Someone ask about Montarbo?

Discussions about the use and operation of SAC (Software Audio Console)

Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby lowdbrent » Sun Nov 02, 2014 2:46 pm

As pointed out, the reason why there is no Windows for those MOTU units with AVB is because Windows has not yet adopted AVB universally. All Apples from OS Mavericks on are AVB compliant. AVB was ratified as a standard, and not just a pro standard. Consumer electronics companies will one day support AVB, just like Apple. The problem with SAC is that it will not be communicating with the rest of the world, because the rest of the world is never good enough. Funny, there are hundreds of thousands of Dante and AVB components in the world not, and nobody but Bob is having issues with it.

Here is something that will make life easier:

https://soundforums.net/content/2952-Da ... on-Support
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Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby RBIngraham » Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:04 pm

To be fair, when did Bob ever say he had issues with Dante. I suspect the only reason you don't see a bunch of SAC users with Dante is that it costs money and most SAC users are there because of price. Or they have been until recent new products have stolen most of SAC's market. And yes, I include myself in that camp. There is only a couple of places I've used SAC where I likely could have rented something else if I had wanted to do so.

You can't buy a RedNet system for the same price as a bunch of ADA8000s after all.

If memor serves what most SAC users seem to want is the unicorn of recallable preamps, perhaps networked,that cost no more than maybe a rack of focusrite preamps. :-)
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Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby shmick » Sun Nov 02, 2014 5:30 pm

If SAC had progressed with the proposed "coming soon" timeline, I would have considered Dante when it came time to do a hardware refresh, but as of right now, I won't be putting any fresh lipstick on our pig :)
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Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby lowdbrent » Sun Nov 02, 2014 5:47 pm

Bob has stated many times that the Dante drivers are crap, cause too much latency. Odd. All of the Dante systems I install have less than .5ms latency in and out.

Of course you cannot buy a Dante system for the price of piece of crap MI preamps made in China. But a SAC system is not networkable the way Dante allows for. The flexibility and expandability of a Dante system blow away anything possible with SAC, and if one computer or device crashes, you won't lose the whole thing. Try that with SAC. Two different animals.
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Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby RBIngraham » Sun Nov 02, 2014 10:17 pm

lowdbrent wrote:Bob has stated many times that the Dante drivers are crap, cause too much latency. Odd. All of the Dante systems I install have less than .5ms latency in and out.

Of course you cannot buy a Dante system for the price of piece of crap MI preamps made in China. But a SAC system is not networkable the way Dante allows for. The flexibility and expandability of a Dante system blow away anything possible with SAC, and if one computer or device crashes, you won't lose the whole thing. Try that with SAC. Two different animals.


Yeah I understand what Dante can do. No need to explain.

I guess I just don't remember him saying much at all about Dante good or bad. I will say that the Dante Virtual Sound Card drivers are probably too slow (add too much latency) for live mixing and that was likely what Bob was speaking to at the time, I would suspect. Or at least they used to be. I have not had a chance to try them in a while in PC land. Maybe that has changed. But the link you posted before, shows the solution to that, just use a dedicated Dante hardware sound card.

To be fair Dante in and of itself does not provide the redundancy you're speaking of. It's just a digital transport protocol. As I'm sure you're aware. If someone really wants to spend the money you could set up a redundant SAC set up with two computers sitting on the Dante Network, either splitting up tasks or being redundant units. Of course there is not really an easy way to switch from machine A to B, as far as I'm aware of, but that is true of almost any Dante mixing system. Or at least the ones that are actually designed for live mixing with some sort of "console" involved anyway.

Sorry dude but you're really not comparing apples to apples here. SAC is a console, albeit a virtual one running on a Windows PC. Dante is an audio transport protocol. There are consoles that have Dante I/O of course and they seem to work very well. But if you want to be fair about it you really need to compare SAC to the other consoles, not the network protocol. And while I wouldn't say SAC is better than consoles like the CL series or QL series necessarily, I also wouldn't say they necessarily "blow away" SAC either. They all have their benefits and drawbacks just like any tools. Granted it would be very rare that given the option I would pick SAC over a nicely equipped CL series desk. :) Of course now, I would put another application on that computer other than SAC, so all the benefits and drawbacks have changed. But even running AMP my choice would depend on what my needs were at the time. And the same would be true no matter what Dante equipped consoles we're talking about.
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SAC details and goodies at: http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/SAC.html
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Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby lowdbrent » Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:13 pm

Right. Dante is a protocol, by which you can build a system that will do everything that SAC does and a whole bunch more, with more stability, without hinging on one PC.
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Re: Someone ask about Montarbo?

Postby RBIngraham » Mon Nov 03, 2014 10:32 pm

lowdbrent wrote:Right. Dante is a protocol, by which you can build a system that will do everything that SAC does and a whole bunch more, with more stability, without hinging on one PC.


Sorry, I just don't get what your point is here. I'm all for being a realist and not making SAC or even computer/software mixing in general into some big deal that it's really not. (like recent posts on certain forums about how powerful scene recalls of reverb settings are... ummmm... how 1995 of you...) :)

But at the same time, maybe I'm just being thick here... Dante has absolutely nothing to do with how powerful or weak SAC is. Your blanket statements just don't hold any weight or credibility since you're not being specific or even logical for that matter. If you were to say a pair of Yamaha CL5s with a complement of RIO stage boxes can do everything.... blah, blah, blah... then sure... but that really has very little to do with the fact that the protocol used between the stage boxes and the consoles is Dante. It could just as well be Ethersound and have the same functionality. And as I've pointed out, one could just as easily create a more stable (although frankly stability has never really been my main issue with SAC) SAC system using redundant computers, network audio protocols and hardware, etc, etc, etc...

And I'm sure some dumb ass somewhere can assemble a package of components that speak Dante that has just as many potential stability or usability issues as SAC does. Maybe not the same issues, but certainly just as many.

I guess what I'm saying is if you're going to poke holes in SAC at least do it from a fair perspective and making wise informed critiques as opposed to just making some generic jab from left field someplace. It makes you look like a noob, which I'm pretty sure you're not. 8-) It's like the difference between being an actual critic and someone who just writes reviews. (sorry for the slightly obscure theatre reference)
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