DANTE Network with X32, 2 M32's and a D400 Aviom Switch- Audio Popping

[StradivariusBone]

Dante should be fine without DHCP as well. It's perfectly happy dealing with APIPA addresses. We use static because it makes things easier to find on our network. One of my volunteers is a genius at scripting and we've automated a number of things through their respective APIs, so we just have a list of all our devices to reference and since it's just the two of us doing any of the network nitty gritty stuff, it doesn't matter when gear is swapped because we're the ones doing it. BUt Mike's point is very valid in a setup where the end user is not savvy with IP networks.

We did have a wacky instance using Magewell HDMI to NDI converters where they would not detect NDI sources unless they had DHCP turned off. That's a bug though, not a feature LOL. They just like static IPs better.

I think your best bet is what Mike's advice was to me. Narrow it down and eliminate things. I would definitely check that switch config since it seems like it's the smoking gun right now, but the VLAN setup you've got could also contribute. The weird part is still that you're having audio signal drop outs with no clock errors showing up in controller. THat points to gear on the transmit or receive side being at fault (like in my problem).

 

[StradivariusBone]

Here's another fun one. Haven't done much research into this yet, so forgive me if it's obvious.

When loading presets from Controller, sometimes it will decide that the Venue 2 board is the Venue 1 and load all of the channel info onto that board, which then makes duplicate Venue 1 boards in Controller. I'd assume that the Controller software would identify the cards by MAC, so I'm a bit confused by this one. Not a party stopper, but a weird one.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Reviving a dead thread because we're facing some new wine in an old bottle.

In both venues with the M32-DL32 setup we are now experiencing loss of sync at random (and relatively seldom) intervals. Both venues have professionally made Ethercons with the chassis shields (which is what fixed the problem before), and both have Dante cards with the console set to pull clock from the Dante card. Despite this, every so often we'll still have a sync drop on the AES50. Sometimes it recovers after a pop, sometimes it requires a power cycle or unplugging/replugging the ethercon fixes it. I'd lean towards the AES50 card being faulty, but the fact that it's happening in two identical setups makes that less likely.

In troubleshooting, I tried switching back to the old cable we made earlier and found an interesting fault with that. Our main cable has been on the AES B port (we switched to that as part of our troubleshooting). The secondary cable I patched in to AES A and both got sync. But if you watch this video, just about every time our drummer hits the kick the secondary cable (AES A) would lose sync. I thought maybe this is a mechanical thing, but beating on the cable chassis does not cause sync loss and we have experienced the fault when there is no sound whatsoever.

Here's a video of that happening- https://photos.app.goo.gl/Awv5miwvyG6tHASg9

Another thing we tried was putting every piece of gear on voltage regulating UPS. One other thread I found seemed to think that transient voltage drops would cause a loss of sync and one thing I have noticed is that it likes to pop if I bring gain up on something like a bass input relatively quickly (maybe the sudden amp load drops voltage?).

But if I had to guess at what is causing it, I'd lean toward the clock sync being pulled from the card and not the AES50 bus making it struggle with the sync on the stagebox side. Audio will also disrupt on the Dante stream when it fails, but pulling clock from the AES50 will cause failures on the Dante side. It's lose lose

I'm at my wits end with this one. I'm planning on barking up the Music Tribe tree but I figured see what the brain trust here might throw at it.

 

[FMEng]

Time to go back to basics. Delete the Dante card and see how the mixer and DL32 behaves. If it runs OK, then you know the problem is related to the Dante card or network.

I may have mentioned this before, but I think you are struggling with inadequate switches or improper configuration. Buy switches known to work well with Dante and configure them exactly prescribed. I built a small, two switch Dante and NDI network with a Midas M32. I found a good tutorial on configuring Cisco SG-350 series for Dante, so that's what I bought. The configuration is rather complicated, which tells me a Netgear from Bestbuy doesn't cut it. I did the config and have Dante running alongside six cameras of NDI with no problems. It's not a redundant network.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Pulling the card is a good next step. I don't think it's switches at this point since it seems confined to the connection between the console and the stage box. Dante Controller is happy and doesn't report anything wrong when the console loses sync to the stage. In your setup do you have a stage box or are you pulling direct from the console?

 

[FMEng]

I don't have a stage box, so that is a difference. The Dante card is the clock master.

 

[StradivariusBone]

That's another good data point. I think I'll pull the Dante in one and pull the stage box in the other.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Going back and forth with Music Tribe support (which has been very responsive and helpful so far), they suggest putting the board to internal clock which will cause us to have the clicking/popping in the Dante audio that's subscribed to other devices, but the venue boards no longer lose sync with their stage boxes. Based off that, I'm figuring that we are not dealing with a problem resulting from the physical connection of the mixer to the stage box.

Went back to the Dante white papers and today we're trying the external clock sync feature to pull from the consoles. So the config right now- mixers set to internal clock, Dante cards in the mixers set to sync to "external". So far so good, I'll report back after we get some time running with this setup. My main concern is the fact that we're running two separate mixers (three really), but with both using their own clocks in this way. It does impact how the cards elect their master leader.

 

[StradivariusBone]

I think this is probably what I read that initially steered us away from running it this way.

It's not "normal practice" to operate it this way, but at the same time it's working so IDK. Setting the board clock to card will cause intermittent sync failures to the AES50 connected device and setting the board clock to internal will cause sync pops in the subscribed audio on the other side of the network. It seems happy with board internal clock and the Dante card sync pulling from the board clock too. Go figure.