Rig Rundown (Dylan Mitrovich) - Allen & Heath SQ5 + Dante + LiveProfessor + UAD + Neural DSP Plugins
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- čas přidán 19. 02. 2021
- Using plug-ins in the live domain.
In this video, I give you a quick rundown of the live sound rig I have been putting together during 2020, and its first ventures into venues in Jan 2021.
Shot over 4 shows at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, working with artist Ben Stewart as he performs songs from his band Slowly Slowly in solo-mode.
These shows were an ideal way of taking the setup I had tested at home, and implemented it in a low channel show. It also allowed me to be very creative with the mix, building many additional layers of audio to create dynamic arrangements of Ben's songs.
I'm very much looking forward to taking this setup out to larger shows with a full band, and I'll keep you posted on how it goes!
I'm keen to do more videos documenting the more specific parts of this setup. Routing, latency, DSP usage, buffer sizes, networking, MIDI control, snapshots (both in the SQ and in LiveProfessor), SQ specifics, LiveProfessor specifics, Dante specifics, plug-ins and settings.
Please get in touch through the comments if there is anything specific you would like to know more about, and I can target initial videos based on demand.
Follow me on instagram for more audio adventures: @dylanmaudio
Hardware Elements:
Allen & Heath SQ5 mixing console
Allen & Heath DX168 stage i/o rack
Allen & Heath SQ Dante option card
MacBook Pro 15" 2019 (main processing computer)
MacBook Pro 15" 2012 (record computer)
Focusrite REDNET PCIe Dante card
Universal Audio UAD QUAD PCIe accelerator card
OWC Thunderbolt 2 PCIe Chassis
Dell P2418HTE Touchscreen
D-Link DGS1008 8-port POE network switch
Software Elements:
Audiostrom LiveProfessor
Universal Audio UAD Plugins
Neural DSP Plugins
Soundtoys Plugins
Waves Plugins
Allen & Heath SQ MixPad
Dante Virtual Soundcard (for record computer)
Thanks to Ben (@slowlyslowlymusic) and all of those hardware and software manufacturers who have contributed to making this setup a reality.
This might be the nicest SQ setup I’ve seen yet
Thank you for your time and effort, great setup!
This is awesome to see, and definitely inspiring ideas for my own FOH rig, so please keep things coming!
This is amazing! Thanks for sharing your rig. would love to see more vids!
Awesome setup and well handled, well done!
i've been looking for a rig rundown like this one for weeks ! thanks !
Wow, really great explanations from someone who's "out there" rather being a "youtube expert" (sic). Thanks for the rundown, the time you spent explaining everything, it really gives me reference points, and it's definitely not like watching house of worships engineers talking about getting the pastor's voice right... ;-)
Thanks a bunch and happy new year. Stay safe!
Fantastic video Dylan. Nice one
My head was hurting trying to understand your signal flow at first, but you explained it so well!! What a sick rig m8!!!!
Killer setup & Rig 🦾🔥🤘🏽
Man, this guy knows what he’s doing! What an amazing solution and engineer!
Ha!
this is great! It gives me all kinds of ideas for live and recording.
Its lots of fun!
Awesome mate
Your video has inspired me to get a similar setup.
Great work
miss you mate!
great video, thanks
You did it right !💥
nice one DM!
Wow !! UAD DSP for FOH Mixing... Nice !!!!!!
Nice one mate
Thanks for the run down. I would second a request for a little deeper drive.
I'd been trying to figure out how to use plug-ins in a live setting at church. We run a full dante rig, like you I tried USB way too slow, tried DVS which was better but not good enough.
This is awesome! Very elegant. I had no idea about LiveProfessor! Gotta have it now.
How are you feeding the record computer? Have you considered multitracking direct to a stick over the SQ drive?
first of all thank you for such a deep dive into this, was absolutely insightful! I just wonder if it's possible to send>Rtrn via USB slot (instead of dante) and use logic X as processor host? Cheer's dylan, definitely subscribing to you!
Man this might get me into using live plugins. I've never like the way Waves blocks you in with their hardware. This could be a great alternative.
What a fantastic setup and great tutorial. thinking about doing something like this with a cheaper ecosystem(Behringer x32). Have had the plans drawn out but super cool to see a few people already doing it in kind of the way ive envisioned it.
THIS IS AMAZING! Thanks for share. I couldn't find you on IG to share more about it..
Thats coz i departed instagram for a while :)
Awesome set up, thanks heaps for sharing this Dylan.
By chance I have a SQ5 with Dante card, the Rednet PCIe/ Sonnet Echo, and Rednet 3 all on the way ... so it has serendipitous and inspiring to see your video.
I am a UAD user but had not thought about using a UAD PCIe card... and now I will be looking into Live Professor too, looks great.
By the way, I'm not sure whether you have checked out the Martin Audio CDDLive range ... they are Dante enabled ... tasty !
Ok all the best man and thanks once again for sharing the knowledge.
Arohanui / Much Love from Aotearoa.
How did you go with your setup?
Hi Dylan.. Great Setup ! Just a quick question.. I saw that your LP2 UAD plugins shows the "Mic-LiveTrack Mode" Button... Did you use it ? And I don't know why but all my Uad plugin in LP2 doesn't show this button (I would like to try to reduce Latency). Thx for answer ! Congrats for your work !
Could you explain your Dante routing, how are you using the channel 33 input and sending it back if the console is already seeing 33 first. Hopefully that question made sense.
Hi, what is the purpose of focusrite rednet?
And other question: the plug-ins are running natively on mac via live professor and return via Dante to SQ6?
Sweet setup, what thunderbolt enclosure are you running? I’m running a Dante Virtual Soundcard setup at the moment but the latency isn’t good enough to do FX sends/returns.
OWC Mercury Helios
Love this build! I also read the RedNet only works with intel macs. Is there in your opinion a new solution to get this to work with the new m2/3 macs?
this has caused me to realize how little I actually knew about the SQ series, and now i'm really, really thinking about it. a bit miffed that i spent all these years on the M32 platform.
The SQ is far superior in my opinion, though in the same way the M32 is very functional.
@@dylanmaudio I totally agree. Looking back on when the M32 launched and it MSRP'd the same as an SQ-5... I hardly think it was actually worth that with the amount of performance and flexibility from the SQ. I'm keeping my eyes out for one to own.
Looks nice, but what’s your total round trip routing and are you sending every channel into the love profession, as there’s no delay automatic delay compensation on the inserts at the sq series. As far as I know ✌🏼
Hugely inspiring video! Is the trick to getting acceptable latency having a UAD Quad/Octo PCIe card and a Dante PCe card? Would a thunderbolt Satellite & Dante PCIe be too slow for live? Do you have any thoughts on running inserts through Apollo instead, pros/cons? Much appreciated!
No too slow of live at all.. any thunderbolt Dante interface will allow low enough latency for a couple of round-trips in a live setting IMO. Hardware Inserts through the Apollo is a great idea, just means more I/O and analog cabling required but it's a very robust solution.
truly very very huge setup you done with this console. thanks for sharing. the question is if you connect directly dante card to the pc you dont have the same inputs ?? im trying to understand the focusrite pci role. is mandatory to have one?
PCI card let's you go down with latency.
It is to lower the latency.
PCIE card allows 0.15ms minimum latency each in & out, per round trip
Dante virtual Soundcard is 4ms minimum latency each in & out, per round trip.
If you have multiple round trips - ie signals go through a channel chain, a subgroup chain, and a master bus chain, the latency stacks up every quickly.
how do you make the touchscreen work? how is it connected to the mbp? any additional drivers involved?
Great question - yes I’m using the touch-base driver to give me touch functionality on the MBP. A little bit of $$, but it works very well. Touchscreen is connected to MBP via HDMI and USB.
I've read that the SQ series only supports 48 channels in and out. Does adding a Dante insert into a channel eat into that 48 I/O budget? Or are inserts (or Dante) treated differently? (Or am I just totally confused?)
The channel limit on the SQ is based on having 48 full-processing input channels. You can plug any available source into these 48 channels - therefore it is possible to have many more physical ins and outs available (for example you could have many DX168 stage racks connected with say - 96 channels of inputs), but only 48 input channels on the console to patch them into.
To answer specifically - no the Dante inserts (or any inserts in that case, even hardware) do not eat into the 48 input channels as specified. For example - I could have 48 XLR inputs into my 48 channels on the SQ, but then also another 48 insert paths on those channels over Dante.
@@dylanmaudio awesome, thanks so much!
Can live professor read any apollo device ie. Apollo 16 via dante then onto thunderbolt? That would be nice if it csn pick up the dsp from there. Sweet setup btw thanks for posting.
Hey man, I was looking into several solutions and yours like a good compromise. Have you figured out your total roundtrip latency? I hear below 3ms for the RedNET then you'd have to add your stack, UAD process, signal chain and whatnot... But is it workable? 3ms is about 3 foot at sound speed in air, that doesnt seem too bad, but anything more starts to be important to consider.
Hello mate - I haven't used this setup for a while but it was about 12ms I think. Yes, it stacks up. I think more that 3ms in a FOH setup is completely viable, especially when it doesn't have high transient content such as this. Think about where your performer's acoustic sound comes from, and how far the PA speakers are from this. Is it 3 foot or more?
HI from the UK Dylan, thanks for the oustanding content! , My names Jack , I'm currently speccing a system with a similar set up but I've come unstuck with finding the relevant driver for the touchscreen, do you know where id need to look to find a dell driver for touchscreen control? :)
touch-base.com!
Please do an indepth setup and how its built id be keen to learn how to make my own rig
Pro tip : you can watch movies at flixzone. I've been using them for watching all kinds of movies recently.
Rt
I LOVE your build, mate!
I also own a SQ5 and would love to duplicate your build. I was looking at UAD-2 Live and Waves Soungrid, but this looks like such a better solution.
How do you handle the monitors for musicians? Are they hearing the live plugins as well?
And for plugins, i assume you choose only ones that have super low latency (if musicians hear as well especially).
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Also,
Do you know if dante virtual soundcard has similar latency as the pcie card?
Hey Jordan! I’m about to setup my first band session with this setup - but my guess is that I will probably send them channels without processing to avoid the latency (I’ll end up running most processing over groups/master bus). I’m more than happy to try it out with them though, and see if the latency is perceivable!
@@jordanhenry950 PCIe card has MUCH lower latency.
I actually ran some tests earlier this week and will post some videos shortly.
At 96khz + 128 sample buffer size:
- PCIe has RTL of 4ms
- DVS has RTL of 11ms
- USB has RTL of 13ms
@@dylanmaudio Thanks so much for your replies! I appreciate it a lot.
I thought about it more and if I were to emulate what you are doing...
I was thinking about running all of the monitors the current way that the band likes them, but have the outputs of liveprofessor to be different than the input number (if that makes sense). i.e. run band's monitors off of ch1-16 (with faders bottomed out on the mains) and then have the liveprofessor returns to inputs 17-32 on the SQ5.
Does this seem feasible?
I see in your set up that the audience is near the band. Would they notice the latency of the plugins while near the performers? Would the signing along with the audience possibly throw off the performers? just thoughts I have.
Cheers from Chicago
@@jordanhenry950 totally seems feasible to split the console up like that for Mon and FOH channels. Separate processing between Mons and FOH is a huge advantage.
I terms of latency being perceived in this scenario - I don’t think so. Think about the speed of sound (1ms per foot), and the distance between the performer (or backline) and the FOH PA. If the PA is 10ft in front of your backline, and you’re running up to 10ms latency on your FOH mix, you’d actually be aligned in time!
Hi, great video, thanks for sharing! Do you happen to know if liveprofessor is compatible with Mac computers with the M1 chip processor?
I contacted audioström about but no answer, looks like liveprofessor is what I looking for my setup! I’ll appreciate any help!
Late reply, sure you figured it out, but yes!
Do you have a soft key setup to unpatch all your external plugins (I’m not sure if that’s possible on SQ currently)
Latency is the reason for rednet. It is much lower. Yes plugs are running natively.
If I may ask, what Pcie Chassis are you using? I was looking onto the sonnet echo, but apperently they have issues with „software anomolys“ with the rednet. Couldn’t find an alternative :/ thanks in advance!!
Interesting regarding the Sonnet issues! Mine is OWC Helios. It’s an older Thunderbolt 2 version, but it’s doing the job fine. I’ve actually just bought a Sonnet Echo TB3 version for another project with the rednet card. See how it goes I guess!
@@dylanmaudio
Thanks for that hint! I honestly would be surprised if the sonnet plus a rednet cause Dante issues, but according to their compatibility sheet there is something going on :S
www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/TB_PCIe_Card_Compatibility.pdf
@@audionimus thanks for that link. I did also notice that on their website, Focusrite have reported some of the Sonnet enclosures not 100% compatible, but some are.
finally new things to investigate and eventually invest in :D have a good one
You're doing a great job, keep it up. Please can you make a video showing the full setup including connections and i would also love to have a diagram of it. Thanks once again
I wish I had the time to do that for you :)
@@dylanmaudio No problem, great job tho
Very nice video thank you. How could you connect the Dell monitor touch screen to the MacBook? There is probably no Mac driver for the monitor. Best wishes
Touch-base.com
can u make a video about how to work with / setting up the server in use with live professor? thanks
Can I ask which Dell monitor that is and what drivers you are using to get it to work on the Mac?
Many thanks
Adam
Just seen you have already answered the driver question........Doh !
@@adamrickets9773 all good! Dell p2418hte. Touch-base driver 👌
Great vid. Have you measured the round trip latency on the inserts. Would be keen to know. 😺😺
I've calculated it roughly to be around 7ms for the longest plugin chain (in this case, the plugin chain itself was generating about 4-5ms of latency), plus then the SQ latency, Dante latency, Computer Audio Buffer latency. I've made specific measurements last year, so that calculation is based on my results in previous tests - however I have not specifically measured the latency of this particular show.
I reckon that RTL measurement and calculations will be my next video.
Dylan Mitrovich Thanks Dylan. I would be keen on seeing a video on the latency. Specifically if the uad card isn’t used, what the round trip is excluding any plugins. A description on the pc/Mac specs you are using in your test would be good. The rednet Dante card in the thunderbolt unit looks interesting. Maybe with a future M1/M2 Mac, it would be an interesting setup, as an alternative to Soundgrid, allowing plug-in choice..looking forward to the vid.👍
@@dylanmaudio Can the SQ5 delay the other tracks to compensate for that latency? Either way, would that be desirable or is 7 ms pretty negligible? Great vid by the way
Would like to hear it in action with tapping audio from the mixer
Hey man, great job! Would love to see more instances of live professor in a live setting. I'm using an M1 PRO 16inch right now for my LP sessions and am always so scared that its going to crash (Even though it never has) - I only run 1-2 channels at a time or only use it for an fx bus so that if it crashes it isn't critical. When I use for vocals I use a Y split so that I have a spare vocal just in case. Curious if you have any tricks/stories/workarounds related to the above. Thank you!!!!
You're 100% right. Stability (or lack thereof) is what lead me to a DSP-based setup.
@@dylanmaudio tell me about the new setup?! or do you have a video on it? Would love to see what you are using these days
@@games.music.tech.3560 just uploaded a new video - check it out!
@dylanmaudio can you tell me how the routing is. It’s from your laptop to the pcei card which is then to d link port then to the console. Please do tell me
Stage Inputs from S-Link to SQ > Dante card in SQ to PCIe card > PCIE to computer via thunderbolt, then back through the chain to the SQ
Very nice setup. I got a similar one, but I got a few problems. Maybe you can help. I am also running UAD plugins over live professor but I gut a UA satellite octo running with my Midas pro2 with a DSPro etherface.
Sometimes my UAD plugins got disabled with the error note that the buffer size do not match between UAD and live professor and the last shows I had dropouts on my UAD API2500 master bus compressor. I am on 96 kHz and 256 samples in live professor and the etherface. On the UAD Meter and Control Panel is no option to set buffer sizes. Do you have similar problems?
How are your settings on the UAD Control panel? I would be really thankful if you can help
HEY! I¡m having the same gear as you have.... same problem too. Did you get a solution for this issue??
Are you running a DAW at the same time?
I know I'm late. How did you get the Neural DSP plugin into UAD?
Neural etc are processed natively on MacBook CPU
What SQ5 software are you running on the Mac that gives live HQ fader meters? Thanks
SQ Mixpad! Very handy for high-res meters for this console with a v simple metering system!
It's a great video.
I hope there will be Subtitles in Thai language for me to understand more.
Nice setup! Have you tried Gig Performer?
No I haven't! I should give it a run..
You should, rock solid and way more flexible in every way
do you think using the USB port on the SQ, is also a good option? curious what you think
It has the most latency out of any of the methods of transmutation, around 14ms per round trip. This setup has about 4ms per round-trip, and my mix setup uses multiple round-trips..
Is the UAD DSP processing the Waves plugins?
Nah this is native to the computer
Hey Dylan, can you tell me what the roundtrip latency on this rig is? And does Live Professor compensate different latencies between channels or send individual channels out at minium latency each?
I haven't used that setup for a while - but ballpark I think about 12ms with a number of round trips through sub-groups/master bus etc. In LP, you can 'time align' your inserts into groups if you like. For this particular setup with such little input count, it wasn't so important.
@@dylanmaudio Thanks! =)
I see that you're using the DX168 stage I/O box, which surprises me, since you have the SQ Dante card. Are there any specific reasons you're using the DX168 over SLink instead of the DT168 over Dante? I'm about to buy an SQ-5 + 16x8 stage box for my home studio, and have been trying to weigh the pros and cons of getting a Dante card + DT168 vs just the DX168. Going full-Dante is a lot more money, but it seems like it would be a lot more flexible down the road. But you seem to have a more hybrid setup. I'm curious to hear your thoughts!
Hey Ben - I would love to have bought the DT168 instead, it was simply the cost factor in this case. ESPECIALLY now as A&H have released control software, it makes the DT168 even more appealing. I actually purchase the DX168 a couple of days before this show (I had no I/O at all), and I need to buy another - who knows maybe I’ll go down the full Dante route now shows are starting to pick up a little.
@@dylanmaudio That makes sense. The DT Preamp Control software looks really cool. Considering you're using UAD plugins, had you considered using the MADI SQ expander + one of the UAD MADI boxes instead of the Dante SQ expander + REDNET card + UAD card?
@@Cowboy-Ben-Alman yeah I had considered it - I actually have access to a UAD liverack, though at the time A&H didn’t have a MADI card for the SQ. Also UAD liverack runs optical MADI, SQ runs BNC MADI - so therefore more investment in some converter...
@@dylanmaudio totally makes sense. There are way too many formats! (And converters are way too expensive!)
@@Cowboy-Ben-Alman I know, right! I was even looking at the option of a Dante > MADI bridge. Waaay too much $$!
How is your set up configuration in Dante Virtual Soundcard?
I don't use Dante Virtual Soundcard in this setup
Great setup! 👍
Now that the SQ MADI card is available as well (and less flexible but somewhat cheaper) my question is: Do you think MADI can give the same low-latency results as Dante ?
Thanks in advance for your answer.
In theory, MADI being a strict TDM transmission protocol will have lower latency than any IP packet based format, simply from the fact that there is no inherent packet delay variation, and you won't have to buffer to cater for that. Also, for any Ethernet/IP packet format you will have to buffer for ptime ms, i.e. the length of audio that gets stuffed into each packet. Usually, for AES67 or Ravenna, ptime will be 1ms. Obviously, there are drawbacks with MADI too, like you will need a MADI router unless you're only connecting straight through between 2 units. A Dante (or infinitely better, AES67) network will work on a pretty cheap switch, if it is dedicated. AES67 will work even better on a good switch that knows PTP but that pretty quickly will rival the price of say a RME MADI router. I prefer Cisco Nexus 9000 switches for audio, and they both cost a lot and have jet engine fans...
So, in the end, the answer will have many "it depends" in it without a more specific situation to evaluate.
Yep 100% to this reply :)
I definitely would like to dive into your Dante setup to enable Plug-ins on our SQ-7!
Hey Jay - thinking about this as well - you'll need to grab something that is super low latency and can send / receive as many channels as you need. Have you looked into a Dante card for your laptop? You could try the Dante Software but probably the latency will be too high...
Dylan has a comment that he measured the RTL (real time latency) - 4ms with the PCIe Dante card/interface - 11ms with the VS (Dante virtual sound card) - 13ms with USB
The dell touch screen isn't native on mac, how do you configure it ?
www.touch-base.com
@@dylanmaudio Do you have multi touch support working on Live Professor 2? I tested this on dLive director 1.97 and never got the multitouch working, I guess it depends if the software supports multi touch or not.
@6:00 What is that plug-in on the acoustic called? Thanks.
UAD Sound Machine Wood Works
@@dylanmaudio Thanks!
How do you patch the midi from SQ to Live Professor
Easy as! MIDI over USB. Just plug in the USB cable to the console and you’ll be able to set it up as a MIDI device in Liveprofessor.
@@dylanmaudio genius
Why would I use live professor instead of Ableton for live plugin use?
Why wouldn't you? ;)
Both are great solutions for processing real-time audio.
What’s the digico used for
House mixing console at venue
So wait... what’s the Digico for? 😅
It’s just a stand for my MacBook Pro 🤣
I love the irony of that lol
how to patch all of that ?
"aaam"
Yeppp, very cool! I think you' re running a bitcoin mine in secret during a one man show... :D
*oops*
2 minutes in n "uuummmm" I'm clicking out 🤦🏽♂️😑😒
Should have watched it. Would have learnt something