Six Ways To Transform Your Studio Workflow

Six Ways To Transform Your Studio Workflow 09 Aug 2017 --

Take the Dante Advantage So you've bought a Focusrite Red interface - congrats! It's taken pride of place in your studio and you're over the moon with its rock-bottom latency and dynamic sound. Right now, you're happy using the DigiLink and Thunderbolt ports to interface with your various DAWs, after all it's the first time you've been able to use the same interface for Pro Tools | HD and Ableton Live. Or maybe you're using a Red interface on stage for playback with your band. You bought it because of the quality of the conversion and the low latency, but you've noticed that the stage crew is using a Dante network for the monitor and FOH mixing. Well, you have Dante too, and it's ready and waiting to be used.

This piece suggests ways to inject the Dante advantage into your workflow, and provide some out-of-the-box ideas that you maybe never thought possible.

1. Expand Your Foldback Capabilities

In conventional interface systems, creating custom mixes for your performers either requires a dedicated headphone distribution system, costing about $1000 per mix, or a large-format mixing console with enough aux channels or mix groups for each of your performers - also a significant expense. Add to this the need for headphone amps and the cable required to route all your signals, and you were faced with a clunky, complicated system prone to technical problems. An alternative is to mix all your headphones sends in the interface's control software, but this process will eat into your engineer's setup time, and consume analogue outputs at a rate of two per performer - let alone the unacceptable latency that some older interfaces would introduce.

But with Dante connectivity, a more elegant approach is possible. The Red 4Pre and Red 8Pre each have a 32 I/O Dante interface, which can be used to route audio from your DAW to a Dante-enable device. One such device is Focusrite's RedNet AM2, a two-channel Dante receiver with a headphone amplifier and line-level outputs, which fits in the palm of your hand. You can equip your studio with up to 16 stereo foldback stations, for the reasonable sum of $400 per mix. This functionality is ready and waiting, needs no upgrades or add-ons, and is remarkably simple to set up. What's more, the AM2 is one of the few Dante products that supports daisy-chained Ethernet connections, so you don't even need a network switch!

You can create up to eight different latency-free mixes using Focusrite Control, and even have your performers adjust their own mix on their iOS device using the Focusrite app!

Adding Focusrite RedNet AM2s via Dante is a cost-effective way to provide convenient foldback to performers.

2. Activate Every Corner Of Your Facility For Recording

One of the runaway benefits of audio-over-IP is that you can easily and affordably expand your system. Let's say you have a production room in a studio complex where lots of other fellow music makers work. You may have a couple of racks of outboard gear, and enough space to record a couple of vocalists or a horn section, but not much more. Your friend in another studio in the building has a live room and there's that concrete stairwell at the end of the corridor with a crazy tank-like reverb. Ever dreamed of hooking it all up?

With a Focusrite Red 4Pre or 8Pre in your studio, not only would you have great-sounding conversion and class-leading mic pres, you also have a 32 I/O Dante interface built in. With Dante, you can configure the connected devices any way you like, so all 32 channels need not come from the same physical location (unlike MADI or ADAT, for example). So you could have 16 channels of Dante-enabled mic pres for tracking a string quartet in a room down the hall, four channels for a stereo reverb send/return in the stairway, and a stack of independent headphone stations for the performers. (See point 1, above.)

You will need additional interfaces, such as those in the Focustrite RedNet range. But thanks to Dante's semi-open architecture, there are over 1000 devices to choose from, from digital audio recorders to amplifiers - even wireless microphones.

This workflow was technically possible previous systems, albeit with significant analogue routing, distribution and outboard equipment required. With Dante, you can easily connect the various parts of the building together, without any of the hassle or signal degradation associated with running multicore cable. All you need is some run-of-the-mill network cable (Cat-5e or Cat-6) and a network switch - and some imagination.

Portable racks of Dante devices - such as these two Focusrite RedNet MP8R mic preamps- can be easily located practically anywhere. The Focusrite AM2 (sitting atop the rack) provides a dedicated headphone mix for the performer.

3. Make Your Stage Show Sound Great & Integrate Effortlessly

Computers play a major role in live shows, thanks to increased reliability and performance of DAWs and interfaces. Many concerts contain an element of playback from track', to help keep the band in sync, beef up the sound and provide that album vibe'. In many cases, playback will be triggered by the musical director, who's often a member of the band. In more technically advanced stage setups, multiple band members feed audio into a single DAW for effects processing and suchlike.

The Focusrite Red 8Pre is an excellent choice for live applications, thanks to its high-quality 16-in, 18-out analogue capabilities, coupled with super-low latency over Thunderbolt. But what makes the Red interfaces even more desirable on stage is their Dante connectivity.

Dante has been adopted widely in live sound, due to its plug-and-play nature, the sheer number of Dante devices available, and the lack of signal degradat

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