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Title: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 03, 2014, 03:18:48 PM
I finally got around to trying recording via Dante on my new A&H GLD 112.


Set up static addresses on both the Dante card and MacBook Pro (OSX 10.9.1, 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, i.e. old laptop). 10.0.1.x
Set up Dante for 32*32.
Set DVS to 10ms latency (highest setting). Set Cubase to use a 2048 sample buffer (highest setting).
Turned off wifi on the MacBook Pro.
No network, just a normal cat 5 cable between MacBook Pro and Dante primary port on option card.
GLD control network isn't hooked up to anything.
Dante Controller (latest version downloaded tonight) says all is well. GB connection, no errors, no log errors, IP addresses are cool, everything routes just fine...


Tried recording 10 tracks in Reaper, and 24 tracks in Cubase, and I get the same problem, random spikes across random tracks.  Cubase has an option for 'external clock' which I selected and deselected, it made no difference.


FWIW, recording works flawlessly on my new X32 via USB on the same system.


Any ideas what my problem might be?


Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: David Shriver on March 03, 2014, 05:02:59 PM
Hi Mark,

I use a Dante in my A&H iLive from time to time.  I've found the best stability with setting the iLive system clock master to be the Dante card.  Make the Dante card the master for your GLD and for your computer.  I don't know that is your problem, but at least for me it offered the best stability.

-d

I finally got around to trying recording via Dante on my new A&H GLD 112.


Set up static addresses on both the Dante card and MacBook Pro (OSX 10.9.1, 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, i.e. old laptop). 10.0.1.x
Set up Dante for 32*32.
Set DVS to 10ms latency (highest setting). Set Cubase to use a 2048 sample buffer (highest setting).
Turned off wifi on the MacBook Pro.
No network, just a normal cat 5 cable between MacBook Pro and Dante primary port on option card.
GLD control network isn't hooked up to anything.
Dante Controller (latest version downloaded tonight) says all is well. GB connection, no errors, no log errors, IP addresses are cool, everything routes just fine...


Tried recording 10 tracks in Reaper, and 24 tracks in Cubase, and I get the same problem, random spikes across random tracks.  Cubase has an option for 'external clock' which I selected and deselected, it made no difference.


FWIW, recording works flawlessly on my new X32 via USB on the same system.


Any ideas what my problem might be?
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Alan R Roberts on March 03, 2014, 07:29:10 PM
I finally got around to trying recording via Dante on my new A&H GLD 112.


Set up static addresses on both the Dante card and MacBook Pro (OSX 10.9.1, 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, i.e. old laptop). 10.0.1.x
Set up Dante for 32*32.
Set DVS to 10ms latency (highest setting). Set Cubase to use a 2048 sample buffer (highest setting).
Turned off wifi on the MacBook Pro.
No network, just a normal cat 5 cable between MacBook Pro and Dante primary port on option card.
GLD control network isn't hooked up to anything.
Dante Controller (latest version downloaded tonight) says all is well. GB connection, no errors, no log errors, IP addresses are cool, everything routes just fine...


Tried recording 10 tracks in Reaper, and 24 tracks in Cubase, and I get the same problem, random spikes across random tracks.  Cubase has an option for 'external clock' which I selected and deselected, it made no difference.


FWIW, recording works flawlessly on my new X32 via USB on the same system.


Any ideas what my problem might be?

Is the Audio Clock Source on your GLD set to "Internal"? Also open Dante Controller to set "Preferred Master" and "Slave to external wordclock" for the GLD card. I had to make sure these were set on my iLive, as I, too, had clicks and pops. All is clear and solid for me now.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 03, 2014, 11:13:39 PM

Thanks David and Adan. Setting the GLD to use the Dante card as the clock master seems to have fixed the problem.  Setting the Dante card as  'preferred master' in Dante Controller seems to have had no effect.


Setting "Enable sync to External" for the Dante card seems to throw a bunch of repeating errors (Audio mute on and off) in the Dante controller. log history.  This makes sense, reading the documentation it appears that setting this checkbox is in essence telling the Dante card to clock from the host (GLD), but I just I just told the GLD to get clock from Dante option card.


I may be reading this wrong


Enable Sync To External
Forces the Dante module to derive its clock from an external source - either from a host device word clock, or from an auxiliary device.
This will also ensure that this Dante device becomes master clock for the relevant clock domain (unless another device has 'Preferred Master' selected). It is not normal practice to configure more than one device per clock domain with an external clock source. In this case, the user is assumed to have synchronized external word clock sources (e.g. house clock).
Where the checkbox is present but greyed-out (and inactive), it means that the Dante device can be slaved to an external word clock, but it cannot be set directly from Dante Controller - it must be done via the host device user interface, or via some other method (e.g. third-party control software). If the checkbox is greyed out and populated, it means that the Dante device is currently slaved to the external clock.
If N/A is displayed, it means that the device does not support slaving to an external word clock.




I only tested for a few minutes, I'll let it run for a few hours and try the "Enable
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Ian Routley on March 04, 2014, 03:06:05 AM
Will be watching this with interest, as we start Dante recording from a Soundcraft Exp3
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Jeff Simpson on March 04, 2014, 04:30:02 AM
Hi Mark

The wording in Controller is slightly confusing, as when it says 'External Wordclock', it means external to the Dante card, as opposed to 'to the product the Dante card is plugged in to'. In the case of the GLD, this corresponds to the GLD's internal clock.

The correct settings for your setup are to have the Dante card set to slave to external word clock, and to set the GLD clock to Internal (As Alan suggested). The preferred master setting only has an effect when you have more than one Dante device in your system, excluding any Virtual Soundcard instances (which must always be clock slaves).

Hope this helps

- Jeff, A&H
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 04, 2014, 10:51:37 AM
Hi Mark

The wording in Controller is slightly confusing, as when it says 'External Wordclock', it means external to the Dante card, as opposed to 'to the product the Dante card is plugged in to'. In the case of the GLD, this corresponds to the GLD's internal clock.

The correct settings for your setup are to have the Dante card set to slave to external word clock, and to set the GLD clock to Internal (As Alan suggested). The preferred master setting only has an effect when you have more than one Dante device in your system, excluding any Virtual Soundcard instances (which must always be clock slaves).

Hope this helps

- Jeff, A&H


Thanks Jeff, upon re-reading Alan and David gave different setups, I followed David's. I assumed Alan meant "is the GLD set to internal sync" as if that was a bad thing :)


Anyway, I set the GLD to use its internal clock, and set Dante to use 'external sync' (as shown below) and I have 7 minutes of clean recording. I'll let it run a few hours. Thanks again.



Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mac Kerr on March 04, 2014, 12:07:40 PM
Thanks David and Adan. Setting the GLD to use the Dante card as the clock master seems to have fixed the problem.  Setting the Dante card as  'preferred master' in Dante Controller seems to have had no effect.

In any network audio system, the network should be the clock master to all hardware devices.

Mac
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Josh Millward on March 04, 2014, 12:30:37 PM
In any network audio system, the network should be the clock master to all hardware devices.

Mac

Absolutely.

Never should the network have to be clocked from a specific hardware device.

Other manufacturers have made this mistake before. Then they realized that they can't use two of their own devices on a network together. That sort of defeats the purpose of having a network. Fortunately they fixed this problem.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 04, 2014, 12:55:35 PM
Thanks again Jeff and Alan.

Setting the GLD112 to use it's internal clock, and the Dante option card to "Enable Sync To External" enabled me to record 1.5 hours of glitch free 24-channel audio before Cubase threw an error which I suspect is unrelated to Dante. 

I've never tried to multi track on this laptop so I have a tad more work to do.  I have many years of DAW experience so I should be able to work my way through the Cubase problem, possibly as simple as using an external disk rather than the 5400RPM system disk.

Anyway, Dante on the GLD seems to be working as expected.  I have a "big band" gig Thursday night so I'll give it a whirl.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 04, 2014, 01:01:17 PM
Absolutely.

Never should the network have to be clocked from a specific hardware device.

Other manufacturers have made this mistake before. Then they realized that they can't use two of their own devices on a network together. That sort of defeats the purpose of having a network. Fortunately they fixed this problem.


Josh, I'm not sure what you meant exactly by: "Never should the network have to be clocked from a specific hardware device."

My understanding of what Jeff and Alan proposed (and what works) is the GLD acts as the master clock for the Dante option card, then the Dante option card acts as the master for the Dante network audio.


In essence two master clocks for two different uses, one within the console, one presented outside through the Dante network.  In this scenario the Dante card is a slave to the GLD clock, but master to the outside Dante world.  The GLD clock is the master to the Dante card and the AR2412 (a different network from the Dante network).
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mac Kerr on March 04, 2014, 01:12:08 PM

Josh, I'm not sure what you meant exactly by: "Never should the network have to be clocked from a specific hardware device."

My understanding of what Jeff and Alan proposed (and what works) is the GLD acts as the master clock for the Dante option card, then the Dante option card acts as the master for the Dante network audio.


In essence two master clocks for two different uses, one within the console, one presented outside through the Dante network.  In this scenario the Dante card is a slave to the GLD clock, but master to the outside Dante world.  The GLD clock is the master to the Dante card and the AR2412 (a different network from the Dante network).

What Josh and I both suggested is that 1 Dante device act as the master clock. In your case it would be the card, and all other devices clock off the network, or in you case the console would clock off the card.

It is probably fine that the card clocks off the console, and then everything else clocks off the network, just don't forget, if you add devices to the network, that the network is the clock master.

Mac
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 04, 2014, 01:17:07 PM
What Josh and I both suggested is that 1 Dante device act as the master clock. In your case it would be the card, and all other devices clock off the network, or in you case the console would clock off the card.

It is probably fine that the card clocks off the console, and then everything else clocks off the network, just don't forget, if you add devices to the network, that the network is the clock master.

Mac


Thanks Mac, that makes sense. 
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Josh Millward on March 04, 2014, 01:59:30 PM
It is probably fine that the card clocks off the console, and then everything else clocks off the network, just don't forget, if you add devices to the network, that the network is the clock master.

Mark,

The problem is, what if you wanted to add another console?

If you tried to set it up the same way, things will not work.

In the second console the card clocks off the console, but how does that console know what the clock is from the other console who already is the clock master for the network?

You are ahead of the game to always make your console clock to the Dante card and allow any of the Dante devices to be the clock master for the network.

This way you are always clocking all your devices from the network so you don't have to remember any special caveats about "this console must be on the network first, then that console can be turned on..." or something equally silly.

Allow the network to generate the clock, then clock all your devices from the network.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: gordonmcgregor on March 04, 2014, 02:26:35 PM
Mark use Reaper to track the show it is very good for this and is about as stable as a DAW gets in this situation, if you're more familiar with Cubase then mix using it, as some people can't seem to get used to Reaper's sometimes odd ways of working.
 My Asus I3 laptop routinely records shows up to 24 tracks no problem with Reaper, though I would use a desktop with a big screen to mix that many tracks. G
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 04, 2014, 02:32:39 PM
Mark use Reaper to track the show it is very good for this and is about as stable as a DAW gets in this situation, if you're more familiar with Cubase then mix using it, as some people can't seem to get used to Reaper's sometimes odd ways of working.
 My Asus I3 laptop routinely records shows up to 24 tracks no problem with Reaper, though I would use a desktop with a big screen to mix that many tracks. G

Thanks Gordon.  I'm not giving up on Cubase just yet. I have many thousands of hours in Cubase, since v 1.0, and I just paid for a second copy for my laptop (albeit the LE edition) specifically for recording live shows.  I can operate/configure it in my sleep (or in the heat of a show), so it seemed worth the $100 to avoid polluting my brain with something new. 

After I waste a few evenings on Cubase I'll try Reaper again :). It worked in my tests, but operation was little strange for me.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Justice C. Bigler on March 04, 2014, 04:12:40 PM
Mark, I assume that it goes without saying that you are using a high end external hard drive to record to? USB 3, 7200RPMs, and not a smart or "green" hard drive with power saving features?

I just recorded 25 channels for a 2 1/2 hour long opera using Protools 11 on my three year old Sony VAIO laptop through via Dante Virtual Sound Card (from our CL5) with no issues (well, except for the iLok meltdown that I had one day that required me to reinstall the iLok drivers).
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Alan R Roberts on March 04, 2014, 05:01:36 PM

Thanks Jeff, upon re-reading Alan and David gave different setups, I followed David's. I assumed Alan meant "is the GLD set to internal sync" as if that was a bad thing :)


Anyway, I set the GLD to use its internal clock, and set Dante to use 'external sync' (as shown below) and I have 7 minutes of clean recording. I'll let it run a few hours. Thanks again.

Your setup is now identical to mine (except I use the iLive). Works great for recording.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 05, 2014, 04:07:33 AM
Mark,

The problem is, what if you wanted to add another console?

If you tried to set it up the same way, things will not work.

In the second console the card clocks off the console, but how does that console know what the clock is from the other console who already is the clock master for the network?

You are ahead of the game to always make your console clock to the Dante card and allow any of the Dante devices to be the clock master for the network.

This way you are always clocking all your devices from the network so you don't have to remember any special caveats about "this console must be on the network first, then that console can be turned on..." or something equally silly.

Allow the network to generate the clock, then clock all your devices from the network.

Well, that makes sense also, thanks Josh. I hope Jeff from A&H will chime in since he recommended otherwise,, but perhaps because I am only running a single console.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 05, 2014, 04:21:26 AM
Mark, I assume that it goes without saying that you are using a high end external hard drive to record to? USB 3, 7200RPMs, and not a smart or "green" hard drive with power saving features?
....

Actually not, I mentioned earlier I was using my MacBook Pro system drive.  I understand that's not considered best practice, but it is what I had readily available to test Dante setup.  The next step is getting reliable multi-hour recordings, which may involve a new hard disk.

FWIW, 7200RPM has been lauded as a best practice for several decades.  Rotational speed by itself is meaningless.  Due to the increase linear bit density of modern high capacity drives, the data rates sustainable on a modern 5200 RPM drive are an order of magnitude faster than the 7200RPM drives of a few years ago when the bit rate demanded 7200RPM on drives measured in MBs, yet everyone keeps repeating 7200RPM on TB drives.  Data throughput is a factor of rotational speed and the number of bits on the platter moving under the head on each rotation. 

I'm publicly calling the need for a 7200RPM drive for 24 track audio recording a legacy myth.

Automatic health checks, power downs, etc are more serious problems, and one may find these features disabled or compensated for on higher RPM drives, but the bit rates of modern TB 5400 RPM drives are fine for handling a LOT of audio channels. Automatic indexing of hard disks by Spotlight is another potential issue, or Time Machine interruptions...

Anyway, I may end up buying a faster drive to fix the problem.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Jeff Simpson on March 05, 2014, 04:52:27 AM
Well, that makes sense also, thanks Josh. I hope Jeff from A&H will chime in since he recommended otherwise,, but perhaps because I am only running a single console.

I don't particularly disagree with what Mac and Josh are suggesting. Personally I prefer to know which device is the clock master; it is my experience that diagnosing clock sync problems is easier if this is the case. This is partly from experience of other audio networking standards, so perhaps with Dante this logic is a bit out of date. It's actually pretty useful for me to read threads like this, as it gives a better picture of how different users want to work with their audio networks.


Note that there are no power-on sequencing issues to think about if you run the console as clock master; any devices you want to slave from the console will automatically do this once the console is turned on.

Cheers

- Jeff, A&H
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Jelmer de Jong on March 05, 2014, 04:54:39 AM
I'm publicly calling the need for a 7200RPM drive for 24 track audio recording a legacy myth.

Automatic health checks, power downs, etc are more serious problems, and one may find these features disabled or compensated for on higher RPM drives, but the bit rates of modern TB 5400 RPM drives are fine for handling a LOT of audio channels. Automatic indexing of hard disks by Spotlight is another potential issue, or Time Machine interruptions...

Anyway, I may end up buying a faster drive to fix the problem.
Every drive from the last five years is more than capable of recording large amounts of audio. Even at 32b/192KHz it's only 750KB/s per track. Even with a low power green-efficiency 5400rpm laptop disk you are able to record at least 64 tracks simultanously.
If you wan't to take it to the next level I suggest you buy an SSD. No moving parts so you can trow the laptop on the ground without disrupting the recording (if all cables stay connected.....)
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Josh Millward on March 05, 2014, 01:34:41 PM
Personally I prefer to know which device is the clock master; it is my experience that diagnosing clock sync problems is easier if this is the case.

I absolutely agree with you on this point, Jeff!

In this situation, the really nice thing about allowing everything to clock from the network is that now you can look in Dante Controller and see which Dante interface is the clock master for the whole system. Then, if you want someone to be the master, in Dante Controller you can just check the box next to "Preferred Master" and he will be the master. There are no questions about where the clock is coming from and who is the real master.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: BobWitte on March 05, 2014, 01:53:37 PM
GLD user here. We have recorded with no errors several live performances using Dante, MacBook pro's, Reaper, external Firewire drive. The largest event was 48 channels (40 channels from the stage, several wireless channels at FOH, stereo input, stereo main out, stereo matrix out. ran through a network switch (before the latest Dante update) to two macbook pos (one was a backup). Recorded almost 3 hours straight with zero errors. Files went to a local studio for an album.


Now redundancy can be setup using the Dante secondary port to the second laptop with the latest Dante firmware. No need for the network switch.


Anyways, other events were smaller, but we have yet to have any audio glitches after probably 30 plus hours of recording.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Rob Spence on March 05, 2014, 02:19:47 PM
I record to a MacBook Pro using Dante. I have an external FW 800 drive attached.
I have Dante on my GLD and LS932 and have recorded 8 solid hours of 24 tracks to Reaper.

I then use Reaper on my office PC to mix it down.

This conversation has been interesting. I may change my configurations to use the Dante card as clock master as a result.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 07, 2014, 04:56:10 PM
Hi Everyone,

Here is the rationale behind the clocking... and i'll try to keep t brief!

Josh, Mac and Jeff are all making good points.

If there was a hard and fast rule for clocking in all circumstances i'm sure that Josh and Jeff would be first in line (along with us) to get rid of the confusion in our products, solving clocking issues for systems has got to be the most irritating support activity going for all concerned - not least the actual user who has at least a million better things to be doing with their time.

Unfortunately we all have to provide the flexibility... heres some scenarios, and an interpretation of what could be an approach.

1- Corporate installation - Please go gentle on me Josh ;) A DSP unit is automixing input brought in over the network from remote I/O boxes. There is no overriding "external" technical reason for caring who is the clock master - as long as all the devices are clock synchronous, all devices will pass audio, and if this system is not altered day-to-day, not worrying about it, and letting the network take care of it should be fine
   
I would only suggest that the DSP unit is set to preferred master if there was a human desire to have a "known" master device. This is because if the DSP unit were to get powered down, it would likely cause total, if not very significant system issues to occur, so putting the clock master in a place "that doesn't get turned off"... the risk of having a clock master in a remote closet is that some helpful janitor might power it down... been there ... had a janitor take down a 200 node system "because the fans were too noisy!"

I am not going to get into the my clock is better than your clock thing... if you want to make your mind up, Dante allows you to - for the rest of us... you can manage its opinions.

Summary- Clock master doesn't technically matter, you are protecting yourself from the humans

2. Live concert system (Audio only). Very similar to the fixed install. The complication is do you have the clock master at FOH, where on a large system a severed multicore may cause some severe audio issues - the absolute worst would be if the monitor console was clocking off the network, and the artist was wearing ears, and the clock failure was handled badly by the system for some reason (typically systems mute... I am trying to paint scenarios for consideration....) There may be amplifiers for the main PA located under the stage... maybe the node density is greater at the stage end... maybe the risk of power outage is lower at the stage (lets not forget that FOH power comes from stage to avoid grounding issues, and on a temporary gig... the generator is more often than not at the stage end too.

However there are some engineers who insist on having their own master clock device because it has some artistic merit for them... I'm not going there... I have my opinions, but I don't know if I am right. If it makes the show go better, let them.

Summary - Probably doesn't matter, any decision on where the clock master is will come down to a political decision between interested people, and a possible evaluation of the Doomsday scenario.

The above two I would categorise as human driven decisions- there are good reasons for making whichever choice - certainly Dante, Allen & Heath, and most other equipment manufacturers will provide systems flexible enough that the answer is "Yes"

Now Where it may matter a bit...

In environments that work with Video - particularly broadcast it is essential to lock the media clock of the audio and video together. This is important when baseband video transport is used - like when uncompressed 3GSDI camera and decks are used. Because a single broadcast camera uses 3Gbps of data for a single channel (6 Gbps is on the way!) ... ok pedantically that 3gig does carry 16 audio channels along for the ride (still insignificant in terms of bandwidth to the picture)... if this along with audio is getting dumped to a deck for recording, or being carried over a base-band dark fibre network, then the audio media clock is going to have to be synchronous to the video/broadcast system. It is also really important that they are synchronous should the video department be providing digital audio feeds from VT to the PA - the video system is likely going to want to be the master clock. You could sample rate convert between the Video department and the audio department to create two "clock domains" although this is unpopular.

In reality, how many of us stumble into this above scenario on a daily basis... not many of us...

In the above scenario it does matter where the master clock is. It is also important to slave the network to the external media clock source. Furthermore it is essential to know where the clock domain boundaries are, and probably document it for rapid troubleshooting.

Hope this brief rundown helps- happy to elaborate more if needed
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Rob Spence on March 07, 2014, 09:36:30 PM
+1

Nicely described. I had not thought about the monitors to ears issue if the FOH was severed.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 08, 2014, 05:55:35 AM
OP here...

I had my first successful Dante recording Thursday night.  18 channels of a "Big Band" jazz concert recoded through GLD Dante to MacBook Pro and Cubase.

I think my configuration was: Setting the GLD112 to use it's internal clock, and the Dante option card to "Enable Sync To External", single cable from Mac Pro to the Dante primary port on GDL Dante option card.

Unfortunately, I can't verify exactly what my configuration was because Thursday night Dante Controller would not tell me who the master was (Master Unknown). Dante Controller wouldn't tell me IP addresses, or any information on any devices other than they were 'green'.  Routing was about the only thing that worked in Dante Controller.  I rebooted console and computer,... still Dante Controller (laster version 3.5.0.36) didn't work as expected.

I'll reconnect everything in the shop this coming week and see if I can get Dante Controller to work again.

Anyway , the recording appears to be good.  I wasn't paid to record so I don't know if or when I'll get around to mixing the tracks, I just used this event as a test of my my new recording setup (GLD, Dante, MacBook Pro, Cubase) and it was partially successful but didn't instill a lot of confidence (yet).  That's why we run trials :)

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Ben Anderson on March 10, 2014, 08:36:52 AM
First time poster here but thought id chime in as i have quite a nice little Dante system.

I have had the issues described by the op and from my experience its best to set the GLD to get its clock from the slave option card, not internal, for all situations. Same situation as well, GLD - laptop via Dante. From my experience trying to set the GLD to internal and setting the Dante card in the GLD to master for the network has not worked well, although i haven't tried this again in over a year or so. 

My current Dante network consists of 2 GLD 80's, O1v96, Rednet PCIe 128 i/o (for waves multirack pc and recording) , Rednet 3 32 channel snake and multiple DVS instances (for recording and backup recording, cant trust hard drives! infact the backup records to a raid array)

I use a switch with the proper QOS settings for Dante, and the Rednet 3 runs as the dante clock master slaved to a Black Lion Micro Clock. The Micro clock also clocks to anything that will accept an external word clock even if it is also on the dante network, such as the 4 AD/DA's feeding the Rednet 3, O1v96 or sometimes an LS9 etc.

Of course the GLD's are set to get there clock from the option card as i mentioned earlier.

This would be 10+ units needing to work together digitally, and i am yet to have a problem with this system as it is set thus far. I can turn on and off any unit in the system and it wont interrupt the communication of any of the other devices, even if i switch of the rednet 3 which acts as a go between for the black lion micro clock and the dante network, the network will instantly assign a new master and continue on its way without dropping a sample.

The external word clock is imperative to this system as i have found clocking over ADAT to be VERY hit and miss in the past, so the 4 AD/DA's feeding the Rednet 3 must be clocked by a good clock. And they work every time they are switched on.

Dante amazes me, all this and a single trip over the network for any channel is only 150 micro seconds....... (Of course the software factor in DVS is different)

And the small setup of one console and only 40 channels i am using the next 2 weeks runs at 100 micro seconds (the new Dante controller can monitor latency)

If you have a chance to link 2 consoles together over Dante with redundancy, its fun pulling out one cable then swapping them over without it dropping a sample... and then going back and forth between the 2 cat5 runs without an interruption....  amazing.

For me this system provides an avenue for endless possibilities, the ability to handle extremely large channel counts (96 channels on GLD's and then the O1v can 'stem' another 32 into them) with a massive amounts of DSP (2 consoles and 128 channels of waves plugs) and huge amounts of monitoring options (2 independent aviom sends, many One mix's, another console if we like to manage more monitoring options)

I can throw any channel anywhere that its needed, just need to be good at setting multicast flows when it starts to get large! Oh and also the grids in the Dante controller patching begin to become confusing once you get to 6 or 7 units on the list, one day i patched an earthworks QTC-1 (omni for recording) directly to FOH (as there was a console side stage and a console FOH with the main outs being run from the side stage console via Dante from the FOH console) by clicking one square out of place in the controller... EEEK, thankfully that has not happened since.
 
Maybe i'm biased being an aussie rooting for an aussie company, but i think Dante really is the future. All this over standard network infrastructure, the switch was 200 dollars.

My experience with dante.
I never knew how excited i was about it until i started typing this haha. 
 

   
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: TJ (Tom) Cornish on March 10, 2014, 08:44:26 AM
First time poster here but thought id chime in as i have quite a nice little Dante system.
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Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 08:55:52 AM
OP here...

I had my first successful Dante recording Thursday night.  18 channels of a "Big Band" jazz concert recoded through GLD Dante to MacBook Pro and Cubase.

I think my configuration was: Setting the GLD112 to use it's internal clock, and the Dante option card to "Enable Sync To External", single cable from Mac Pro to the Dante primary port on GDL Dante option card.

Unfortunately, I can't verify exactly what my configuration was because Thursday night Dante Controller would not tell me who the master was (Master Unknown). Dante Controller wouldn't tell me IP addresses, or any information on any devices other than they were 'green'.  Routing was about the only thing that worked in Dante Controller.  I rebooted console and computer,... still Dante Controller (laster version 3.5.0.36) didn't work as expected.

I'll reconnect everything in the shop this coming week and see if I can get Dante Controller to work again.

Anyway , the recording appears to be good.  I wasn't paid to record so I don't know if or when I'll get around to mixing the tracks, I just used this event as a test of my my new recording setup (GLD, Dante, MacBook Pro, Cubase) and it was partially successful but didn't instill a lot of confidence (yet).  That's why we run trials :)

Mark... I think this is an issue that we have just discovered- so have no problems sharing it.

You are using an Apple - Can you confirm that you installed Dante Virtual Soundcard, after installing Dante controller 3.5?

There is a small case of version issues here and it sounds exactly like one of the symptoms. Dante Virtual Soundcard for Mac uses an older version of one of our services than Dante controller expects. This means that a few things may "go missing" from Dante controller. The solution is to reinstall Dante controller 3.5 - this will put the shiny new service back on the Mac and will not break DVS. Apologies for the inconvenience, but we have only just discovered this.

Alternatively if this doesn't resolve the issue- it would be classic behaviour of an anti-virus package or firewall package at work on your machine... The order I have chosen is deliberate (as most Mac users don't use antivirus software due to having a fairly secure operating system to start with...)

Hope this helps - if not, please let me know

Kieran
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Ben Anderson on March 10, 2014, 09:04:25 AM
I have had this issue as well only on one of my machines, thanks for fix will give it a go.

Ben

Mark... I think this is an issue that we have just discovered- so have no problems sharing it.

You are using an Apple - Can you confirm that you installed Dante Virtual Soundcard, after installing Dante controller 3.5?

There is a small case of version issues here and it sounds exactly like one of the symptoms. Dante Virtual Soundcard for Mac uses an older version of one of our services than Dante controller expects. This means that a few things may "go missing" from Dante controller. The solution is to reinstall Dante controller 3.5 - this will put the shiny new service back on the Mac and will not break DVS. Apologies for the inconvenience, but we have only just discovered this.

Alternatively if this doesn't resolve the issue- it would be classic behaviour of an anti-virus package or firewall package at work on your machine... The order I have chosen is deliberate (as most Mac users don't use antivirus software due to having a fairly secure operating system to start with...)

Hope this helps - if not, please let me know

Kieran
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 10, 2014, 12:01:32 PM
Mark... I think this is an issue that we have just discovered- so have no problems sharing it.

You are using an Apple - Can you confirm that you installed Dante Virtual Soundcard, after installing Dante controller 3.5?

...

Thanks Kieran for sharing so quickly.

I'm fairly (but not 100%) certain that I only installed the new Dante Controller and kept my existing DVS since it had not been recently updated. 

Before I installed the lasted Dante Controller I was also having problems getting the info from my GLD Dante card (IP address, etc, everything was greed out).  After first installing the latest Dante Controller (from maybe 2 weeks ago) I though, aha, now I can see all this info that was greyed out before. Then, one or two days later, the same problem appeared, after it had been working OK, with no known changes to my system (either the GLD Dante card, GLD settings, or MAcBook Pro.

It worked in the shop. I packed and went to the gig, plugged everything together, and Dante Controller wasn't reporting any information.

Again, I don't think I updated DVS but I can't be certain. I cleaned out my downloads last weekend so I don't have a history any more.
I'm not running anti-virus software, and I haven't intentionally set up a firewall.

All of this is under OSX 10.9.2 on an ~ 5 year old MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo.

I'll try to hook up in the shop over the next wee and test things, and reinstall Dante Controller (after testing).

Disclaimer: I'm over 50 so I won't take any bets on my memory.

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 02:13:58 PM


Disclaimer: I'm over 50 so I won't take any bets on my memory.

Hi Mark, thanks for the reply. I have no problem discussing this publicly- hopefully people may see the troubleshooting process we go through to get this nailed down.

As for being over 50- the computer thing is supposed to do the remembering for us... if its not working right, we should fix it - I really don't want your expectation to be that it requires engaging in complex activity to resolve... OK right now it would seem that we have the worst kind of bug to track down... but lets break it down, and we'll find an answer.

This is a great opportunity for some nice pictures!

I'm really bad at posting pictures... but will give it a go... below is the network preferences on my dual core macbook pro
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 02:28:02 PM
There is a (deliberate) mistake in this picture

The Wifi is connected to the same network as the Wired...

Dante controller 3.5 now helpfully paints the devices red and gives the message shown. (I am assuming this is not happening in your network)

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 02:35:47 PM
I have now fixed that issue (by turning off the wifi) and now when I look at the device status on controller, I can see the IP address 192.168.1.48 is in the same logical subnet as my laptop which is 192.168.1.49. I am using a DHCP server to take care of addresses on this network- however you don't need to.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 02:54:11 PM
Now for some really tedious stuff about subnets (sorry).

the subnet mask being given out by my DHCP server is 255.255.255.0

This is what we call a 24 bit subnet mask.

An IP address is made up of 32 bits - the subnet mask tells the devices that it is counting in networks of 256 members this means that there are 24 bits worth of networks 16.7 million (give or take) networks, each with 256 members. This for our purposes means that the network "address" of the group of 254 devices (we need to use the first number as the address for the network, and the last as the broadcast address) is 192.168.1.0 so any device with an address 192.168.1.1 up to 192.168.1.254 is considered to be in that "subnet". Any device outside that range of addresses is "not in the same network"...

It is possible that you may not be able to see the network address in Dante controller - this is sometimes indicative of the device not being in the same logical network.

... how can this happen between the shop and the gig?

It is possible of course that either, or both the computer and the M-Dante card could have static IP addresses. It would only take this static IP address to be typo'd, or to be "right" in a certain DHCP served network and "wrong" in another... even a change in subnet mask can cause disasters

If you can get the IP address of the M-Dante card... that would help us to trouble-shoot this a lot. It doesn't matter what It is (hopefully you can find it) when I see the reply, we can start to look at this line of investigation.

thanks

Kieran
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 10, 2014, 03:12:36 PM
I have now fixed that issue (by turning off the wifi) and now when I look at the device status on controller, I can see the IP address 192.168.1.48 is in the same logical subnet as my laptop which is 192.168.1.49. I am using a DHCP server to take care of addresses on this network- however you don't need to.

I'll try to arrange some time to recreate my setup in the shop tomorrow or the day after.  I had a wifi setup at the concert but the MacBook running Dante Controller and DVS *should* have had Wifi disabled and the WAP should have been unplugged before the show started and recording was enabled. 

Since my first GLD gig last month I've only used WIFI pre-show for monitor setup and then unplug the WAP before the crowd arrives. I had a weird thing happen to the GLD in my first show (lost 3 separate monitor sends mid-song) and decided to eliminate networking and the USB stick as potential sources.

However, a conflicting WIFI and wired network may have been my problem, and is easy enough to test in the shop.  'Typically' and 'usually' aren't very reproducible for debugging software.

The GLD console and Dante Card and the use of Dante are very new to me, I've only done four shows with the GLD and only tried Dante once,so it's likely I still have some configuration and workflow issues.


Regarding IP addresses, the MacBook and Dante option card were direct-wired in the shop with static IP addresses and nothing to serve DHCP, no network.  I wired it up the same way at the gig. 1-to-1 pont-to-point.

I appreciate the help, Kieran.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 03:23:14 PM
  'Typically' and 'usually' aren't very reproducible for debugging software.


Its like my favourite joke of today - Software engineers partner says- "run to the shops and get a loaf of bread... if they have eggs get a dozen" Software engineer returns home with 12 loaves of bread!

Unfortunately "Typically" and "Usually" are "real life" and could be - to the chagrin of my software engineering colleagues more accurately defined as "actually."

My lack of enthusiasm for static IP addresses is fairly well known... however there are sometimes reasons to do it - without knowing the wider setup its impossible to guess... it might be worth just leaving everything in DHCP- which would mean it would fall back to APIPA. From there any discovery issue might be easier to isolate... not sure if that is practical...   
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Josh Millward on March 10, 2014, 07:07:44 PM
Unfortunately, I can't verify exactly what my configuration was because Thursday night Dante Controller would not tell me who the master was (Master Unknown). Dante Controller wouldn't tell me IP addresses, or any information on any devices other than they were 'green'.  Routing was about the only thing that worked in Dante Controller.  I rebooted console and computer,... still Dante Controller (laster version 3.5.0.36) didn't work as expected.

I've had this problem before, too. It is as if Dante Controller has just gone stupid. Please don't get me wrong, Dante Controller is CONSIDERABLY better than it was a few years ago, but it just seems like every now and then it gets something stuck in its craw and will not get all the relevant information from the Dante card.

Since I'm usually not under the same sort of time crunch that happens when you are at a gig, I just close Dante Controller and shut off the Dante devices on my network. Then, sometime later, I'll open Dante Controller and start powering on devices one at a time. Usually everything will come up correctly and show all the options.

This is using Windows Vista Professional 32-Bit on a Dell Latitude D830.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 10, 2014, 08:26:23 PM


This is using Windows Vista Professional 32-Bit on a Dell Latitude D830.

For the avoidance of doubt - Audinate have never supported Windows Vista. Some of the symptoms you describe are the very reasons why we do not support Vista.

For the purposes of transparency I would agree that very large improvements have been made to the underlying discovery mechanisms - these are the bits that previously responded slowly/ got stuck.

I am trying to get Mark to the position of the vast majority of users who see absolutely no issues as he has described. it is my expectation that we will find whatever is causing this if the will is there to persevere.

let me make this abundantly clear :

Your expectation should be that everything works in Dante controller if you are running a supported Operating System, and if your network is not being compromised by settings that make the passing of data challenging.

Checking through this In a methodical way will turn up what is causing this. Like anyone I have my prejudices, I do have several possible lines of enquiry to look at from this point - when we have some answers to previous questions it should become clearer.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Rob Spence on March 11, 2014, 02:49:24 AM
There is a (deliberate) mistake in this picture

The Wifi is connected to the same network as the Wired...

Dante controller 3.5 now helpfully paints the devices red and gives the message shown. (I am assuming this is not happening in your network)

Why is this a mistake?

I have typically 2 Dante devices on my network - a mixer and a MacBook Pro ( ok, on the LS9 I have 3).  I have a router with wifi. I connect the two Dante devices and the console network port. Static address for the mixer and DHCP on all else.
I access the mixer with my ipad via wifi. I don't have a problem. I understand that if I had lots of devices, adding the wifi traffic might be an issue.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 07:48:16 AM
... Take 4... and we make reasonable demands of networks!

I say this because I tried twice to post using handheld cellular devices... and gave up (responses too wordy). Take 3 was on this laptop on a cellular data connection... I am currently on a train heading to the airport to go to Pro Light and Sound in Frankfurt. Got the laptop out an am tethered through cell phone... hopefully no more tunnels!

Rob - Thanks for posting this- it nicely shows how we can go through one of these networks in a step by step manner.

I have drawn a slight variation on your network setup to illustrate why my network was a mistake and yours isn't.

First - lets look at a physical view of what is going on- Cables and wireless- we call this layer 1.

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 08:06:11 AM
Next I have indicated where the MAC addresses are in this setup.

A MAC address is an unique hardware address that exists on a network interface. Switches connect devices by switching frames between MAC addresses.

Simply put- a Layer 2 frame has a source MAC address (sender) and a Destination MAC address (the hardware address of the interface that it is going to.

When the frame gets to the switch, the switch maintains a MAC address table. This tells the switch which Mac address is connected to which of its ports.

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 08:57:43 AM
Lets look in detail at what happens when we transfer data from one point to another on a network.

First we want to make physical connections, so we are interested in the physical layer:

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 09:00:11 AM
As we showed with the specific example each of these devices has a MAC address at each port:

As shown

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 09:34:44 AM
Lets "Make up" some MAC addresses for our devices.

The first 3 Hex "pairs" of a MAC address are used to identify the manufacturer...

Lets pretend all this equipment was made by Audinate.

The information could be shown in a table like this:

Device 1
Copper Port 01:DC:C1:01:01:01
Wireless Device 01:DC:C1:01:01:02
Device 2
Copper Port 01:DC:C1:01:01:03
Wireless Device 01:DC:C1:01:01:04
Switch
Copper Port 1 01:DC:C1:01:01:05
Copper Port 2 01:DC:C1:01:01:06
Copper Port 3 01:DC:C1:01:01:07
Copper Port 4 01:DC:C1:01:01:08
Wireless Access point
Copper Port 01:DC:C1:01:01:09
Wireless Device 01:DC:C1:01:01:10
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 09:43:42 AM
At Layer 1 I could put an electrical signal down a cable - whatever was plugged into that cable at the other end would receive that electrical signal - even if the receiver didn't understand, or was uninterested in the message being sent it would receive that message.

This is why networks exist. At Layer 2 we begin to abstract away from purely physical connections.

For example at Layer 2 I can send a message from device A to Device B - It might look Like this

Source MAC: 01:DC:C1:01:01:01
Destination MAC: 01:DC:C1:01:01:03
<message>

I can send this through the switch...

Lets look at what the switch does...

First- Q. We are only interested in the destination, why do we send the source, the sender surely knows its own address???

A. The Switch uses this to popultate what is known as a MAC Address Table
consider the following Diagram: NB I have decluttered down everything that we are not interested in at the moment
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 09:56:15 AM
The first time I send a message from device 1 The MAC address Table of the switch "pounces"

I really don't know about the international scope of this analogy - hopefully you'll understand why in a second.

In the UK where I live we have some individuals who participate in a hobby called trainspotting.
These individuals congregate at the end of Railway station platforms and log the numbers of locomotives that they have "spotted" in a book.

A switch is like a network trainspotter.

When the switch sees a message from a MAC address it dilligently logs it to its MAC address table, along with the port that it came in on. In this way it very quickly builds up a map of which port is connected to which device.

Consequently, when a message destined for a specific MAC address comes into the switch, it has a probability of knowing which port to forward the message through proportional to the amount of time it was switched on (the probability that the "destination" has said something is higher the more time passes).

However if the switch does not know which port the destination device is connected to, it simply "floods" the message - this means it forwards a copy out of every port, apart from the port the message originated on. The assumption being that at some point the destination could well signal back that it has received the message, and then with its silence broken, its connection will be revealed. In reality, this temporary flooding behaviour of a switch will only last a few milliseconds maximum.

The MAC Address table in our example may look like:

01:DC:C1:01:01:01 Connected to port 1 (internal MAC 01:DC:C1:01:01:05)
01:DC:C1:01:01:03 Connected to port 2 (internal MAC 01:DC:C1:01:01:06)

NB Switches will not "show" the internal MAC addresses to the outside world, but these are used by the switch to fulfil its function.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 01:05:06 PM
"Great" I hear you all say... we've got a message from point A to B... thats networking done, lets head off down to the pub!

And indeed if you want a point to point solution there is not much more that you need to do to make this happen...

Now for a bit of "how we do stuff" - others may not agree... there are different approaches. What I say is one way of looking at it. Of course I think it makes sense. I do respect those who don't agree- after all that is why and how we develop overall better solutions (we as in the human race in that last sentence).

The following is very general, and is trying to give a sense of why... I just read a 500 page book that covers only part of this...

Writing software in a Unix based environment (Unix is the granddad of Mac OSX and Linux inter alia) devices are treated as files. If I want to send a message from my application, all I need do is "save" that file to the network device... OK so we would be used to the file sticking on a disk or USB stick or something, however if I save it to the Network device, that network device will deal with sending that data.

We have established that the network interfaces have MAC addresses- so we could (in theory) have a "file" that is the device directly at the MAC address.

In general software programmers don't like to do this.

If anyone has tried to save to the same file from two places at once, you will have a good idea why this could be considered a limited approach.

If only one application was using the network port, or even at a stretch one like minded collection of manufacturers agreed how they would use that port, and developed a set of ways to deal with this... then we would still be some way behind the mainstream.

The "mainstream" way to use network ports is to use a piece of code like socks (Windows has Winsock). Socks allows the programmer to "ask it" to deal with data that the application being made by the programmer spits out. Because the vast majority of programmers have no desire to rebuild an already perfectly working (and free) piece of software that they have likely spent many months if not years of their lives mastering... all I am saying is that a lot of very skilled people were involved in solving this "problem"

One cool thing about this is that it allows the programmer to get on and use Layer 3.

A lot of the appeal of Layer 3 is that you have IP addresses... in and of itself, at a first glance it would appear to be not that exciting.

IP addresses and Layer 3
So as with Layer 2 we gained the ability to target specific pieces of hardware, which meant that we didn't have to worry so much about data going to locations where is was useless, layer 3 tidies up some essential aspects of what keeps this running. I mentioned flooding - when the switch just splurges out data if it doesn't know where the destination is. This is fine on a small scale - but on a global scale... its really bad. We call the area where the flooding can be picked up the "broadcast domain" Routers (which are layer 3 devices) segment the broadcast domain.

So from below - we get tidier, more scalable networks. From above, we get some cool features of IP addresses too. Its likely that many people will know that internet explorer uses port 80 by default... what does this actually mean?

Well it means that if I want to follow convention - when I write an application, I should be careful telling it to "write to" port 80. in fact there are a lot of "reserved" ports these are documented. Now something like socks does not stop me using those ports - if I decided everyone in the world was wrong, and I wanted to ignore them, I would use any port number I felt like - not really the behaviour of a "good citizen" especially as there are 16 bits worth of sockets for every single IP address!

oops did I say sockets? yes - Socket is what generally application people use- they "map" to ports- sockets are also used for inter-application communication... the communication doesn't have to use cat 5 and an RJ45 jack by layer 3 we are completely abstract!

Now I can write data to an unreserved socket/port and socks can deal with holding that data in a file, and then shoving it through the device when there is some availability.

As the vast majority of applications dump their data through something like socks, then it is an effective way of sharing the resource that is the network port, and allowing all manner of applications access to the port - this allows me to use Dante Virtual Soundcard, whilst I check my email.... or indeed use Dante Virtual Soundcard as the interface to Skype from my Dante enabled wireless microphones and speakers (if you havn't tried this trick you should... its very cool).

Now of course you could go to a lot of time and effort and build direct access in through layer 2 and then work out some smart way to pretend to the other applications that nothing had been messed with (the OS might have something to say about that) ... after all its engineering, everything is possible.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 01:11:03 PM
Soooo Rob,

Sockets and IP addresses, and why my setup was wrong and yours is right!

Here is a basic drawing of the previous pair of devices extrapolated up to L3:
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 01:24:03 PM
We know we can tell the device what to put in the address and subnet value of the IP address block shown in the diagram... we can use static, we can use DHCP, we can just leave it, and most operating systems will "fall back" to link local or APIPA addressing.

The illustration will work just fine - all the time the wireless ports are not participating in the network.

Lets turn them on, and connect a wireless access point into the mix!

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 01:43:50 PM
My personal recommendation is to let a network this small work "link local" or APIPA as it is known... watch carefully- this is what happens in my "bad" example

Device 1
Copper Port MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:01 IP Address - 169.254.1.1
Wireless Device MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:02 IP Address - 169.254.1.2
Device 2
Copper Port MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:03 IP Address - 169.254.1.3
Wireless Device MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:04 IP Address - 169.254.1.4
Switch
Copper Port 1 MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:05 IP Address - N/A
Copper Port 2 MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:06 IP Address - N/A
Copper Port 3 MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:07 IP Address - N/A
Copper Port 4 MAC Address -01:DC:C1:01:01:08 IP Address - N/A
Wireless Access point
Copper Port MAC Address - 01:DC:C1:01:01:09 IP Address -N/A
Wireless Device MAC Address - 01:DC:C1:01:01:10 IP Address - N/A

* I have pedantically said that the copper port of the Wireless Access point doesn't have an IP address- It doesn't- you will often have a little web server or microcontroller hidden inside a wireless access point which DOES have an IP address- this is a little computer with an internal cable through an internal switch... therefore the outward facing port does not have an IP address.

My application finds out (often by querying the routing table of the OS) that there are 2 interfaces available and their IP addresses.

The application knows that it has to send information to a destination IP address... so it looks for the interface in the same subnet as the destination.

So- we want to send information from device 1 to device 2

The application in device 1 finds out that device 2 has 2 IP addresses... it picks one
so it sets up a message targeted at 169.254.1.3... after all it is an IP address on the device that it wants to talk to.

the application gives the data to the piece of software handling sockets (socks or similar) and forgets about it.

The routing table contains 2 valid IP addresses locally to send that data through... this is like Christmas! so the internal router sends some out of the copper interface and some out of the wireless interface.

As an aside- one highly frustrating thing that can be done is to have valid addresses in the same subnet on two interfaces that are in different physical networks... its a great way to lose half of your data... which pretty much equates to losing all useful functionality- and its not immediately obvious. (I only know because I've done this!).

So hopefully its clear why this is a good "bad" example
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Scott Helmke on March 11, 2014, 01:50:56 PM
IP Addresses / Ports / Sockets make a little better sense if viewed this way:

If you need to send a piece of gear in for factory repair, you would ship it to the factory address (IP address), "Attention repair" (Port).

The service department writes back saying "We received your gear on Repair Order # xxxxx, please use this number when contacting us about this repair".  (Socket)
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 01:55:50 PM
Rob illustrates where it is a really good idea to use a combination of either DHCP or APIPA IP addresses, and where Static IP addresses can make life easier.

Rob is using his iPad to talk to the interface on his LS9 through the common physical cabling infrastructure.

Because Dante is communicating at Layer 3 it cannot see the wireless access point or the LS9 because they have IP addresses in a different logical subnet. The routing table in Robs device contains an entry for the Dante network on the copper, and an entry for his iPad/LS9 connection as a separate logical network... everything is sweet.... except (everyone groans) Multicast!

We'll handle that some other time.


One note on sockets and Anti-virus...

consider the following... If I were some ne'er do well who wanted to get all the information off your computer- one way of accessing this remotely would be to open up a "back door". Sounds like Hollywood movie speak... A "back door" is a port (typically an unreserved one) that is used for remote access - either for good or evil.

Dante uses a lot of unreserved ports, and sends a lot of data - yes - uncompressed audio is, as we all know... quite big.

Anti-virus software often mistakes this behaviour as the prelude to an attack, and steps in to protect you- unwittingly killing audio, and more commonly messing with what can be seen on the controller screen! Firewalls can do the same of course.

The port ranges that Dante uses are published in the Dante Controller User guide, so you can write exceptions for your anti-virus software.

Personally- I would do the big corporate thing... put an appliance at the gateway, and stop the viruses on their way into your network... its always struck me as a bit like putting a police checkpoint in the home straight on a race track having local antivirus on a fixed production machine... I shouldn't be able to get anywhere near the racetrack in my sedan... the security guys should have dealt with that...

OK - I know there are about a billion and one reasons why this utopian view is not a reflection on the everyday reality... but its worth considering as an absurd extrapolation.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 01:57:34 PM
IP Addresses / Ports / Sockets make a little better sense if viewed this way:

If you need to send a piece of gear in for factory repair, you would ship it to the factory address (IP address), "Attention repair" (Port).

The service department writes back saying "We received your gear on Repair Order # xxxxx, please use this number when contacting us about this repair".  (Socket)

Thanks Scott, that is indeed one way of looking at it - I was trying to get a sense of the abstract... but I like your explanation too as a grounding influence (I agree its correct)
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 11, 2014, 02:34:13 PM
OP here.

I spent an hour tonight, connecting this and that, rebooting this and that, sometimes Dante Controller (DC) worked sometimes it did not.

I re-installed Dante Controller on OSX, and at least for the last 30 minutes I have had predictable behavior of DVS and DC.  So let's assume I ran onto the known problem where DC has to be installed after DVS. 


I then set both the Dante Option card and my laptop to use DHCP and the system still works (even though the subnet mask on the laptop is 255.255.255.0 and the Dante option card got 169.254.177.139 and the laptop got 169.254.209.107. We'll save that for a later day.

Moving on, Kieran, how would you recommend I set up my network for the following scenario:

I have an OSX laptop that I want to (a) record via Dante, and (b) run GLD Editor OSX, a remote DSP app (under Parallels), and Sennheiser WSM OSX,...  The DSP is on the stage so it needs to be connected to wirelessly, I only have one cable pulled from FOH to the stage.

Option 1: The simplest solution seems to be to connect the GLD control network, the Dante Primary Port and the MacBook together, hardwired to ports on the WAP. Then I can connect the DSP and Wireless mics at the stage using an Airport Express in its 'extend a network' mode.  Everything is on one network. My only concern is sharing the wireless network, and the audience trying to hack the wireless network, may cause dropouts in the Dante stream if the WAP gets overloaded....

Option 2: Another option is to have two networks: the Dante Option card hardwired to the laptop NIC without a switch, and the laptop wireless connected to the WAP where all the other devices, including the GLD control network are connected.

I currently have 3 WAPs available for FOH use, a new Airport Extreme, a new D-Link N+ 300 (DIR-815, GB switch,..), and a 3 or 4 year old Belkin N600 (10/100 switch)

So how would you set this up?
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 03:39:02 PM
Mark- I think I am missing something here...

can you clarify the following points for me:

I am assuming that there is only one piece of Dante hardware in this network- that would be the M-Dante card in the GLD at FOH- which you are connecting to the Laptop.

The cable you refer to betwixt FOH and Stage- it is unclear what this is doing? I am assuming you are running ACE down it - although I don't want to make a blind assumption.

Again, a lovely use case... and this time I will (try to) not carpet bomb the thread with how to deconstruct the universe ;)

If this is as I hope we have ourselves a very cool setup... in any case- we'll get you going.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 11, 2014, 04:30:15 PM
Mark- I think I am missing something here...

can you clarify the following points for me:

I am assuming that there is only one piece of Dante hardware in this network- that would be the M-Dante card in the GLD at FOH- which you are connecting to the Laptop.

The cable you refer to betwixt FOH and Stage- it is unclear what this is doing? I am assuming you are running ACE down it - although I don't want to make a blind assumption.

Again, a lovely use case... and this time I will (try to) not carpet bomb the thread with how to deconstruct the universe ;)

If this is as I hope we have ourselves a very cool setup... in any case- we'll get you going.

It is similar to as you suggested:

The only Dante devices are the GLD112 and the Laptop running DVS.
The only cable going from FOH to the stage run's A&H dSNAKE protocol, not ACE. I believe they are different protocols. 

I don't really understand why A&H has both ACE and dSNAKE, other than to charge you for an ACE option card to use a GLD in monitor world in an iLive network.  Since the GLD's only have one slot, it's either Dante or ACE, not both.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Justice C. Bigler on March 11, 2014, 05:16:03 PM
Mark, does the GLD console not connect to the stage box through through Dante? Is it a network spec proprietary to Allen and Heath?

I would be very wary about connecting your laptop to the Dante network and also to the console via WiFi for remote control. In my experience, Dante Controller and DVS do not like to see other network connections (as DC and DVS do not usually work if there is more than one network connection active on the computer--have had this same issue with both a Mac Pro and my Windows laptop).


Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 05:51:29 PM
OK -

I have to say that creating a point to point wireless control network between FOH and stage would scare me a little... but its mainly an availability of spectrum thing... If you can use something interference resilient like 802.11n or the like... I would have said some time back that using 5GHz instead of 2.4 would have helped as fewer people were up in 5GHz... I am not sure that is so true anymore.

The key I found to wireless data networks was always be prepared for a lot of experimentation - placement of access points and decent antenna was always key.

The most ambitious wireless datalink I ever built out of standard parts was to control processing for a very large gig at Wembley stadium - We had two access points talking to each other on a 5GHz backhaul about 70m apart (these access points had two radio circuits each- one could work as an AP whilst the other radio circuit could connect as a backhaul to another unit). They were mounted inside those plastic tupperware containers that people stored museli in back in the 80's, and mounted at the top of some towers in the middle of the 90,000 capacity crowd using an elaborate rigging system consisting mainly of TUV certified gaffa tape, oh and some judicious glue-gun weather proofing - we relied on Newton to keep the bottom of the assembly from getting soaked I believe ;)

Between the two of them- they covered the entire stadium, certainly sufficient to get the whole system tuned when the venue was empty... getting the height was absolutely key here, as well as decent antenna.

I would say that this is the most bothersome part of the design as far as I see it - if there was a chance of getting another cable between FOH and stage - I'm sure you would have already.

SO

Taking the world as (I think) we find it...

try the attached connections

connect the Airport extreme to the control port of the M-Dante card, and the laptop to the Primary port of the M-Dante card.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 11, 2014, 06:02:44 PM
Next up is IP addresses...

now this is actually a tricky one.

OK so to be honest- I would normally opt for DHCP or just good old link local addressing for nearly every simple Dante network I get involved in - simply put- if I can get away with not thinking about IP addresses where I don't have to- i'll let the machines do it.

Unfortunately I get the feeling that we might have to think about IP addresses here.

Now I know the temptation to go bang bang bang - static IP everywhere. Two arguments for trying to hold off this for as long as possible.
1. if you need to swap something out in a massive hurry its one more thing to configure.
2. it is good training for the promised day that ipV6 is upon us and then human memorable static IP addresses are GONE! (although ipv6 has been "coming" for 19 years... maybe harsh it is useful today where it is being used).

We need to find out the following:

Does the DSP unit accept DHCP, or does it want a static IP address?

If the DSP is happy to do DHCP, then can we get the GLD to follow DHCP too.

This will also make deploying paralells that much easier- as the Windows virtual machine will happily take a DHCP address, and we should be able to avoid some of the messing with the bridging settings.

Over to you on that one Mark
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Rob Spence on March 11, 2014, 10:27:29 PM
As said earlier, I have been sharing a network between (Dante - DVS) & (console - wifi/iPad) for years. Originally it was an LS9 and now a GLD.

I do not use both the wired and wifi connection on the MacBook at the same time. When using DVS I turn off wifi.

If the MacBook needs to talk wireless to another wifi network, then I would think it needs to be a different subnet in order for routing to work. I would not do that but that is just me.

If I was building a more complex Dante network then I would keep my console control on it's own network and make the Dante network with both primary and secondary.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 11, 2014, 11:50:40 PM
Mark, does the GLD console not connect to the stage box through through Dante? Is it a network spec proprietary to Allen and Heath?...

Correct, the GLD console and stage boxes talk "dSNAKE", not ACE nor Dante.  From what I've read dSNAKE and ACE are both A&H proprietary audio+control protocols. 
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 11, 2014, 11:59:55 PM
Next up is IP addresses...
...
Does the DSP unit accept DHCP, or does it want a static IP address?....

The DSP requires a static address.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 12, 2014, 12:04:54 AM
OK -

I have to say that creating a point to point wireless control network between FOH and stage would scare me a little... but its mainly an availability of spectrum thing... If you can use something interference resilient like 802.11n or the like... I would have said some time back that using 5GHz instead of 2.4 would have helped as fewer people were up in 5GHz... I am not sure that is so true anymore....

I understand the desire for a multicore Cat cable to FOH.  I don't own one today. I'm rarely over 20m from stage and usually have line of sight (maybe a curtain in the way)...
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 12, 2014, 02:21:28 AM
The DSP requires a static address.

OK so I have done a little digging...

If you can connect the Airport extreme wirelessly with no problems to the other end... (I am assuming here that you can).

I would set the Airport extreme to be on DHCP duty still. Convention would suggest that you use one of the Private IP address ranges - In this situation it doesn't matter that much, but... as the Airport extreme is likely going to serve one of those ranges "out of the box" it doesn't do any harm just to leave it.

Naturally you will observe which logical network the DHCP server is placing devices in.

I would suggest assigning a static address within that subnet to the DSP. You should be able to leave everything else on DHCP.

Again just an experiment - would be good to hear if it works.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 12, 2014, 04:58:48 AM
OK so I have done a little digging...

If you can connect the Airport extreme wirelessly with no problems to the other end... (I am assuming here that you can).

I would set the Airport extreme to be on DHCP duty still. Convention would suggest that you use one of the Private IP address ranges - In this situation it doesn't matter that much, but... as the Airport extreme is likely going to serve one of those ranges "out of the box" it doesn't do any harm just to leave it.

Naturally you will observe which logical network the DHCP server is placing devices in.

I would suggest assigning a static address within that subnet to the DSP. You should be able to leave everything else on DHCP.

Again just an experiment - would be good to hear if it works.
I should be able to "connect the Airport extreme wirelessly with no problems to the other end.". I've done it before with other devices including computers, something Apple doesn't advertise, they only advertise remote printers  connected to an Airport Express.

And so you suggest connecting Dante Primary, the laptop NIC, and the GLD control network all to ports on the Airport Extreme, and leave the wireless of the laptop disabled?

That's really my question, i.e. one combined wired/wireless network everyone uses (as Rob does), or a dedicated hardwired Dante network and a separate wireless network for non-Dante gear. (explained in my Reply #56)
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Chris Johnson [UK] on March 12, 2014, 10:03:23 AM
This post has ballooned! Its hard to keep track of what the original issue actually was...

Allow me to summarise, and please correct me if I'm wrong:

You have a GLD, with a Dante card. The Dante card is just for recording, the GLD gets its audio from input racks via proprietary A&H protocol with a suitably random acronym.
You have a DSP onstage which you control via ethernet.
You have some other 'stuff' that you also wan't to control.
You only have 1 Cat5e/Cat6 cable running to FOH, and that is already used for the A&H.
You'd like to use this all simultaneously with your Macbook.
Is that correct?

Obviously it would be nice to pull another cable, but assuming you can't, here is what I would do with what you have available, today.

Connect your M-Dante Primary port directly to your Macbook's ethernet port. Set your macbook to DHCP and let the Dante card and your macbook pickup a link local address.

Connect all other things needing to be controlled at FOH to your airport extreme. Let your airport extreme provide DHCP.
At the stage end, get another wireless AP and set it up as a bridge. get it to connect to the airport extreme's wireless network and receive addresses over DHCP.
Connect all stage devices, via a switch if need be, to this AP. Set them all to DHCP.

Now connect to your laptop to the airport extreme via wifi. Set parallels to have a bridged network with your wifi adapter.

Voila. You now have a separate Dante network and control network. Easy peasy.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 12, 2014, 12:55:32 PM
Quote

This post has ballooned! Its hard to keep track of what the original issue actually was...

Allow me to summarise, and please correct me if I'm wrong:

You have a GLD, with a Dante card. The Dante card is just for recording, the GLD gets its audio from input racks via proprietary A&H protocol with a suitably random acronym.
You have a DSP onstage which you control via ethernet.
You have some other 'stuff' that you also wan't to control.
You only have 1 Cat5e/Cat6 cable running to FOH, and that is already used for the A&H.
You'd like to use this all simultaneously with your Macbook.
Is that correct?


Yes, correct

Quote
Obviously it would be nice to pull another cable, but assuming you can't, here is what I would do with what you have available, today.

I have a spare cable I could run, just not multicore. I'd prefer to keep the spare in the trunk.

Quote

Connect your M-Dante Primary port directly to your Macbook's ethernet port. Set your macbook to DHCP and let the Dante card and your macbook pickup a link local address.

Connect all other things needing to be controlled at FOH to your airport extreme. Let your airport extreme provide DHCP.
At the stage end, get another wireless AP and set it up as a bridge. get it to connect to the airport extreme's wireless network and receive addresses over DHCP.
Connect all stage devices, via a switch if need be, to this AP. Set them all to DHCP.

Now connect to your laptop to the airport extreme via wifi. Set parallels to have a bridged network with your wifi adapter.

Voila. You now have a separate Dante network and control network. Easy peasy.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Chris Johnson [UK] on March 12, 2014, 03:48:42 PM
OK Mark, sounds sensible.

I think what I've suggested will suit your needs well with no changes to you're equipment.

Let me know how you go
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 12, 2014, 04:44:12 PM
I suggested connecting the laptop to the primary network port on the M-Dante card and the Airport extreme to the control port on the M-Dante, and on to the GLD control port for a reason... please take not that this is entirely deliberate.

There is potential for the Dante VIrtual Soundcard, and indeed the M-Dante to generate multicast audio.

You could choose to be careful... but there is already protection against this which you get "for free" if you connect the way I say - the control port filters out any multicast audio that may exist on the Dante audio network

If you don't do this you will at best cause your wireless link to become very sluggish

At worst you will lose control of the GLD - as its control stack really doesn't like multicast, and you will lose wireless connectivity.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Chris Johnson [UK] on March 12, 2014, 05:26:16 PM
Yes, I forgot the M-Dante card had a third port.

Can you not control everything from the primary network though, like other Dante devices? Just curious...

You and I are suggesting the same thing then Kieran. Dante audio on a dedicated link to the macbook, all the control on the Airport extreme.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 12, 2014, 05:45:13 PM
You and I are suggesting the same thing then Kieran. Dante audio on a dedicated link to the macbook, all the control on the Airport extreme.

Not really

I am not suggesting using the Macbook Wireless at all- the more this can be minimised the better- Think of wireless like you would radio mics... if I can get rid of unnecessary radio mics, and it doesn't really mess my gig up I will... one less gives a better chance of all the others working (and before anyone suggests anything here... my biggest Radio mic/IEM/comms channel count on at once = 289!)

I think that the only reason for setting the DSP static IP in the same subnet as the DHCP server running on the Airport extreme is that the DSP is not capable of DHCP... if it were I would suggest running it DHCP.

There is no reason why all of these devices shouldn't exist on the same logical network... the multicast filtering on the M-Dante control port is a really cool feature for making this safe (and is a simple way of achieving what is otherwise the preserve of a managed switch- and then one that would need a little configuration)
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Chris Johnson [UK] on March 12, 2014, 05:54:18 PM
Not really

...

I am not suggesting using the Macbook Wireless at all- the more this can be minimised the better
There is no reason why all of these devices shouldn't exist on the same logical network... the multicast filtering on the M-Dante control port is a really cool feature for making this safe (and is a simple way of achieving what is otherwise the preserve of a managed switch- and then one that would need a little configuration)

Yes I see, You are routing all the Macbooks network connectivity through the M-Dante card and using multicast filtering on the control port.

I see the advantage of that, except I thought Mark wanted to not expose his Dante network to the wireless. Might have misunderstood that.

If you want to ditch the wireless link on the macbook, the handy-dandy USB-ethernet adapter provides another nice way of achieving that.

Assuming you setup Dante to be Unicast though, you would infact eliminate ALL multicast Dante traffic though, right? Or are you suggesting that there can be spurious multicast traffic anyway. In this case, there seems to be no reason to have Dante be multicast, since there is only 1 transmitter and 1 receiver (or 2 and 2 if you include the returns from the laptop)

Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 12, 2014, 07:15:33 PM
The Dante network is not really exposed to the wireless...

If someone wanted to nefariously run Dante controller they would have to go to some serious effort to "break into" the wireless.

I think however the main concern was for the wireless to splat the Dante network.

The assessment to make here- how much can I fire through the Wireless Access Point as an absolute maximum amount of data- Answer - theoretically 150mbps, actually we all know it will be less than that. Next question - how much bandwidth do I have between my Laptop and my M-Dante card- Answer 1Gigabit.
Next Question- how much bandwidth will I need to send all 64 channels from the M-Dante to my Laptop - Answer - about 87mbps... so

150+87 = (worst wireless attack + Dante) = 237mbps
capacity of link 1000mbps

capacity - Armageddon = 763mbps headroom.

In terms of traffic, the Dante network is self contained between the M-Dante and the Laptop, and the control filter takes out any badness heading towards the wireless network (the M-Dante and Laptop combination is the bigger threat to the wireless- not the other way around)

I know it feels scary - but seriously looking at the theory carpet bomb of the last bazillion posts by me should explain why its safe.

Yes you are correct- unicast audio will only go point to point... this setup however protects against the eventuality that you may have set something multicast for another job in another place and forgotten ( maybe this reflects my constantly changing life... but this is how I protect myself against human error to the maximum extent)

The Dante clock will be multicast, as will discovery services- however Dante clock is such low density that the wireless network wont be affected, and the discovery service is no more extreme than having a wireless printer on the network... so not an offensive use of multicast... its the audio payload set in multicast that we are concerned about, and therefore suggest protecting agains.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 13, 2014, 12:15:29 AM
...
I would say that this is the most bothersome part of the design as far as I see it - if there was a chance of getting another cable between FOH and stage - I'm sure you would have already.

SO

Taking the world as (I think) we find it...

try the attached connections

connect the Airport extreme to the control port of the M-Dante card, and the laptop to the Primary port of the M-Dante card.


Kieran,


Curiously, why connect the Dante control port to the WAP at all? 


The Dante Primary Port on the GLD can carry both the audio control data, and I am running DC and DVC on the MacBook, so connecting the Dante control port to the WAP (Airport Express) seems unnecessary, its just seems to be a redundant path for the Dante control traffic.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 13, 2014, 02:12:02 AM
For the DSP control from Parallels.

Like i said, the fewer wireless connections you are relying on the better.

You dont have to of course- its just what I would do.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Mark McFarlane on March 30, 2014, 12:39:19 PM
To follow up and close this discussion, here's what I settled on, it is similar to what Rob proposed, but uses one fewer connection at FOH since I am jumpering the GLD control through the Dante Control to Dante Primary port:

at FOH:
MacBook connected to Airport Extreme by 1Gb wire, using DHCP
iPad connected to Airport Extreme using DHCP.
GLD on static IP address (only option available)
GLD sync set to internal clock
GLD control connected to Dante Option Card control with a 12" cable,
Dante Primary connected to the Airport Extreme by 1Gb wire using DHCP.
Dante Option Card setup as switched, 1ms latency, pref master, Enable sync

FYI: I could never get Dante Controller working reliably (i.e. showing device details) until I upgraded the Dante Option Card firmware to the latest release. That seems to have been the major change to get a stable system. I struggled with this for several days and the A&H Dante Card firmware update seems to have been the solution.  (I also updated the GLD to 1.4 at the same time).

With the above setup I seem to have reliable Dante Controller access, reliable GLD control (wired and wireless), and reliable recording via Dante DVS.

At the Stage:
Apple Airport Express configured to extend the FOH Airport Extreme-based network.
An old, metal 10/100Mb switch connected to the Airport Express LAN port
DSP connected to the switch
Sennheiser ew300 wireless connected to the switch.

All this seems to work reliably in the shop, whether I am accessing the stage devices through OSX or Parallels.

FOH is usually within 80' of the stage at my gigs, so I am hopeful this same setup is going to work well outside the shop.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Kieran Walsh on March 31, 2014, 06:51:20 AM
Mark,

I am glad that this setup works for you.

On a setup of any scale this must come with a word of warning- if you use Multicast audio, your unprotected wireless access point will likely overload, and your wireless control performance will be seriously compromised.

Previous suggestions do address this eventuality and can be used as a reference should anyone encounter performance issues attempting a similar type setup.
Title: Re: Dante recording has spikes (& simple Dante setup discussion)
Post by: Mark McFarlane on April 02, 2014, 10:33:12 AM
Mark,

I am glad that this setup works for you.

On a setup of any scale this must come with a word of warning- if you use Multicast audio, your unprotected wireless access point will likely overload, and your wireless control performance will be seriously compromised.

Previous suggestions do address this eventuality and can be used as a reference should anyone encounter performance issues attempting a similar type setup.

Thanks Kieran for your patience and helpfulness.