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  • Routing audio from a Mac Mini slave to the main computer

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    I'm considering purchasing a Mac Mini as a slave of my main workstation (PowerMac G5 Quad with Digital Performer). Since a Macbook Pro (dual core, 2GHz, 2GB RAM) can host 32 instances of VIs (see this thread), I suppose a Mac Mini (dual core, 1.6 GHz, 2GB RAM) could host at least a dozen of instances of VIs.

    But how can I route these, say, 12 stereo channels back to the main computer? If I understand svonkampen's and timkiel's solutions well, these setups transfer only one stereo mix from the slave to the main computer, so the mix has to be done on the slave rather than on the main computer.

    Since gigabit ethernet has enough bandwith to transfer several hundreds of audio channels (at 44.1 kHz, 24 bit), I'm wondering whether there is a software solution for transferring digital audio via ethernet.

    Thanks for any help!
  • J
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    Both are Macs, so why not try the AUNetSend and AUNetReceive network audio plugins? That could be very cool! Also, you could get midi over the network via the Network MIDI driver. Oh so slick, and virtually free (ethernet cable, that's it)!

    J.
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    Hi PierreFunck

    You are correct with your observations. I'd be somewhat wary of running audio over ethernet (even gigabit) as I have heard it can cause some latency and clicking/popping issues.

    The MacMini's seem to run happily at 12-16 VIs (I have not tried more as VStack is a 16 VST limit). In terms of mixing I midi-mix from the master DAW and route audio back over a single channel. As I tend to have a macmini per section e.g. woods/brass/strings etc this is usually sufficient. Another option would be to have a more advanced sounddevice (e.g. a RME Fireface) and route audio from VSTACK to the multiple outs of the MacMini sound device, stream these back into a multiple input sound device on the main DAW - but this seemed way too expensive for the moderate benefits of one stereo source per VI VST.

    It will of course be interesting to see what approach the VSL guys use for MIR which itself is supposed to be running on a seperate PC, perhaps this uses a LAN connection rather than an audio one? Not done that much research into MIR so I can't comment on that though.

    Tim
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    @jbm said:

    Both are Macs, so why not try the AUNetSend and AUNetReceive network audio plugins?


    jbm: Thanks for the tip, I googled for AUNetSend and found, among others, this link. I think that AUNetSend is able to route only one audio stereo channel. Am I wrong?

    timkiel: Thanks for you reply. In fact I am planning to post-process the output channels of the slave separately (with several Altiverb instances), that's why one single stereo mix won't work.
  • J
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    Oh, I don't know... I've got a Mac and PC, so I've never tried it. However, I suspect that it's one stereo pair per instance. I mean, gbit can handle lots of audio, so I don't see why it would be so limited. Also, I've tried apps like wormhole, and they do pretty well. Latency is an issue, though, at least with wormhole. But since the AU net plugs are Apple-made, I'd imagine any optimization possible has been done, so it would at least be worth a try.

    Otherwise, get out there and drop some serious dough on hardware! I'd say RME is a pretty good bet!

    cheers,

    J.
  • V
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    Pierre,

    if you speak german i´ll send you a manual i´ve written (it´s in german) about connecting 2 macs if you want.

    best,

    marfbeatz
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    @Another User said:

    Both are Macs, so why not try the AUNetSend and AUNetReceive network audio plugins?


    You ccould and should try them in case you get different results, but when I tried them the latency was about 150ms - totally useless. The other issue is that you have to clock both machines together, and the Mac Mini has no TOSlink port to let you do that. If you don't clock them together, the latency will increase to about three seconds by half an hour.

    I've tried all the audio-over-ethernet solutions for Macs, and none of them worked for me. Right now the best bet is FireWire.
  • J
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    It's too bad mLan can't be used without a Yamaha device somewhere in the middle (actually, I actually don't think it can even run two computers _with_ a Yamaha device in the middle). The drivers are system-level in OS X, so it would be easy to hook up; just connect together with a firewire cable, and "bammo!", instant midi/audio network. But alas, Yamaha has tied that one down... Not surprising, of course. But a bummer anyway.

    J.
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    @Nick Batzdorf said:


    I've tried all the audio-over-ethernet solutions for Macs, and none of them worked for me. Right now the best bet is FireWire.


    How would you get the firewire output from 3 Mac Minis into a Mac controlling DAW considering that each FW was carrying let's say a minimum of 6-8 channels of Stereo Audio resulting in 18-24 Audio channels overall?

    Would each Mac Mini need separate FW Audio interface? And then you have to link those boxes to another to get Audio into the DAW. Would that be almost as expensive as using several Intel G5s (when they arrive) with PCI cards for Audio out in ADAT format? Also if using G5s you could up the memory and get more instances per machine so 2 Intel G5s might equate to 4 or more Mac Minis.
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    Yes, each slave would have to have a separate interface, and then your main DAW would have an interface (probably PCI) that has lots of digital inputs. Note that MIDI-over-ethernet (either Musiclabs MIDI Over LAN or the built-in Network MIDI in OS X) works fine - it's just audio that's still not there.

    I have a MOTU PCI-424 card with a couple of their boxes on my main DAW, and Frontier Designs Wavecenter cards (cheap, ADAT and S/PDIF I/O only) on my Windows machines. Actually, I ended up buying another PCI-424 card for my slave G5 too, since I had an extra one of their boxes on my G5.

    People say the RME cards have more efficient drivers these days, so I'd take a look at them if I were starting over. But the Wavecenter cards are very reliable.
  • N
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    Whether that would be almost as expensive depends on the interfaces you stick in an Intel Mac. There aren't any cheap interfaces with ADAT only that I've been able to find.

    FX-Teleport for Mac (www.fx-max.com) - audio over ethernet - is what we all want, and he's reportedly hard at work on it.
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    Sandpiper,

    I'd say, if you're looking at 4 minis, look into a digital mixer of some kind. It gets to be quite a job to have IO on all slaves piping into one DAW machine. With a mixer you could feed everthing into the mixer, and just send a monitoring out back into the main DAW. And hey, that's what mixers were built for, right? [;)]
    Funny how easy it is to forget about the old-school technology when you spend so much time in computer-land. Mind you, getting that many optical ins on a mixer is probably impossible, so you'd still need some sort of interface on the minis. But decent mixers are getting cheaper all the time.

    J.
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    @jbm said:

    Sandpiper,

    I'd say, if you're looking at 4 minis, look into a digital mixer of some kind. It gets to be quite a job to have IO on all slaves piping into one DAW machine. With a mixer you could feed everthing into the mixer, and just send a monitoring out back into the main DAW. And hey, that's what mixers were built for, right? [;)]
    Funny how easy it is to forget about the old-school technology when you spend so much time in computer-land. Mind you, getting that many optical ins on a mixer is probably impossible, so you'd still need some sort of interface on the minis. But decent mixers are getting cheaper all the time.

    J.


    I take your point but I was just trying to stimulate thinking on the multichannel via FireWire idea. I have 2 Yamaha Promix mixers which could provide suffient analogue input BUT I am currently hooked on ALTIVERB with the orchestral positioning settings which seems to work very well and for that you need about 10 channels of stereo audio either internally or coming in from slaves. My existing Audio Interfaces are an old style MOTU 828 and a Metric Halo ULN 2 channel.
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    @Another User said:

    The Mac guys have been left out. But now, an announcement exclusive to Sonic Control, look for FX-Teleport for the Mac around early to mid second quarter in 2006."
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    Hi,

    Just mentioning: every mac mini comes with a coreaudio-capable soundcard and a digital output (the headphone output also doubles as spdif lightpipe).

    Presumably this soundcard is capable of low-latency operation like any other core-audio soundcard.

    Anyone tried using the vienna instruments OSX universal binary with the onboard mac mini soundcard?

    BTW, if you are looking for a macintel equivalent of V-Stack, try rax http://plasq.com/rax <-- it runs both AU and VST instruments, as well as effects, and has a decent mixing environment.

    Leon
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    Sandpiper, yes - FX-Teleport. The *exclusive* announcement. [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D]

    JBM - I got rid of my digital mixer a couple of years ago and haven't missed it once - even though it was a really nice board (Panasonic DA7). It had been sitting off to the side untouched for years with the faders at unity, doing exactly what my MOTU hardware does: submixing synth outputs.

    The difference is that you don't need to submix them if you have MOTU (or other) hardware, which is less expensive, has enough digital inputs to accommodate all my computers and a couple of hardware instruments I still use (I would have had to add a second mixer to handle everything), and doesn't require you to submix anything - all the inputs come up in the DAW's mixer.

    Digital mixers are for people who record live ensembles and need all the mic preamps, talkback features, and quick access to input channels. They're also for people who like to mix on mixers.

    But I'm much happier with the streamlined set-up. I got rid of all the extra outboard crap and now just have two high quality input channels. Oh, and I also added a monitor controller (Blue Sky BMC) with a remote sits on my desk; it has some features that are much more convenient than the mixer's monitor section, and I love having it right there within reach.

    So if you have a reason to have a digital mixer, of course that's good advice. But it's totally unncecessary if you're just streaming slave computers into your DAW.

    ***

    I'd forgotten that the Mac MINI has digital outputs, but those would work fine...if you only have one computer (and of course if you're happy with just two outputs). If you have multiple machines, there's no way of synchronizing their digital clocks - they don't have digital input. By the time you rig a system to handle asynchronous clocks (i.e. that do a small sample rate conversion to keep everything in sync), you're looking at bigger investment than just getting FireWire boxes...that are a better solution anyway.
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    Hi Nick, actually the new intel mac minis have both digital in and out. www.apple.com/macmini/whatsinside.html

    Not sure what one has to do to get them synced, but anyway, they do have a digital in aswell.
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    Ah. Well, then if you have more than one machine, you need a way to distribute TOSlink S/PDIF to all the others. The most likely way to do that is with a TOSlink-RCA S/PDIF converter for each machines, such as the one made by M-Audio, and then a video distribution amp to get multiple RCA S/PDIF sources.

    On top of that, you need something on your main DAW to accept all those TOSlink inputs. [:)]

    Translation: the way to do it is to put a FireWire interface on each slave, and a MOTU or RME card that accepts multiple lightpipes on your sequencing DAW.

    You might look on ebay for used MOTU 828 interfaces - the original ones. They have lightpipe I/0 and go for $275.
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    Nick, would this help the multiple Mac setup any? I'm still trying to figure out what it is...connection wise...


    http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/symphony.php


    Tom
  • N
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    That's likely to be a nice audio interface when it comes out, sure.

    [edit] When I first heard about that card at NAMM, it sounded like it's only for connecting to Apogee's converters, i.e. it doesn't have AES/EBU or S/PDIF I/O. Looking at it now, that may not be the case - it might have lots of standard digital inputs. The bumph is a little ambiguous:

    "Symphony features 32 channels of digital I/O on a single PCI-Express card format. With support for sample rates up to 192 kHz, Symphony can be used as a digital router or patch-bay when connected to external converters or other digital outboard equipment. Software drivers for Symphony feature extensive routing capabilities and very low latency performance making very high channel, high quality native recording with Apogee converters a reality."

    Nowhere does it mention AES/EBU or any standard format, so I'm inclined to think it's a card for their interfaces.