QLAB and Dante Interfacing

[Kyle Himsworth]

Hey all,

So I'm considering purchasing a Yamaha QL5 for a venue which heavily utilizes QLAB playback. Currently the system is sending audio to a Behringer X32 through USB which is easy enough.

I know the QL5 does not have a USB interface card... and I've never seen an expansion card made by Yamaha that will interface USB with a digital console. The obvious answer seem to be using Dante. It looks like companies such as Audinate make a virtual sound card that will allow you to output Dante via your Ethernet port. The issue with that is I rely on being able to use OSC and Midi Show control out of that port in order to have QLAB trigger other devices in the venue. Please forgive my ignorance, but if I'm using my ethernet port for bi-directional audio via Dante, will I still be able to interface with my local network in the theatre as well using a switch?

Any help or advice would be appreciated! This one little piece isn't clicking for me.

Thanks!

-Kyle

[Paul Gotch]

On 17/06/2015 23:13, Kyle Himsworth wrote:
> have QLAB trigger other devices in the venue. Please forgive my
> ignorance, but if I'm using my ethernet port for bi-directional audio
> via Dante, will I still be able to interface with my local network in
> the theatre as well using a switch?

Simple answer is yes. Slightly more complicated answer is that not all
switches are created equal and dante has some particular requirements
for switches that it is run though.

Yamaha recommend Cisco SG300-10 and or its larger siblings in the same
line of switches. Hapily they aren't very expensive.

http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/global/en/training_support/selftraining/dante_guide/chapter2/01_network_switch/

I would really recommend that you physically separate your 'show'
network containing dante etc. from your 'corporate' network containing
non show related equipment.

-p

[mackerr]

The short answer is yes. You should have a Dante qualified 1GB switch with EEE (energy saving) disabled, and QoS set to give real time data like Dante priority. AFAIK there are directions for all settings on the Yamaha site. Dante is capable of having many channels on the network, but QLab is limited to 48 channels. It is possible, not recommended, to run 48x48 channels on Dante in 100BT Ethernet, leaving lots of that 1GB switch bandwidth available. With QoS and EEE properly set you should have no problems. I have an annual special event that has 3 CL series consoles, 8 Rios, and 12 switches on the network with several hundred channels of audio, and we manage to also distribute HD video files to 5 presentation rooms throughout the venue. The video is just file transfers, but they are big files, and cause no problems with audio.

Mac

[Alexander Taylor (Mailing List)]

Hello,

I run show audio out QLab on an iMac over Dante on a daily basis.  We have an iLive system in our theater (and our video system), both with Dante cards.  I also use the Allen & Heath TCP Midi program, send OSC controls, control our Eos console (Nomad for now, upgrading soon), and connect 

Lots of the things I do with them many people would yell and scream about how it shouldn’t be done, suffice it to say I can route audio from our theater to our portable video system which may be down the hall, or at another building several miles away, connected with fiber.  We have a Cisco switch in our theater, and Aruba switches everywhere else.  Everything is statically-addressed and on it’s own subnet.  I’ve worked with our network administrator to architect the system in such a way that the ethernet cable can be physically cut out of the theater, and everything inside will still continue to function properly.  The same is true with our portable video system.

So, to answer your question, yes.  You can run Dante and all the other control protocols and the like over the same network.  Unless you really understand the intricacies of networking, I would suggest making different physical networks for things.  There are a few different schools of thought on if you should connect your show computer to the internet or not, I’ll only say that if you want to connect it sometimes (but not all the time), it may be best to use WiFi for internet, built-in ethernet for Dante, then get some 100 Mbps USB-Ethernet adapters (Apple sells them for $30 each or so, or get the Thunderbolt ones, they’re 1 Gbps) for your control network.

I hope that helps, let me know if you want any more specifics on the setup.

Alexander

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