Audio Over Ethernet

[Ripper]

Hi guys.

I've been reading some things about this audio over ethernet subject, but i'm not really convinced if that's the right solution for what i want to do.

So, my plan is:

1-Put the synth rack (3 synths) and a dedicated pc for Scope in the attic (In the rack there is also a Motu Miditimepiece AVII -serial);

2-Keep the 2 keyboards where they are (a room under the attic) with the behringer mixer, together with another pc and the Copperlan AL-88 to connect all this (Including the things mentioned in 1). Obviously I will be in this room, not in the attic, hehe.

I am planning on doing this so that the room keeps tidy.

So, the idea is having an ethernet cable from the attic (connect into the RJ45 port in the Scope PC) to the ethernet switch in the room mentioned in 2, which would then be connect to the pc in this room. This pc would control the one in the attic throught VNC or something similar.

My problem is the audio part. Will it need another ethernet cable? Another Ethernet Port in each pc? And anymore hardware needed? About software: Some RTPaudio stuff? Audinate's Virtual Sound Card? Audioport?

I suppose it is clear that I don't want to spend a fortune on this.

[Bud Weiser]

Hi guys.

I've been reading some things about this audio over ethernet subject, but i'm not really convinced if that's the right solution for what i want to do.

So, my plan is:

1-Put the synth rack (3 synths) and a dedicated pc for Scope in the attic (In the rack there is also a Motu Miditimepiece AVII -serial);

2-Keep the 2 keyboards where they are (a room under the attic) with the behringer mixer, together with another pc and the Copperlan AL-88 to connect all this (Including the things mentioned in 1). Obviously I will be in this room, not in the attic, hehe.

I am planning on doing this so that the room keeps tidy.

So, the idea is having an ethernet cable from the attic (connect into the RJ45 port in the Scope PC) to the ethernet switch in the room mentioned in 2, which would then be connect to the pc in this room. This pc would control the one in the attic throught VNC or something similar.

My problem is the audio part. Will it need another ethernet cable? Another Ethernet Port in each pc? And anymore hardware needed? About software: Some RTPaudio stuff? Audinate's Virtual Sound Card? Audioport?

I suppose it is clear that I don't want to spend a fortune on this.

I only investigated in MIDI over LAN up to now.
SCOPE 6 will come w/ Copperlan embedded,- so that´s what we´ll get 1st.
I think I´ve read somewhere, Copperlan plans audio over LAN too for the future,- but a host must support that too.

I know, VIENNA Ensemble Pro 5 supports audio over LAN (ethernet) ...
http://www.vsl.co.at/de/211/497/1685/1990/1680.htm
In Cockos Reaper forum, a user posted it works perfect.
http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php?p= ... stcount=12

Cockos Reaper comes w/ it´s own ReaStream driver to stream audio over network/ethernet,- but only to other instances of Reaper,- so you have to install Reaper on every machine you want to stream audio to.
ReaStream introduces some latency though ...
http://www.reaper.fm/technical.php

You cannot expect any host recognizes a RJ45 connection as audio ports as long there are no drivers existing.

Technically for SCOPE, I assume it required a DSP ethernet-audio I/O device in addition (which doesn´t exist actually),- but maybe I´m wrong.

That said,- it´s all future music w/ SCOPE for the time being.

Bud

[Eanna]

How long can Optical cables be run? I remember some post about that somewhere... With Scope as you main audio interface in the attic PC, maybe you could route audio from your synths into Scope by Analog I/O via a little mini mixer, and send audio out of Scope over Optical cables...

Btw, Attics can get very hot in hot weather. Scope cards get hot too. So, watch your heat levels! Make sure you have a temperature monitor on that attic PC... and a smoke detector!

[Ripper]

Danke mein freund Bud (Don't answer in german 'cause this was my best try, lol)

Yes, I know about Scope with Copperlan, but the word "soon" is giving me a strange filling when it is in the same sentence as the words "Scope 6".
I expect Copperlan to come up with something pretty SOON.

That of the RJ45 is new for me. I thought that the software I mentioned above had surrounded that.

[jksuperstar]

You can run ADAT cables 30 feet (6m). I have done this successfully with my XITe and a behringer ADA8000. I have also run Zlink cables (FireWire) 30 feet between xite and A16ultra.

If you do get audio working over Ethernet, and it shows up as an audio device in windows, you can connect scope to it from within scope. I'll need to dig up the info, but there is a way for scope to talk to another audio device without any other software host.

[Ripper]

How long can Optical cables be run? I remember some post about that somewhere... With Scope as you main audio interface in the attic PC, maybe you could route audio from your synths into Scope by Analog I/O via a little mini mixer, and send audio out of Scope over Optical cables...

Btw, Attics can get very hot in hot weather. Scope cards get hot too. So, watch your heat levels! Make sure you have a temperature monitor on that attic PC... and a smoke detector!

Ahaha, my attic is also my home gym. It gets a bit hot in summer, but I have never fainted while training there (Because of the heat at least, hehe).

About the sound from the rack to scope that's not an issue. I have 3 cards, with all the cables, so no problem here.

I'm concerned about the audio between the pc's. Probably will have to use 2 analog cables, which make it 3 cables. That's what I was trying to avoid, once that the TIDY part of this change will get compromised.

[Eanna]

If you can do Optical cabling, you'll have multichannel audio streaming from that PC... rather than analog cabling... 3 Scope cards = 24 channels of audio I/O for 6 little bitty optical cables that won't have any RF interference...

[Ripper]

You can run ADAT cables 30 feet (6m). I have done this successfully with my XITe and a behringer ADA8000. I have also run Zlink cables (FireWire) 30 feet between xite and A16ultra.

If you do get audio working over Ethernet, and it shows up as an audio device in windows, you can connect scope to it from within scope. I'll need to dig up the info, but there is a way for scope to talk to another audio device without any other software host.

About the distance, I'm affraid 6m is not enough. I didn't measure it yet, but I expect it to be some 8-9 metres.

Hum, sounds promissing, jksuperstar. I would appreciate if you could guide me on that one. Don't forget that I need Ethernet sound to be sent and received from and to Scope.

[Eanna]

If you've over 6m, you should consider optical repeaters along the run...

Something like this:
http://www.minidisc.org/soundprofession ... pt-rep.jpg

Don't know if that would break sync - is 6m a problem due to sync timing, or is it signal degradation?
Don't know if Wordclock over BNC allows longer runs? And if so, will ADAT repeaters still work?

[garyb]

yes, there are ADAT repeaters, but you can run ADAT 100ft or more without a repeater.

here's a device to run ADAT 500ft or more using cat5 cable:
http://www.heartechnologies.com/extende ... tender.htm

[jksuperstar]

You can run ADAT cables 30 feet (6m). I have done this successfully with my XITe and a behringer ADA8000. I have also run Zlink cables (FireWire) 30 feet between xite and A16ultra.

If you do get audio working over Ethernet, and it shows up as an audio device in windows, you can connect scope to it from within scope. I'll need to dig up the info, but there is a way for scope to talk to another audio device without any other software host.

About the distance, I'm affraid 6m is not enough. I didn't measure it yet, but I expect it to be some 8-9 metres.

Hum, sounds promissing, jksuperstar. I would appreciate if you could guide me on that one. Don't forget that I need Ethernet sound to be sent and received from and to Scope.

Take a look in the IOs & Drivers manual of scope. The is a device called "Soundcard Source" and Soundcard Dest". These connect to another Wave audio device in your system. Usual latencies of using wave devices are involved, but scope communicates directly with the other "device", which in your case is I expect to be a software driver for sending audio over Ethernet. It doesn't support ASIO, and I'm not sure how many channels it can use. Definitely works on 32bit, as I used it with a Sony VAIO built in audio plus an EMU 1616m. Never tested it in x64 though.

[Ripper]

I've read all your sugestions and didn't put any of them appart.
As Musikmess is coming and I suspect there are going to be great news on Scope 6 and Copperlan. I think I will wait some more days and them make my mind on this subject.

Thank you all for your nice cooperation with my issue.

That was not a surprise. I am fresh n this forum but am already aware of the fabulous mojo going on here.

[Bud Weiser]

Danke mein freund Bud (Don't answer in german 'cause this was my best try, lol)

Yes, I know about Scope with Copperlan, but the word "soon" is giving me a strange filling when it is in the same sentence as the words "Scope 6".

That´s a different story anyway because I didn´t say SCOPE 6 w/ Copperlan will transport audio over LAN too.
I only said I´ve read the Copperlan guys plan doing it.

I expect Copperlan to come up with something pretty SOON.

Yes. yes ... I know what you mean and I´m with you because we have to use what exists NOW.
I told you what is working w/ audio over LAN ,- VIENNA and Reaper (Reastream).

That of the RJ45 is new for me. I thought that the software I mentioned above had surrounded that.

When I look at the software you mentioned in your original post,- I see p.ex. rtp audio is a old hat ...
http://www.iem.uni-due.de/~dreibh/rn/index_e.html
For me, it´s not a host but just only a protocol.

When looking at Audioport Universal ...
http://www.audioimpressions.com/overvie ... tuniversal

... it´s not hard for me to recognize and w/o diving into it very deep,- you´d have to install a host and a plugin for 2 audio channels each and there´s the restriction the host doesn´t offer audio ins.
"AudioPort Host does not have audio inputs so any audio it sends out over Ethernet must be created by a VST plug-in within the AudioPort host."

and ...

"You then instantiate one AudioPort plug-in for each pair of channels being received into the sequencer or DAW."

That´s how it works on a 32Bit system and when you want to use it for 64Bit sytems, you´d have to use the jbridge.

I just stumbled over this...
http://www.audinate.com/index.php?optio ... icle&id=99

I can´t tell you if it works at all or if it works good or excellent, I never tried.
They don´t tell anything about latency,- and maybe Reaper/Reastream does it more or less best already without installations of additional hosts and plugins.
Reaper works fine w/ SCOPE.

Now, I myself are a big fan of low (better NO) latency, so I doubt I myself I would be satisfied w/ any of these solutions, at least because they require a lot of experimentations which is time consuming (some kind of latency too ).

There are several ways to go the old way w/ standard 5-pin MIDI cables and balanced audio cables or ADAT, AES/EBU etc. for longer cable runs and there are variations of buffer amps and repeaters available.
I don´t know what the distances are you want to stream audio and MIDI between 2 or more computers/soundcards.
It´s also a matter of investment,- you could stream audio and MIDI over MADI p.ex., using ADAT>MADI>ADAT converters which have MIDI ports p.ex. and when using SCOPE cards in both computers.

Bud

[Eanna]

Take a look in the IOs & Drivers manual of scope. The is a device called "Soundcard Source" and Soundcard Dest".

I found this too, but I struggled to get it to work. Best to read this thread:
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31187

If you use the "Wave" devices from the same section, that will send your default Windows Audio device's audio stream into Scope...

That's only if you were going down that route! For me, cheapest setup would be ADAT cabling which GaryB's shown to extend beyond you requirements, and Remote Desktop to that PC upstairs... Looks like there are solutions for Midi over ethernet, but I'm not sure you'll want to use Remote Desktop or VNC on that same Ethernet cable? It'd probably be fine. As for the midi apps that will do the streaming - I suggest trying Reaper at both end points (on both machines), and something like Midiox to forward the Midi onto Scope or your DAW or whatever. Total outlay is the price of the optical cables - if you have a couple in the house, you can test the idea when the PCs are near each other.....

[Ripper]

Bud, I know you haven't mentioned audio over Copperlan and Scope. It was just a coincidence of developers (Copperlan coming with something new and Sonic:Core's Scope 6 having Copperlan natively). Hence soon and SOON having diferente meanings.

Although I am a believer... and think that Sonic:Core is trying their best to give us something nice SOON. If they can't lauch it sooner is because it isn't ready! So, let's wait.

About Copperlan, I know they are running to develop their stuff pretty fast. It would be fantastic if it was converging for something like Audio over Lan+Scope!

About Vienna and Reapper I am going to try that approach with two pc's (The one already in the room and a laptop, before I start to make holes in my ceiling.

[Ripper]

Eanna, as I said before, I'm taking all the advise given here into consideration, which includes ADAT/optical cable, ethernet CAT5E 2nd cable, and Vienna+Reapper too.

The only options that are out are the ones that include analog sound cable and both pcs with scope.

Once again I will give some days to know what is coming from Musikmesse about this.

[Bud Weiser]

Although I am a believer... and think that Sonic:Core is trying their best to give us something nice SOON. If they can't lauch it sooner is because it isn't ready! So, let's wait.

Correct !
I´m patient anyway.

About Copperlan, I know they are running to develop their stuff pretty fast. It would be fantastic if it was converging for something like Audio over Lan+Scope!

Yes, that would be fantastic,- MIDI and Audio over LAN and together w/ SCOPE/XITE-1.

About Vienna and Reapper I am going to try that approach with two pc's (The one already in the room and a laptop, before I start to make holes in my ceiling.

Vienna is problematic because you have to buy it 1st.
When you do the big orchestral/symphonic stuff and have the funds,- it makes sense,- otherwise not IMO.
Try Reaper 1st because It has now an extended 60days evaluation period.
If that´s not satisfying, you can run MIDI over LAN already now by installing Copperlan Manager on 1 of your PCs and connect both computers to the ethernet switch, then use ADAT for the audio.

Bud

[Ripper]

I know the midi over ethernet thing. I have it implemented already!

I'll tell you something about the audio stuff.
At the moment I'm searching for a way to have ADAT get INto the PC of the room. That PC only has one OUT. This ADAT stuff is very new for me.
I think I'm going to need some interface for that.

[Eanna]

Check the MAudio Profire Lightbridge:

http://maudio.be/images/profirecout.jpg

http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/ma ... G_EN02.pdf

[Ripper]

Check the MAudio Profire Lightbridge:

http://maudio.be/images/profirecout.jpg

http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/ma ... G_EN02.pdf

Thanks Eanna. I'll try to find a 2nd hand.