# Dante Via Finally Out!



## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 11, 2015)

Some of you may be interested in this. I was on the beta for it and it seemed to work really well.

https://www.audinate.com/products/software/dante-via

Only $50 per license.

There is 1 trick/limitation which you need to know that took me a while to figure out because they hadn't announced the info and weren't replying to my emails (although it is now shown on the product page). Via is limited to 2x2 per program. This makes using it for printing stems to another computer or monitoring surround from another computer not possible, however, you can use the Dante Virtual Soundcard on 1 of the computers which will give you 16x16. Not the 32x32 that I initially hoped for but it's still pretty good. 

So I recommend getting a Via license and a Virtual Soundcard license instead of 2 Via licenses so that you can get these additional channels for a single program.


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## Audio Birdi (Nov 11, 2015)

Hi Gerhard,

Thanks for the info about it being released finally! . I was wondering when they'd be doing so as it looks like the thing i'm looking for in terms of using 1 audio interface for 2 computers.


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## givemenoughrope (Nov 11, 2015)

Any advantage with this over VE Pro just for Kontakt, etc?


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## stonzthro (Nov 11, 2015)

Interesting! And the only way to get 32 is to have a physical Dante decide on one of the machines, yes?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 11, 2015)

givemenoughrope said:


> Any advantage with this over VE Pro just for Kontakt, etc?



Nope. You might end up having more latency.

This is more useful for the people running multiple DAW's on multiple computers since you can use a single interface without any physical busses between them or even if you're just having another computer running any sort of program using audio (like Skype).


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 11, 2015)

stonzthro said:


> Interesting! And the only way to get 32 is to have a physical Dante decide on one of the machines, yes?



The Virtual Soundcard says up to 64. I only ever used it with 16 so I don't know if it works. You probably can get 32 with it.


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## jamwerks (Nov 11, 2015)

We'll see how good their drivers are. That can be one of the most difficult aspects; mac, pc, au, vst, rtas, etc. Lots of continued work on their end!


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

jamwerks said:


> We'll see how good their drivers are. That can be one of the most difficult aspects; mac, pc, au, vst, rtas, etc. Lots of continued work on their end!



Ya, one of the biggest drawbacks is that you need to use their driver so if you had something like RME on the computer you're networking over, you lose the perks of having RME drivers.


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## gsilbers (Nov 12, 2015)

so this can be used to have a 3rd computer running pro tools as a recorder and not have madi?
going out from the main DAW with 16 stereo stems into another computer w PT?
if so, that would be great and cheap way of adding a stems/recorder computer w/out madi and or aes.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

gsilbers said:


> so this can be used to have a 3rd computer running pro tools as a recorder and not have madi?
> going out from the main DAW with 16 stereo stems into another computer w PT?
> if so, that would be great and cheap way of adding a stems/recorder computer w/out madi and or aes.



Exactly. This was my plan (replacing 2 banks of adat) but now I'm just running Pro Tools on the same computer and not monitoring through it so I no longer need it (essentially what the Spitfire guys and Junkie XL are doing). I just offline export and then import into Pro Tools. Trevor Morris still does monitor through Pro Tools but it's just to not be loading/unloading his reverb plugins all day for each cue. He does all his mixing in Cubase and only uses 40 channels of madi. Pro Tools fades all stay at 0 for him.


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## gsilbers (Nov 12, 2015)

I did see trevor morris setup a while back. besides the huge amount of pcs, I remember he had pro tools with a ton of effects which later when on to print. but I think there are two pro tools, one for mixing and the other to record the audio. the mixing PT is all in input monitoring. maybe it changed recently as I remember its quite cumbersome and now systems are much more powerful so Cubase/etc can handle more effects.


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## gsilbers (Nov 12, 2015)

so dante seems like a cool solution to have PT as a slave recorder. deliver stems easily and playback video.
tbh, having yet another computer imo is a bit of a hassle.
I used to have a mac mini with adat but the sync between daws and that every time I pressed play on either daw I had to wait a bit. not bad, just odd. not sure if it got better.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Nov 12, 2015)

Interesting! I have the REDNET 1 and 2 PCI cards which are all linked and mapped through Dante Controller, which allows me to bus from Cubase to Pro Tools, so I'm kind of confused as to what the difference between what I have and this is? Does this mean I could add additional computers virtually into my system? I get 128 card to card to this would give me the ability to route my laptop , let's say to it without needing an additional card?!


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## samphony (Nov 12, 2015)

I did a test drive with two macs using Dante virtual sound card via Ethernet with 64channels. Pure awesomeness! Anyone who likes to stem in realtime without other audio interfaces involved or stream samples from pcs or macs to macs can do that.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

gsilbers said:


> I did see trevor morris setup a while back. besides the huge amount of pcs, I remember he had pro tools with a ton of effects which later when on to print. but I think there are two pro tools, one for mixing and the other to record the audio. the mixing PT is all in input monitoring. maybe it changed recently as I remember its quite cumbersome and now systems are much more powerful so Cubase/etc can handle more effects.



He just runs 1 Cubase computer and 1 Pro Tools computer and then 2 sample PCs. He does all the mixing in Cubase and sends out 20 stereo stems to Pro Tools where it gets upmixed to surround and gets reverbs (either hardware or Altiverb). There's not really any other processing done in Pro Tools. Then he just prints. He just upgraded to a trashcan (not sure if it was the PT or Cubase computer) and is now upgrading some of the hardware to support it. 

The sync delay issue is a problem between the midi sync of Cubase and Pro Tools. No way around that. If you use Nuendo instead of Pro Tools synced to Cubase then there's no delay whatsoever.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

samphony said:


> I did a test drive with two macs using Dante virtual sound card via Ethernet with 64channels. Pure awesomeness! Anyone who likes to stem in realtime without other audio interfaces involved or stream samples from pcs or macs to macs can do that.



How did you have it set up? 1 computer using Via and one the virtual soundcard?

Did you have both running the virtual soundcard (no Via) and then used the aggregate driver to be able to use your audio interface?


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## samphony (Nov 12, 2015)

@Gerhard Westphalen
I've installed Dante VS (virtual sound card) on both macs and launched the Dante controller software (additional routing software). You then start Dante VS and choose it for in and/or output on both systems. You then can freely route between the Diptera on the network. 
No via involved.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

samphony said:


> @Gerhard Westphalen
> I've installed Dante VS (virtual sound card) on both macs and launched the Dante controller software (additional routing software). You then start Dante VS and choose it for in and/or output on both systems. You then can freely route between the Diptera on the network.
> No via involved.



So do you have Dante enabled hardware? Or else how are you getting sound physically out of the computer if you're not running Via.


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## samphony (Nov 12, 2015)

Dante virtual sound card just needs Ethernet. It's that simple. Go download a trial and try it yourself.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

ChristopherDoucet said:


> Interesting! I have the REDNET 1 and 2 PCI cards which are all linked and mapped through Dante Controller, which allows me to bus from Cubase to Pro Tools, so I'm kind of confused as to what the difference between what I have and this is? Does this mean I could add additional computers virtually into my system? I get 128 card to card to this would give me the ability to route my laptop , let's say to it without needing an additional card?!



If you have Dante enabled hardware then you should be able to install the virtual soundcard on any computer to add it to the network (no additional hardware). Via is all about not needing Dante enabled hardware to use network audio.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

samphony said:


> Dante virtual sound card just needs Ethernet. It's that simple. Go download a trial and try it yourself.



Yes but how are you getting sound physically out of your system? It's my understanding that the virtual soundcard needs to connect to a computer with either Via or Dante hardware to be able to get sound physically out.


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## samphony (Nov 12, 2015)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Yes but how are you getting sound physically out of your system? It's my understanding that the virtual soundcard needs to connect to a computer with either Via or Dante hardware to be able to get sound physically out.


As logic allows separate input and output settings I've set Logics input to Dante VS and ouput to my audio interface on the DAW. On the streaming Mac I chose Dante VS as audio output. On the Mac one can easily create an aggregate device to combine Dante VS and audio interface.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 12, 2015)

Ah ok so its a matter of using aggregate drivers. So that's no something that's possible for someone using only Windows unless you use asio4all.

After speaking to Elliot from Audinate, Via currently only will allow you to get 2x2 into a program so if you have more like 16x16 from the virtual soundcard you can only either route that to physical I/O or be limited to 2x2. This basically eliminates using the virtual soundcard + Via for printing stems to Pro Tools. The only way to do so is using either aggregate drivers on a mac or asio4all.


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## studiotek (Dec 6, 2015)

samphony said:


> As logic allows separate input and output settings I've set Logics input to Dante VS and ouput to my audio interface on the DAW. On the streaming Mac I chose Dante VS as audio output. On the Mac one can easily create an aggregate device to combine Dante VS and audio interface.


Hi Symphony,

I'm thinking of getting Dante VS as well. So basically you already have a working system in place with Dante?
Is it similar to what I have in mind?

Mac1:
Create an aggregate device which combines my Hardware Audio Interface (I have an apogee symphony) and Dante VS. Logic (on Mac1) will then be able to receiving audio (64 max) via Dante from Mac2 as well as send out audio to the hardware audio interface, right?

Mac2 SampleHost, sending audio out (64 max) via Dante to Mac1.

Which software are you using to send Midi from Mac1 to Mac2? (MidioverLan?, ipMidi,...?)

Will Dante's audio sync to my hardware audio interface's clock?

How high is the latency you have experienced in your setup?

Thanks very much for you help and insights!
Thomas


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## owenave (Dec 13, 2015)

I am also interested in Dante Virtual Soundcard. So I am understanding that I can send audio via Dante Virtual Soundcard on a slave computer for Sound librarys to my main mac computer not using Dante hardware. Do I just need Dante Virtual Soundcard on the slave? Or do I need it on the main computer as well? And how do you route midi to the slave computer?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Dec 13, 2015)

owenave said:


> I am also interested in Dante Virtual Soundcard. So I am understanding that I can send audio via Dante Virtual Soundcard on a slave computer for Sound librarys to my main mac computer not using Dante hardware. Do I just need Dante Virtual Soundcard on the slave? Or do I need it on the main computer as well? And how do you route midi to the slave computer?



If you're using PC's then you can't do it since it won't do more than 2x2 between programs. If you're on mac then you need to use the DVS on both and then use the aggregate driver in your DAW to be able to access the physical interface. If you're on PC's then you need a third computer so that you can run DVS between the 2 computers going out to Via on the third computer which connect to your interface.


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## owenave (Dec 13, 2015)

@Gerhard Westphalen I am using both Mac's and NO PC's in this setup. What is the aggregate driver and is it available from Dante? Thanks for your input @Gerhard


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Dec 13, 2015)

owenave said:


> @Gerhard Westphalen I am using both Mac's and NO PC's in this setup. What is the aggregate driver and is it available from Dante? Thanks for your input @Gerhard


The aggregate driver is available in the Mac's audio settings. It just puts together the soundcards into a single one so you can access them all in your DAW. 

In any case, it would be easier to just use VEP in your situation.


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