have a good way to get that dedicated dante LAN connected upstairs to the room with the piano. 

It might be that I could play around with the nose bleed configuration of network VLAN and QoS stuff to make it so that when I rarely record my piano it will just kind of work, even on the same LAN as normal internet. Won't know unless I try it and its not cheap to try, but at some point I may try it to see how it goes.

I'm going to run with USB on my Midas initially but in the not too distant future will either get AES50 or dante connection to the computer. AES50 is in some ways less complicated and cheaper, but doesn't offer the possibility to network to my piano upstairs as dante would...so there is that...

I digress...


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## bbyrne (Jun 29, 2018)

Hi danbo,

I've use Dante 12 to 14 hours every day for the last three years with the Yamaha NIO/RIO and 2 Nuage systems. Rock solid, very flexible across a large network, never crashes ! Now if only I could say the same for Cubase...


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