Dante Domain Manager goes long-distance
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The most recent conference was held at the University of West London’s Ealing Campus and covered a number of topics including music production, performance and composition, studio technology innovation, and platforms for music sale, streaming and broadcast, to name a few.
Dr. Paul Ferguson, associate professor of audio engineering from Edinburgh Napier University, has been exploring the potential of long-distance creative collaboration over IP networks. This year’s conference keynote was sponsored by Dante licensee, Focusrite Pro, who was very interested in exploring the possibility of using their products and Dante technology over a long distance.
“My area of research for several years has been in looking at remote music performance and production over high-speed networks; we're very fortunate that in the education world, we're connected by high-speed networks for research purposes,” said Ferguson. “At Napier, we use Dante to link studios and resources here on campus, but I always predicted that local and long-distance collaboration could come together.”
Dante has become a standard for digital audio networking, and distributes hundreds of uncompressed, multi-channel digital audio via standard Ethernet networks. Dante allows audio, control, and all other data to coexist effectively on the same network.
At the conference, Dr. Ferguson and Edinburgh Napier University co-researcher Dr. Dave Hook worked with the London team to demonstrate a performance featuring a total of eight musicians playing together. Several musicians were spread out in different spaces around the University of West London - all using Dante-enabled Focusrite RedNet interfaces - and one of the musicians was in Edinburgh, Scotland, some 400 miles away.
“As far as we know, this was the first time that Audinate’s Dante was used to connect performers over a conventional network of such a distance,” said Dr. Ferguson. “This was a real game-changer because it demonstrates that studios, education establishments, and performers ultimately will be able to collaborate over a great distance and use Dante just as they are now in connecting resources locally.”
The workflow demonstrated at the Innovation In Music conference has since been successfully repeated between Edinburgh and Berlin, a distance of more than 1000 miles.
“We're very excited about this, especially in terms of what's happening now with Covid-19, we're all desperate to connect,” said Ferguson. “With a Dante network and with Dante Domain Manager controlling the zones, we know we can now connect education establishments, and I’m sure studios and production houses will jump on this quickly. This is one of those things once you know it's possible, then we'll get loads of people doing it.
"This was an excellent advancement for network audio; basically, we can forget about clock issues. Now each network subnet can be locked to a GPS satellite clock in its immediate proximity,” said Ferguson. “Those satellites are all linked and have a common shared time, so wherever you’re connected and clocked around the globe, it's effectively the same world clock. This is a huge and immediate win for universities and education establishments around the world using Dante networks and Dante Domain Manager can now connect to and collaborate with other locations within their education system, or connect with other universities, such as we have.”
With the success of the demonstration, Dr. Ferguson now predicts that long-distance collaboration within education will flourish, but also sees the capability having logical equivalents for commercial use.
“Unfortunately, the Covid-19 virus has brought a new perspective to performing, and for gigging musicians, this GPS clock capability potentially allows musicians to safely connect and collaborate over hundreds of miles,” added Ferguson. “What happens when artists want to do their next album or collaborate with others? Until our work lives return to normal, this presents an excellent, next-best-thing-to-being-there option. And even after the ban is lifted, this will be an economical and efficient way to bring creativity together over great distances.”
(Jim Evans)
