Are Computer Audio Interfaces Obsolete?
Thursday, July 30, 2009 by Peter Clarke
Imagine a world where you no longer need a stack of outboard interfaces to get audio into a computer? No more AES to Fire Wire, no more PCI cards, no more ADAT optical. As of right now, nothing more than an Ethernet cable is necessary for getting uncompressed digital audio in and out of any computer (Mac or PC) at very low latency. Dante from Audinate is the latest technology in digital audio networking. Audinate has developed Core Audio and ASIO drivers that allow your favorite recording software such as Logic, Nuendo, Cubase, etc. to record and play back via the LAN jack on your computer. Configuration of the network is about as easy as it gets. Each Dante device will automatically discover the other devices on the network. Transmitted audio is given a name, and the other devices can subscribe to that named audio and receive it. I set up a Yamaha console running 32 channels of CobraNet audio (a tried and true platform) into a Whirlwind PXP CD32. The Whirlwind device converts from one digital platform to another and allowed me to place Dante audio onto a network. Using a Mac Book with Nuendo 4, I recorded and played back 32 channels of audio seamlessly. The entire setup of Dante took me all of 5 minutes, and that was only because I had to think of names for all 32 channels. Currently, Dante’s drivers will handle 64×64 with plans for more channels in the future. The future is wide open for this technology as many manufacturers such as Yamaha, Midas, Lab Gruppen, Peavey, Whirlwind and others have integrated it into their products. Welcome to the cutting edge. It’s pretty cool here.
One Comment to “Are Computer Audio Interfaces Obsolete?”
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I have the new Dante cards in an M7CL and it works great for recording. Unfortunately there are no Analogue to digital stage boxes that directly support Dante yet. I am looking at trying one of the Whirlwind DS328T cobranet snake devices with the PXP-CD32 to see how the opposite of what you tried remains true.