Dante and Multitrack Recording

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This topic contains 4 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by Profile photo of Keith Keith 5 years, 2 months ago.

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  • #81339
    Profile photo of Daniel Trillo
    Daniel Trillo
    Participant

    Hello,

    I’m considering buying a Dante I/O card for my school. At my school, we do live performances for the students every Friday. We have a full band, including a fully mic-ed drum kit, (overheads, all toms, snare, snare bottom, kick in/out) and we have backing tracks from MultiTracks.com. We have been using the built-in stereo recording, but when I play that file back, it doesn’t sound the same as it does live, which is why I want to record all of our different channels individually, so in post I can mix differently. I would also like to do a Virtual Sound Check.

    Anyways, my main question is: would it be worth buying this for my school? Also, is it hard to set up? I’ve seen videos where I would have to use Dante Controller, and the Dante Virtual Soundcard. But on Allen & Heath’s website I see its M-Dante.

    #81341
    Profile photo of Jeff
    Jeff
    Participant

    Hi Daniel,
    Well, “worth it” is relative…it ain’t cheap, cheapest street price I’ve seen for the M-Dante card is around $1300. But, it’s the only way you’re going to get the ability to multitrack and virtual soundcheck with a GLD (I have two GLD’s linked with the M-ACE cards).

    You *will* need to have a computer running Dante Controller to route the Dante channels between devices on the network and either Dante Virtual Soundcard (records 64 channels) or Dante VIA (records and sends 16 channels at near 0 latency). If all you want to do is multitrack and virtual sound check, Virtual Soundcard is the ticket. You can get a PCIe card that will do 128×128, but it’ll run you around $800.

    Are you currently just recording a copy of what’s coming out of the mains to the USB? If so, you’ll never get that to sound the same. However, there are alternatives to try, like using a Stereo Aux for dedicated recording and have a separate tech mix that via headphones or nearfield monitors in an isolated room using either the iPad app for the GLD or GLD Editor. Before we got our 2nd GLD for Broadcast use, that’s what we did. It allows you to mix in aspects of the performance that are acoustically loud enough in the room but not in the mix so it sounds more like the room sound.

    Hope this helps,
    Jeff

    #81345
    Profile photo of Scott
    Scott
    Participant

    Hi Daniel,

    I use the M-Dante card on my GLD for this very purpose. It’s not hard to get setup and comes with a single DVS license for the computer used as the recorder. The one trick is that you want to make sure that your GLD’s clock source is set to the Dante card, and that the Dante card is set as the master device. Other than that, it’s easy and you just need to get your patching setup in your DAW software and you’re good to go.

    #81353
    Profile photo of GSLC-Tech
    GSLC-Tech
    Participant

    One our band members donated money to specifically purchase a Dante card (church services with generally ~20 channels). The band had great intentions of making recordings and post mixing. In the long run (past 5 years), that has happened on just a few occasions. We use Reaper as our recording and playback software. I have found sending the recordings back through our GLD useful for training techs and for me personally to practice my mixing techniques. I do not have any good post processing software and audacity is not the route to go. Reaper creates very large wav files. A 1 hour church service is difficult to transfer to a post processing computer. Maybe some of you have 100 GB jump drives, but not me. I had to use an external hard drive.

    As Jeff points out, USB recordings are pretty sterile and lack room acoustics. This even holds true when you take all the individual channels through Dante. I have to add an ‘room’ mic to help bring room acoustics. That helps, but by no means reproduces the sound inside a room.

    #81590
    Profile photo of Keith
    Keith
    Participant

    Hi All
    I record using a Waves card to my GLD. All you need is the Waves card and you download “waves sound grid” to connect through to your DAW on you computer. I’ve recorded to Logic and Waves own recording software. Has been stable and I have recorded direct to my Mac Pro Laptop 40 Channels and have done virtual sound checks as well. A little tricky to get set up at first but has worked great once set up. I believe the waves card was $ 900.00- $ 1000.00 from my Allen and Heath Dealer. You also have the option of running Waves plug ins if you desirer.

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