Additional Adaptability
Some manufacturers outfit their digital consoles and/or stage boxes with slots for adding optional interface cards. This is a great way to quickly and inexpensively add the right connectivity to a system, or at least a key portion of it.
An example of this is the QL5 console from Yamaha Commercial Audio, which has dedicated Dante ports on the back but also offers up two option slots that take Yamaha MY cards, including ADAT, MADI, A-Net, EtherSound, RockNet, Optocore and even additional Dante ports.
Another example is the new M5000 console from Roland Pro A/V that has two expansion slots. So in addition to the onboard REAC network, the user can add option cards for Dante, MADI, Waves SoundGrid or even additional REAC ports.
Multiple network connectivity can also be achieved at the stage box in some cases. For example, the D2 Rack from DiGiCo provides MADI on BNC connectors (coax) or Cat-5E connections that interface with the SD9 and SD11 consoles, as well as additional outputs that can be configured as line, AES or Avion A-Net by using option cards.
DiGiCo also offers a host of bridging boxes, including the Purple Box, a Cat-5 MADI to optical converter, and the UB MADI, which can interface with any computer with a USB 2.0 port and allow 48 channels of MADI to stream to and from the computer.
Some addition bridging devices:
The Klark Teknik DN9650 network bridge and DN9652 dual network bridge allow any Midas console and any AES50 device to interface with MADI, Dante, CobraNet and EtherSound using option cards. The DN9652 is a dual-network version of the DN9650 with two configurable network slots.
The SSL MADI–Bridge provides 64 bi-directional channels of fully redundant MADI to Dante network bridging.
The Riedel RN.334.MD connects RockNet to MADI, providing two independent MADI ports, each accessible via coax (BNC) or optical (SFP).
The Roland Pro A/V S-MADI REAC Bridge is a bi-directional signal converter enabling connectivity between MADI-equipped digital audio mixers/recorders and any REAC-based devices, including consoles, recorders and stage input boxes.
Focusrite offers a variety of different units in the RedNet Series that convert Dante, analog, AES/EBU, S/PDIF, ADAT Lightpipe and MADI (both optical and coaxial.
As noted, my company has gear that “speaks” six different digital protocols, so to keep things simple we’ve standardized on using just a few. Our main digital networking protocol is Dante. This was an easy choice because our consoles (from several manufacturers) accommodate it onboard or via option cards.
It’s also become a popular “standard” in live audio production with hundreds of manufacturers offering products with the protocol imbedded or on option cards. And with the ability to use standard switches and Dante Virtual Soundcards in our laptops, it’s been very easy to configure network transport systems and recording interfaces.
Still, we also use AES/EBU for some powered loudspeaker systems. The bottom line is that there’s been a lot of progress, and it’s all good, but we need to speak the language of digital audio networking because it’s only going to become more ubiquitous.
Senior contributing editor Craig Leerman is the owner of Tech Works, a production company based in Las Vegas.