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[Tim Weaver]

So my latest round of wrestling with the IT guy to get my Dante network happy and stable, AND get wifi access for the band so they can control their own mixes resulted in some upgraded switches in my world, which subsequently broke my Soundgrid server ability. I can no longer use waves plugins via Multirack.

I could fix this by using a Thunderbolt 2 NIC which would be the third NIC on the host machine, but I'm kind of keen to see what I can do with an alternative to Soundgrid.


My idea is to use Live Professor which seems like a solid, well thought out host. I want to build a computer just for LP and route audio to it via Dante. This would make my world 100% Dante, so management and troubleshooting gets easier and hopefully reliability goes up as well.

My plan, so far, is to use the MY16-AUD2 card in the console which gives me 16 channels to/from Dante dedicated to inserts. This will be routed to a PC using the Dante PCIe-R Soundcard for the lowest latency that the setup can manage.

Where I'm baffled is how much PC do I need to run 16 channels of plug ins? Right now I'm using mostly dynamics plugs, some EQ, several multibands, and waves tune real time. No reverbs, and there will probably never be any reverbs used via plug ins. The desk verbs are sufficient for me.

So help me out. I need a PC with at least one PCI-e slot, that is spec'ed out to run a double handful of plug ins, and hopefully be reasonably priced. I know I can spend 1500+ and get good results, but I'm going to pay for all of this by selling my current Impact servers with Yamaha cards. A PC closer to 500 bucks would be a lot better.

So how much PC do I really need for this?

[Tim McCulloch]

The new Waves Proton servers are Celeron processors with 4GB of RAM.  The current Impact-C server is an i3.  Methinks this does not require a 10th generation i7 with 32GB but I could be wrong.

[Scott Holtzman]

The new Waves Proton servers are Celeron processors with 4GB of RAM.  The current Impact-C server is an i3.  Methinks this does not require a 10th generation i7 with 32GB but I could be wrong.

The Waves server is highly optimized running in a real time Linux vs an application running on a general purpose OS.

A little background in RTOS on CISC (complex instruction set computing) vs. purpose built DSP's/gate arrays.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/2013/03/intro-to-real-time-linux-for-embedded-developers/
b

[Russell Ault]

The Waves server is highly optimized running in a real time Linux vs an application running on a general purpose OS.

SoundGrid servers also aren't responsible for running a GUI, which can require some beef too.

-Russ

[Scott Holtzman]

SoundGrid servers also aren't responsible for running a GUI, which can require some beef too.

-Russ

While we are on this subject do you think the new Waves Super Rack will be free like Multirack or priced within the sphere of the LV-1 which the super rack clearly compliments.

[Tim McCulloch]

Hey guys, Weaver is talking about *native* plugin  hosting.  He's not trying to reverse-engineer the Waves boxes or duplicate their way of doing things.

[Bill Meeks]

Hey guys, Weaver is talking about *native* plugin  hosting.  He's not trying to reverse-engineer the Waves boxes or duplicate their way of doing things.

Agreed, but Scott's and Russ' replies highlight why the Waves Soundgrid Servers can host so many plugins simultaneously on what seems like anemic hardware (Celeron processors are not exactly powerhouse CPUs). So to compensate for the less efficient RTOS (real-time operating system) environment and the demands of a GUI application running on top of it, you can just throw more horsepower at the job in the form of Intel i7 CPUs with clock speeds near 4 GHz.

I read up on the Live Professor software. It sounds pretty intriguing.

[Helge A Bentsen]

Liveprofessor is really nice, my 2017 Lenovo X250 with a i7-5600 processor/ 8GB ram runs 4-5 instances of plugins natively without issues. Haven't tried maxing it out.

[Russell Ault]

While we are on this subject do you think the new Waves Super Rack will be free like Multirack or priced within the sphere of the LV-1 which the super rack clearly compliments.

<swerve>
While cheaper than the LV-1 software, MultiRack only recently came down in price to $400 (from $500), and is one of the few pieces of Waves software that almost never goes on sale. (StudioRack is the free one, but it's not really designed for live use.) Judging by the description (and the recent price break on MultiRack) I'm guessing SuperRack will be a MultiRack replacement at around the same pricepoint, but that's only a guess.
</swerve>

-Russ

[Tim Weaver]

Hey guys, Weaver is talking about *native* plugin  hosting.  He's not trying to reverse-engineer the Waves boxes or duplicate their way of doing things.

Yes, just to be clear, I would be using a Plug in host LIKE Multirack Native, on a windows machine, stripped down as much as possible and after downloads, kept off the internet.

[ProSoundWeb Community]