Digital multicore over Cat5?

Trude

Hi folks

I'm soon to be building a studio room in my garden.  This is where loud instruments (ie drums) and my recording setup will reside.  I'd like to be able to track drums in the studio and other stuff (vocals etc) simultaneously in the house, and so obviously some kind of multicore will be required to link up all the mic and monitor channels.

Rather than bury a huge multicore cable I'd like to go digital, via Cat5 cable.  Does anyone know what interface boxes I'd need at either end of this to achieve what I'm after?  Ideally this would just provide the audio in/outs so that I can plumb directly into my interface in the usual way (Focusrite Scarlet 18/20). 

I've seen some digital mixers that feature external Cat5 stageboxes (eg Behringer X32), but I don't really want to buy a whole mixer just for this.  Any suggestions would be very welcome!

spark240

Check out some Presonus stuff....

Trude

spark240 said:

Check out some Presonus stuff....

Thanks - the NSB 8.8 looks promising, though it looks like you can only run it to a StudioLive mixer. Not sure if you can just connect two NSBs together?

Trude

... which obviously led me to look up the latest gen StudioLive desks and now I have strong lustful feelings for the 16.0.2

Dammit.....

Stuckfast

There are companies that make Cat5 ADAT extenders, which should do what you want:

https://appsys.ch/en/products/extenders/adx-8

I haven't tried them though.

robinbowes

Consider something like Dante - this is a perfect use case. You can record direct from the network with the Dante Virtual Interface.

spark240

Trude said:

... which obviously led me to look up the latest gen StudioLive desks and now I have strong lustful feelings for the 16.0.2

Dammit.....

Yeah !....I’ve used the 16.4.2 for a few years now.

robinbowes

robinbowes said:

Consider something like Dante - this is a perfect use case. You can record direct from the network with the Dante Virtual Interface.

More details now I'm not on my phone.

You could use a Dante-enabled stagebox like the Yamaha Tio1608-D. (I use one with my Yamaha TF-Rack mixer)

You would also need the R Remote software (free) to control the head amps in the stagebox, and the Dante Virtual Soundcard software ($29.99).

This would enable you to record 16 channels of audio direct to whatever DAW you use, and send 8 channels of monitoring back to the studio all down a single piece of Cat 5e cable.

You will probably be able to pickup a TIO1608-D for £600-800. That might sound expensive, but 20m of 24-way Van Damme Blue series multicore will cost £440, and 24 sockets at either end will add £150-200, not to mention the hardware to mount them (eg. a panel or box) and the hassle of terminating them all.

Worth considering...

R.

Jalapeno

Not sure ordinary Cat5e cables are suitable for outdoors ....

You'd need this sort of stuff:

https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat5e-cable/9885-armoured-external-cat5e-utp-solid-cable-price-per-metre.html

robinbowes

Jalapeno said:

Not sure ordinary Cat5e cables are suitable for outdoors ....

You'd need this sort of stuff:

https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat5e-cable/9885-armoured-external-cat5e-utp-solid-cable-price-per-metre.html

It depends how you run it. You only really need armoured if you're going underground.

But yes, you need to consider how you're going to run the cable to your outside building. Things like UV-resistant cable, lightning protectors, etc.

R.

octatonic

I run a Dante network.
I would suggest Dante over AVB or Ravenna because there are more products on the market.

You want a hardware Dante solution for recording though, not Dante a Virtual Soundcard- latency is too high with DVS.

robinbowes

octatonic said:

I run a Dante network.
I would suggest Dante over AVB or Ravenna because there are more products on the market.

You want a hardware Dante solution for recording though, not Dante a Virtual Soundcard- latency is too high with DVS.

I was going to say "works fine for me" but my usage is different (recording up to 32 channels when doing live sound). Latency is not an issue for me.

octatonic

robinbowes said:

octatonic said:

I run a Dante network.
I would suggest Dante over AVB or Ravenna because there are more products on the market.

You want a hardware Dante solution for recording though, not Dante a Virtual Soundcard- latency is too high with DVS.

I was going to say "works fine for me" but my usage is different (recording up to 32 channels when doing live sound). Latency is not an issue for me.

Yes, this is the use case where DVS makes sense.
But round trip will be about 10ms with DVS, where with my hardware solution round trip is 2-3ms.

robinbowes

Out of interest, what hardware are you using, and how are you recording with it?

octatonic

robinbowes said:

Out of interest, what hardware are you using, and how are you recording with it?

I have a Focusrite Red 16 Line, 2 x Focusrite A16r and a couple of Focusrite X2P’s.
I get 48 channels of analog IO from that on half normalled TT bays with a fair amount of outboard as insert effects and various instruments, synths, guitar modellers on the patchbays too.

Everything can be repatched for tracking or mixing pretty quickly.

Here is the interface rack- the two bottom red boxes have 16 channels of analogue IO (and 2 channels of AES) connected via ethernet to the Red 16 Line (top red rack), which acts as a master interface.
I connect to one Mac over thunderbolt and another Mac via mini digilink to Pro Tools HDX cards in an expansion chassis- so I have one native processing rig and one HDX system (so I can get more than 32 channels of IO in Pro Tools).
As soon as Avid drop the 32 channel limit I'll get rid of the HDX system and run one computer- but who knows if that will ever actually happen.

Under the 2nd A16R there is a Grace M905 monitor controller is fed a variety of analogue and digital signals and I can switch between them and multiple sets of monitors.

Branshen

octatonic said:

robinbowes said:

Out of interest, what hardware are you using, and how are you recording with it?

I have a Forusrite Red 16 Line, 2 x Focusrite A16r and a couple of Focusrite X2P’s.
I get 48 channels of analog IO from that on half normalled TT bays with a fair amount of outboard as insert effects and various instruments, synths, guitar modellers on the patchbays too.

Everything can be repatched for tracking or mixing pretty quickly.

Here is the interface rack- the two bottom red boxes have 16 channels of analogue IO (and 2 channels of AES) connected via ethernet to the Red 16 Line (top red rack), which acts as a master interface.
I connect to one Mac over thunderbolt and another Mac via mini digilink to Pro Tools HDX cards in an expansion chassis- so I have one native processing rig and one HDX system (so I can get more than 32 channels of IO in Pro Tools).
As soon as Avid drop the 32 channel limit I'll get rid of the HDX system and run one computer- but who knows if that will ever actually happen.

Under the 2nd A16R there is a Grace M905 monitor controller is fed a variety of analogue and digital signals and I can switch between them and multiple sets of monitors.

Monster set-up. are you selling any of it since you're moving again?

octatonic

Branshen said:

octatonic said:

robinbowes said:

Out of interest, what hardware are you using, and how are you recording with it?

I have a Focusrite Red 16 Line, 2 x Focusrite A16r and a couple of Focusrite X2P’s.
I get 48 channels of analog IO from that on half normalled TT bays with a fair amount of outboard as insert effects and various instruments, synths, guitar modellers on the patchbays too.

Everything can be repatched for tracking or mixing pretty quickly.

Here is the interface rack- the two bottom red boxes have 16 channels of analogue IO (and 2 channels of AES) connected via ethernet to the Red 16 Line (top red rack), which acts as a master interface.
I connect to one Mac over thunderbolt and another Mac via mini digilink to Pro Tools HDX cards in an expansion chassis- so I have one native processing rig and one HDX system (so I can get more than 32 channels of IO in Pro Tools).
As soon as Avid drop the 32 channel limit I'll get rid of the HDX system and run one computer- but who knows if that will ever actually happen.

Under the 2nd A16R there is a Grace M905 monitor controller is fed a variety of analogue and digital signals and I can switch between them and multiple sets of monitors.

Monster set-up. are you selling any of it since you're moving again?

I had a lot of it when I was in the UK so it will all come with me.
I'll have a small room in Geneva and most of it in the UK.

Danny1969

I would just use a standard 16 pair analog cable. That's only 15mm in diameter and I wouldn't bother burying it .... there's no requirement to do so as there's no lethal voltage or hazard. 

Audio over CAT 5 is good for live, I use the A&H AR2412 which is nice and all but with the exception of Dante (which needs more kit) every manufacture does their TDM slightly different so a good old bit of multicore is the cheapest and most future proof way to go 

Trude

Danny1969 said:

I would just use a standard 16 pair analog cable. That's only 15mm in diameter and I wouldn't bother burying it .... there's no requirement to do so as there's no lethal voltage or hazard. 

Audio over CAT 5 is good for live, I use the A&H AR2412 which is nice and all but with the exception of Dante (which needs more kit) every manufacture does their TDM slightly different so a good old bit of multicore is the cheapest and most future proof way to go 

I need to bury it - it's going right across my garden, but then I'm having to bury the power cable anyway, so I may as well do them together.  

I didn't realise 16 channel cable could be so thin - that's worth a look for sure.  In fact, I might put that down as well as the Cat5 just for maximum flexibility (I'm sure there'll be other networking scenarios where it would come in useful.

Thanks for all the tips so far folks!  Lots to look into for sure 

robinbowes

I'd definitely recommend putting conduit down so you can pull additional cabling through if you need it, which ever solution you choose.

octatonic

Trude said:

Danny1969 said:

I would just use a standard 16 pair analog cable. That's only 15mm in diameter and I wouldn't bother burying it .... there's no requirement to do so as there's no lethal voltage or hazard. 

Audio over CAT 5 is good for live, I use the A&H AR2412 which is nice and all but with the exception of Dante (which needs more kit) every manufacture does their TDM slightly different so a good old bit of multicore is the cheapest and most future proof way to go 

I need to bury it - it's going right across my garden, but then I'm having to bury the power cable anyway, so I may as well do them together.  

I didn't realise 16 channel cable could be so thin - that's worth a look for sure.  In fact, I might put that down as well as the Cat5 just for maximum flexibility (I'm sure there'll be other networking scenarios where it would come in useful.

Thanks for all the tips so far folks!  Lots to look into for sure 

If you do it then put 2 ethernet cables down- redundancy cane very useful in case there is some networking issue.