Any of you guys familiar with networked audio?

[DanCostello]

This isn't really live-sound related, but I know some of you guys have fingers in some other pies, so I figured I'd ask.

 

I work for a video game developer and my employer is planning on doing some construction in the near future, which will involve a moving/rebuilding of the audio offices, including our small recording booth. It doesn't look like we're going to get a dedicated control room for the booth, so I'm exploring our options for giving each of the 5 audio offices the capability to act as a control room. That way, we're not dedicating floor space to a control room that'll go unused most of the time, and we're also not displacing somebody from their office when somebody else has to run a session. (currently, the booth is hardwired into one of the existing offices) We wouldn't need much i/o - maybe 4 channels each way, max.

 

Analog tie lines from the booth to each of the rooms would be the most straight forward way, but with corporate bureaucracy being what it is, I'm not confident we'll be able to get conduits, custom wiring, splitters, and custom patch panels made for this, along with whatever electrical grounding scheme will need to be set up. So, I'm exploring networked audio options, where we can fit the booth with a network drop, some remote controlled mic preamps, and an ad/da converter, and have all the offices access that audio via ethersound/dante/ravenna/etc. Not only would that be easier logistically, it'd probably be cheaper.

 

So far, it's looking like my top contenders are Focusrite's RedNet (Dante) system and Merging's Horus/Hapi (Ravenna) system. To get the outputs we need from Focusrite, we'll have to go a little overboard on the total i/o count, but that still seems to be about the same price as a HAPI with ad & da cards.

 

-Dan.

[agedhorse]

My experience is that you would be better off with a dedicated Cat5 and whatever protocol you choose. There are some viable digital snake combos that can be moved around as desired, that avoids the whole IP configuration challenge, unpredictable network and security updates, etc. even the Behringer S-16 might be suitable in stand alone mode. If you use IP based protocols, keep it dedicated and separate from any other network so you don't have to worry about other traffic and conflicts. Cat5 is cheap!

[DanCostello]

Hmm... That's not encouraging. I'm trying to avoid any wiring specific to our department...

[agedhorse]

By doing so, you are marrying their problems to what will now be your problems.

[DanCostello]

It's not the expense of the cat5 that has me concerned; it's the logistics of getting separate wiring run. There should be ways for our IT guys to set up network switches to put the audio rooms on something like a vlan that somewhat isolates us from the rest of the network, despite using the same network hardware. There should also be ways to configure the switches to give priority to the Dante traffic. Dante seems like it was designed for just this purpose, but I'd have to get some demo gear to try out before we pulled the trigger.

[Just Mike]

Even if you're on a seperate Vlan, you would need separate or at least DEDICATED cabling. And until AES67 becomes widely accepted ( I think only QSC is implementing it right now), you should spec Managed Layer 3 switches.

[wesg]

The cost to run 5 drops of CAT5 is almost exactly the same as the cost of running one drop. 99.9% of the cost the labour. Cable is cheap. The labour to pull is what's expensive. Relying on anything like QoS for an audio stream is practically begging to have the occasional blip in your audio IMO. What does is cost to re-record a 5 minute take with 4 players on it?

[Tvyankee]

Hello. I would try at all costs to stay away from getting IT involved. First off they have little to no interest in your problems and or tryin to really help with networking issues that you have as they are not really security or vlan vpn related.

 

The other thing is when u are haVing problems it's really nice to be able to trouble shoot on your own without getting anyone else involved.

 

I work in a cooperate environment in a studio and trying to troubleshoot with IT is like banging your head against the wall.

 

 

As far as cabling spend the money up front don't cheap out as it really pays off in the long run.

 

Go shielded cat6a or single mode fiber or both really with ST ends on the fiber and make sure u use the right ends for the termination s of the cat6. What I mean by that is for solid vs stranded .

 

Fiber is really cheap these days and really works well with audio. We use it to route madi ,Dante and rts and riedel data and analog audio all over 52 floors of a 57 FL building in nyc. We have a lot of success with not getting IT involved.

 

Also the more complex you make it with special network switches and router and firewalls you will run into clocking error s ticks and pops with madi, and dante.

 

Sorry about the ramble but I hope this helps.

[Dogoth]

Running audio through an already occupied network is a really bad idea. There are a few protocols that are dedicated to transfer audio (cobranet comes to mind - I know there are some newer ones that I haven't kept up on). They all require dedicated cable runs, stitches & proprietary converters BUT they are nearly latency free and rock solid in performance. Do you really want to lose a good take because your neighbor starts streaming something HD :-)? It's not really that big of an investment. If they can't swing a inexpensive dedicated infrastructure for your audio, they may not be that serious about other facets of their business. Just something to think about.

[TimmyP]

Dante looks great when you read the factory info - 'stick it on your existing network and go'. Numerous reports are that such is not the case - unless glitches are not a big deal. If you want it to work when time is money, dedicated copper or fiber is a prerequisite.