Ngee Ann Polytechnic, a higher educational institution in Singapore with nearly 15,000
full-time students, has deployed a Dante Audio over IP network from Audinate to
simplify the creation of a self-contained “black box-style’ recording space with live
performance and audiovisual production capabilities for students.
Conceptualized by Kim Lau, formerly senior manager of AV technology for the Ngee
Ann Polytechnic and now an adviser, the transition to Dante from legacy
interconnections and EtherSound solved the integration and budgetary challenges of
building a second digital studio to complement an existing hybrid recording space
running on an Avid system. Instead, Dante helped to expedite the creation of a single
production area split into four areas: two isolation booths running digital audio
workstations; one live sound area with house mixers for musical workshops and
practice; and another area equipped with Mac workstations for recording projects.
Kim’s goal was to establish a larger space for students to record and mix projects in a
way that mimics a real-world professional recording studio. He also wanted to design
an infrastructure that could easily incorporate video signals and lighting for live
production purposes, with a common network to transport audio, video and control
signals between locations. In his design, Dante shares a dedicated VLAN with control
signals without any disruption to Dante’s reliability or digital audio quality.
“We saved a significant amount of time and money by deploying Dante, which
removed any need to pull XLR cables or multicore from booth to booth. The Dante
network uses five interconnection points and an off-the-shelf master switch, and that’s
it,’ stated Mr Lau. “The limitations of EtherSound meant that we relied on the various
bridge and interface devices to move signals, with limited capacity,’ said Lau. “We
transitioned from a daisy chained architecture to true digital audio networking. Dante
clearly provided the low latency, flexibility and capacity we needed to achieve our
goals. Dante’s Layer 3 backbone also gives us the flexibility to distribute signals
outside of the self-contained recording space to performance venues, which is a
benefit we expect to take advantage of shortly.’
The recording space, built around an Avid S6 console and ProTools, incorporates a
Dante-enabled DAD AX32 I/O interface, with Dante Virtual Soundcard running on all
five Macs. The live sound space utilises two Dante-enabled mixers, a DiGiCo S21 and
a Yamaha Q1, complemented by a Rio 1608-D stage box to support all I/O
connectivity.
“Dante Virtual Soundcard has been very convenient for everyone, as it removes the
need to use a dedicated audio interface,’ said Mr Lau. “We can route sound from any
of the Mac workstations to the house system, all over the Dante network. At the same
time, Dante has removed much of the burden traditionally associated with digital
monitoring in conventional audio production, where we would have to rely on clocking
locked into a specific sample rate. We can now connect to various devices for
monitoring with ease over the Dante network, and even support varied sample rates.’
The latter is especially useful for students working on individual devices. In most
cases, the live sound space runs at 48kHz and recording at 96kHz. This can create a
very complex situation as users manage and monitor signals with varied sample rates
over a common network.
“Even with everyone working on separate devices, Dante recognises these varying
rates and cleanly synchronises all of them on the network,’ said Mr Lau. “That is a
huge benefit. From start to finish, Dante has made my life a lot easier.’
