In this video, we’ll show you how to use one of the most exciting things in the Dante toolbox:
Dante Virtual Soundcard. Dante Virtual Soundcard is software that allows you to record
or playout up to 64 channels of pristine network audio directly from your Mac or PC
with no additional hardware attached.
Dante Virtual Soundcard is software that turns any Mac or Windows PC into a Dante audio device, instantly.
You can use any of your favorite audio applications with Dante Virtual Soundcard -
DAWs like Logic, Pro Tools and Cubase, performance tools like
Reason, and consumer apps such as iTunes. Dante Virtual Soundcard packs the full power
of a 64-channel soundcard into a laptop, allowing you to obtain professional results
wherever you need it to be.
The Dante Virtual Soundcard application is really a control panel for the drivers that
connect audio to the Dante network. You can Start and Stop these drivers by clicking
Start or Stop in the Dante Virtual Soundcard application. Note that once Dante Virtual
Soundcard is started, you can close the application itself - the drivers continue to be available,
even between reboots, until you open Dante Virtual Soundcard again and stop them.
Once Dante Virtual Soundcard is started, we can select it as an audio device in our applications.
Once running, Dante Virtual Soundcard appears in Dante Controller
just like any other Dante device, ready to send and receive audio.
If we stop Dante Virtual Soundcard it disappears
from Dante Controller, and no longer appears as an audio device on our computer.
A special note for Windows users: On Windows computers, Dante Virtual Soundcard allows
you to choose between two different types of drivers.
ASIO drivers are the type most often used by professional level, multichannel audio applications.
ASIO audio channels do not appear in the Windows Sound Control Panel, but are
selected within supported applications. WDM drivers are the type commonly associated
with Windows audio devices, and are used by consumer audio applications.
Dante Virtual Soundcard WDM channels appear as stereo pairs in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
When ASIO drivers are selected, WDM drivers will
appear greyed out in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
In general, use ASIO for high performance, low latency recording with multi-channel
applications such as Nuendo or ProTools. Use WDM to capture audio from consumer
applications such as iTunes, VLC or Windows Media Player.
Dante Virtual Soundcard allows you to set parameters to suit your needs.
To make adjustments to Dante Virtual Soundcard, you must first stop it from being active by clicking
the Stop button. We can set the number of channels that Dante
Virtual Soundcard uses with the Audio Channels dropdown, from 2x2 up to 64x64.
Choose the lowest number that fits your project, in order to conserve your computer’s resources.
We can adjust latency to be 4, 6 or 10 milliseconds. This is the delay between signal transmission
on the network and reception by an application on your computer. Lower values of latency
place a greater load upon your computer’s CPU, so choose the highest value you can use
in order to decrease the chances of clicks and pops.
Low latency is only required at times when one is listening to playout simultaneously
with other sources, such as overdubbing or using in-ear monitors. If you are only capturing audio,
use the highest value of 10 milliseconds for consistently good results.
The Network Interface dropdown allows you to select among available physical network
connections on your computer; because most modern computers have both Ethernet and Wifi,
multiple interfaces appear. Choose the one that corresponds to the wired Ethernet jack
you wish to use. Finally, Dante Virtual Soundcard supports
multiple sample rates. These are accessed in the Device View of Dante Controller, exactly
as with Dante hardware interfaces.
Let’s illustrate this by doing some simple recording.
For a source, we’ve setup an 8 channel multitrack recording coming from this Yamaha LS-9 mixing
console. All 8 channels are assigned to Dante transmit channels on the LS-9.
We’ve got the Dante MY16 card in the LS-9 connected to this network switch, as is the
Ethernet port on this MacBook. Let’s check Dante Virtual Soundcard and
make sure we have enough channels exposed. We do, and so let’s Start Dante Virtual Soundcard.
In Dante Controller, we’ll assign all 8 channels of our mixer to Dante Virtual Soundcard.
Now we open Logic with a new project. In Audio Preferences,
we see that Dante Virtual Soundcard is available as both a source and destination.
We’ll choose these channels as our source and assign them to tracks, just as we would
with any other audio interface we might use.
Now let’s start playback of our music source
into the LS-9, and verify that there is signal there.
We go back to Logic and hit “record” - and there is our audio coming in on all tracks.
Let’s allow it to record for a few seconds. OK. Now we’ll stop the original audio source,
and playout the tracks we just recorded. To do this, we’ll use Dante Virtual Soundcard
again, this time sending a 2-channel mix to our speakers.
So I subscribe the 2 receiving channels of this speaker to transmit channels 1 & 2 of
Dante Virtual Soundcard In Logic, we assign channels 1 & 2 of Dante
Virtual Soundcard to our stereo output. Hit play, and - there we are.
We can adjust levels and verify that it all really works.
We hope you’ve found this video about Dante Virtual Soundcard helpful.
Be sure to watch all the videos in this series, and you’ll be a Dante expert in no time.