Wireless Mics - Dante Spare Swaps

[Mike R]

Hi Everyone,

In the current world of Dante coming straight from wireless mics, I've been wondering how everyone is handling swapping to spare packs, while keeping it on the same channel of the console. In the analog days, we would just swap the physical XLR at the snake, but obviously harder to do that with digital. I know it can be done with the patch on the console or with Dante Controller, but wondering if there is a quicker way to do it while actively mixing the show.

 

[themuzicman]

I have a few musicals running AD4Q - the old school designers still demand I make an analog patch bay and go into the desk analog. I hate that and just label everything in my Dante Controller file and have the A2 do the swap in controller. If anyone has a better solution I really need to know it because I need some dead simple show controllable software for this purpose.

A few years back one of the Broadway musicals had a program that had a very dumbed-down interface to re-patch RF via a touch screen but I imagine if it was a successful demo I would have seen it on more shows.

I was tasked with figuring out how to crack this problem on a budget for a designer who didn't trust the A2 doing swaps. The solution we agreed upon, but didn't implement for this specific problem was to get a Yamaha DME64N, which has very flexible MIDI routing, and to construct a large 32x32 Matrix (it goes up to 64x64) inside of it with our RF patched 1:1.

The idea was to assign MIDI values to every patch, and then declare 2 of our RF as the spares and then record the MIDI values of both of those spares to every output. We'd then use a Streamdeck into a little homemade script, you'd tap SPARE 1 or SPARE 2 and then your desired recipient of the spare and the script would then look up and shoot the correct MIDI value into the DME and the change would be made. In the end we deemed it not worth the trouble however we repurposed the project for a show that had an unusually large number of Mainstage and Ableton rigs with redundancy and it worked out just fine (with the caveat that the DME really wants multiple MIDI commands to go into it slowly or you over-run its buffer).

 

[Mike R]

Agreed about finding a better solution. I am in the situation where the A2’s are people who have never been techs before, so the A1 ends up doing a bulk of the work.

I like the idea of the DME64N, and it makes me think how great it would be to control Dante Controller via OSC. That way you could use the same logic as your script to make the patch changes.

 

[TimMc]

I think direct access to whatever patches the signal to the "input strip" is where the change should be made: local to the console if possible.

The idea of a DME64N configured as a matrix... brilliant in some ways and illustrative of the way we have to kludge things together when there is no other device to do it.

Take a look at www.universal-control.com They write a node-based signal routing and control signaling software product aimed at the AV and corporate production environment. Among the supported audio hardware are Shure Axient Digital series, 3 models of Allen-Heath mixers, Yamaha TF and CL/QL (presumably the RIO racks, too), BSS Soundweb London and Biamp (2 flavors) DSP, some other stuff. LOTS of video servers and processors. The team at U-C are very interested in expanding the base of supported devices and feature requests (hint). The big deal is that YOU can design the UI and it will operate with any web browser (tablet, thin client, full computer) so the UI is OS-agnostic. The Univeral Control software runs under Windows.

IIRC the trial version is full feature except for *saving* a project. I could be wrong... and I don't think the trial times out. The basic license is EU150, standard is EU750, and pro is EU1950 (it's aimed at fixed installations). Give it a look.

 

[MNicolai]

The idea of a DME64N configured as a matrix... brilliant in some ways and illustrative of the way we have to kludge things together when there is no other device to do it.

I've done similar Dante shenanigans for outputs to swap between consoles/systems, etc. in installations. Set up a matrix router in an outboard DSP to effectively repatch the Dante without using Dante Controller. Potential issue doing that with inputs though -- specifically Dante-compatible mic's -- is that you will likely roach the ability to monitor battery life and control the wireless RX from consoles that support that extra control functionality for certain wireless systems. If you have a dedicated RF engineer or A2 on a gig, you may not need that functionality in the console anyway since those responsibilities fall on another person, but for some users this could be giving up native control in the console they may want/need.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

I've lately been doing musicals on a QL5, and I tend to mix on a virtual fader layer.
I learned that you *have to* swap the patch on the "real" input channel, since it's channels, not faders, which are stored in the scene automation...

Pluswhich, that documents what you downchecked on the fly, in case the A2 isn't keeping close enough track.