Thunderbolt

Not an avalanche though!

Focusrite is one company that has made the leap into Dante-based GbE AoIP audio interfaces. Their takeup of TB depends upon how many different systems they want to spread their resources across and where they think they are heading.

i would love to hear real live experience from both thunderbolt and dante users!


All i heard about Dante is that it isn’t useful for recording because it introduces a lot of latency. A friend of mine changed his Dante card for his Yamaha 01V to RME Raydat (ADAT).
I wonder if Focusrite solved that problem and provides own drivers?

Dante is supposed to be able to get to sub ms latencies. What did your friend actually get?

I thought that the only card available at this time IS the Focusrite one, though it might be a re-badged Audinate one.

I suggested to Audinate that they make a companion Dante client software that wraps the ASIO drivers for existing cards. The CTO said they were passing that on to their development team as they wanted to get Dante out there.

Up until now, the only ones taking AoIP (Dante and Ravenna) on are Focusrite and some others, and a bunch of digital desk manufacturers. Even so, those audio card manufacturers are only looking at large I/O sets per module, which makes for a very expensive entry cost.

A software wrapper for existing ASIO cards would allow the rest of us to use our current cards initially, but just add more I/O as our needs increase. I could imagine adding little i3 BRIX modules with USB audio interfaces as and where we need them.

his solution was the yamaha dante card with the adinate dante virtual soundcard.
for him it was an unsatisfiying solution, thats why he switched to rme raydat
unfortunalty i dont know what type of latency he actually got with dante.
he simply said : “unstable and a lot of latency”

my local dealer told me that he never heard of anyone using dante in a recording environment.
he said: “it is okay if you do “live show” and use it to record the show”


thats why i would be interested to hear if someone was able to use adinate one or focusrite dante.
right now i believe it is an highly overpriced ethernet network card.
but AoIP would be great.

The Dante virtual sound card (host) will add a minimum of 4ms overhead, with minimum ASIO latency of 1ms. It is software, and I would expect that it is more for driving PAs than for serious recording work.

The Dante interface card (client) for Yamaha devices can be set for latencies of 0.15, 0.5, 1.0, or 5.0 ms.

The physical Dante sound card (host) cites network latency as low as 150us, and round-trip latency, including audio app, as low as 2.99ms, which is about what I currently get with my Cubase and Firefaces at 256 samples at 192k/32.

Hence, it appears that using the software Dante host is the limitation in your friend’s setup.

For serious recording, I would expect to use a physical Dante PCIe card to get the lowest latencies. Unfortunately, the Focusrite one is $1000. Hopefully if Audinate can get better traction for Dante by providing a client ASIO wrapper, the price will drop.

okay, adding another 4ms to the system, yeah the virtual soundcard could be to blame.
but what about system stabilty / reliabilty?

2.99ms RTL ? at wich sample rate? including converters or just for ethernet - sequencer - ethernet?
As as far as i know the whole ethernet protocol and the router adds latency to the system.

do you have tested it yourself or are these the marketing claims?

Have to wait for reviews for that, but a few heavyweight equipment players have opted for it, but mainly (like for Ravenna) in the digital console area, rather than DAW.

They cite that 3ms for ‘round trip’.

The latency settings for compensating for this go as low as 150us and up to 5ms. The hardware card has its own GbE port, and one would use switches separate from general LAN traffic to ensure minimal disruptions.

Advertising blurb. Lots of promises, but awaiting for someone to review the setup, and some desperate early adopters to give the goss on what it is like to live with.

Dante can work at low latency (hardware the software version is not too great)
however a very good knowledge of networking is required. despite what you may read on some vendor sites.
a good Network switch is required to use DHCP… some sites say NOT to use DHCP and this is completely WRONG…

we have set up Yamaha Nuage and Focusrite Rednet systems as well as the older original Dante card for Yamaha.
all working at low latency large track count.
Yamaha still uses our systems for their commercial audio demos at shows and those are all dante set ups.

Jcschild:

Since you know the Yamaha Setups: do these setups include a DAW or is Dante only used for console to stagebox audio?

And because you know Dante: is there a benefit over MADI?
How does it compare in simplicity of setup, reliabilty and latency?

well the older dante cards don’t include anything but routing… and are limited.
the newer Nuage systems are pretty sweet when using the ENTIRE package…
with that said its very “niche” where personally Madi (RME in particular) is still the way to go for most.
we have seen a good number of products over the yrs and nothing has yet to touch madi.
I was doing 192 I/O live systems 9 yrs ago via madi.

I will say that the network protocol has finally come of age but its not really a cost saver when you get into high I/O counts.

the answer more depends on strictly live use and having to route multiple directions or studio use as well…

Que? Please, if you are going to make sweeping statements, back them up with some proof or reasoning, either in-line or links, otherwise you just seem to be asking us to trust you, ‘sight unseen’. Also, it may help us if you provide references or links for what you are refuting, just so we can evaluate their arguments for ourselves.

frankly I don’t really care if you believe me or not… nor am I going to sit here and type HOW to set it up correctly. (not to mention it can vary depending on network setup)
I can say again 1 vendors website in particular is 180 degrees backaswards

And how hard would it be to provide a link to that page?

Just so the rest of us mere mortals can evaluate whether their thinking is erroneous.

I am a dealer for all of them. already got in trouble for mentioning the name elsewhere
normally I dont care but this time not doing it

Fair enough!

But then just mentioning that an unspecified one of them has ‘backaswards’ thinking sort of ascribes it to ALL of them, because you have given us absolutely no criteria by which to evaluate ANY of them, and so all you have left us with is a vague implication to trust NONE of them.

By implication then, you appear to be saying that you know the ‘secret’ and that our ‘salvation from ignorance’ lies with pursuing your services. Do you have a Messiah complex or are you just trolling for work?

I understand JCschild.
I wouln´t risk my job for that type of information, especially as a dealer.
Messiah complex? Why are you so agressive?
He said that very good Network knowledge is required.
And some manufacturer sites state that DHCP should not be used, wich is wrong in his experience.
Essentially that means: for lorger setups experienced knowledge with these difficult systems is required.
That´s okay. It is his job!
And i don´t see him trolling for work, especially since he said that anything has yet to touch MADI.

Personally, i am thankful for the information that the industry standart in Audio over IP has yet to be made.
Because these solutions are difficult if you don´t use an integrated system.
But exactly that is a downgrade to MADI.
And these systems don´t safe money compared to MADI.

Sorry, I don’t understand. As I understand it, both MADI and AoIP allow integration of equipment from multiple vendors.

I think it is a matter of ‘horses for courses’.

From the ‘outside’, MADI appears geared for those with mass I/O requirements, and budgets to match!

When lower I/O count devices are available, AoIP would appear to be the better and cheaper solution for smaller initial setups, but scalable and flexible enough to expand to anything up to large multi-room studios, without obsoleting anything along the way, and using cheap network equipment and cables to do it.

Also, AoIP is routable, whereas MADI seems point-to-point, making the former fully remotely configurable when using managed switches.

Just like JCschild said and my local dealer stated: these are not “fail safe” solutions in cross communication between different / non-integrated systems.
That why i repeat: the industry standart in Audio over IP has yet to be made.
Or DANTE has be pushed foward by companies like Yamaha or Focusrite.

But i am sceptical about both companies in terms of computer technology.
Rember mLAN? (DISASTER!)
And Focusrite isn´t especially well known for their “excellent software drivers”. :wink:


I don´t see that Audio over IP is cheaper or better with smaller setups than MADI.
For example: take a RME MADI USB and a FERROFISH A16MkII …
Thats 1.850€ for 16 channels AD/DA.
Expandable to 128 channels in 48khz, 64channels in 96khz and 32 Channels in 192khz.

That´s almost the same price as my RME Fireface UFX.

Which is why I was glad to be able to get my RME Firefaces working together on my new system so I don’t have to make any interface equipment decisions for the foreseeable future.

But I am watching AoIP as a possible front-runner if one of my Firefaces (in particular, the 800) dies.

I don´t think that it will die in the near future.
I know two units wich are almost 10 years old and in daily use.

But i have to admit that Audio over IP is a really interesting topic.
Perhaps it will be the future of Audio.

Back to Thunderbolt? :smiley: