Web radio station x-dante config help

[dlangel]

Hello,
I'm pretty technical, but I am very new to the X32 and x-dante configuration. I was hoping someone here might be able to help out or possibly direct me to the correct place. Our setup does not seem very complex but I'm having trouble getting it to work. We have 2 computers on the dante network with virtual sound cards. one is our recording computer and the other is for broadcast as well as the x32, and all communicate properly.
On the X32 we have 5 mics physically connected to INs 1-5, a cell phone cable connected to AUX IN RCA 5&6, AUX out 1&2 are running out to a headphone amp for the in studio headphones for the hosts so we are trying to make them latency free. Monitor outputs from the x32 are physically connected to in studio speakers for the greenroom. Main output will go over dante to the computers for recording or broadcast. We also plan on incorporating a computer based phone service at some point to send audio into the broadcast, but that can come at a later time.

I appreciate any info anyone here can offer to get me started on this. Once I get going I should be good, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it.

[MJKlein]

Could you please be more specific about the problems you are having? You described what you want to do, so what concepts are you having issues with?

You did say that you are trying to make the system "latency free" but that can never fully achieved, especially when using DVS, which inherently has a 5ms latency, minimum. You can get it close, but never totally free of latency.

[dlangel]

I'm looking for some basic guidance on the dante routing settings for this. I'm new to digital mixers and have been watching videos but am still trying to wrap my head around it. I know it should be simple but I'm having issues making things click for all the routing. As far as the comment about the latency that was more for the headphones, because at one point someone had them running through the broadcast computer so they were picking up the station delay, and we just need them pulling directly from the board. The 5ms in the system is not an issue.

I have watched videos on how people have configured other things but I think my problem is that I need to implement a solution we will be using to understand how it all works and make everything click in my head. I had hoped someone might be willing to step me through this setup since it seemed like it should be on the simpler side, and help me learn something.

[craigf]

Think of sources, inputs, and channels as three separate things. Sources are your mics\cell phone etc. Inputs are the physical sockets on the console to which they're connected. Channels add processing to these inputs. A full size X32 can have 169 sources connected to it at once, but only has the processing power to mix 40 of them (with various amounts of processing) at once. You need to decide which of the 169 sources will comprise your ~40 channel mix (though two are chosen for you: the USB 2-track return; can't change that one.) You do this using the Routing>Inputs tab. By default Sources:Inputs:Channels are routed 1:1:1, but you can change them if you want.

Routing>Card determines which signals will exit the console via its expansion card (Dante in your case.) They're assigned in blocks of 8. If you wanted to send signals directly from the console's own preamps where mic 1-5 are plugged in, you'd set Routing>Card>Outputs1-8 as Local1-8. The first 5 mics will be on ch1-5 on Dante, ch 6-8 on dante will have no signal, as there aren't mics plugged into those preamps.

If you want your cell phone to be on Dante too, you'd need to set Routing>Card>Outputs9-16 as AuxIn1-6, and they'll be on Dante 13-14.

If you want the console's mainLR on Dante, you first need to stage it (as it's a signal generated by the console, instead of one taken straight off another input socket) along with the desired tap point in the Out1-16\AuxOut\Ultranet routing tabs. eg Routing>Out1-16, Output7:MainL, Post Fader, Output8: MainR, Post Fader. Now that it's staged, you need to dump that block onto the Card tab: Routing>Card>Output17-24: Out1-8. MainL and MainR will appear on Dante 23-24.

As you can see, this "blocks of 8" leaves a lot of wasted space in the routing matrix with no signals. The userOut tab in v4+ of the X32 firmware addresses this, by essentially allowing you to build your own blocks of 8. eg Routing>UserOut> Output1-5: Local1-5 (Mics,) Output6+7: AuxIn\T 5+6 (Cell Phone,) Output8:Out7 (MainL) Output9:Out8 (MainR.) Now that you've built your own blocks of you, you can dump them onto the card tab: Routing>Card>Output1-8: UserOut1-8, Output9-16: UserOut9-16. That gets your local mics, cell phone, and main LR onto the first 9 Dante channels without any wasted space.

If instead of tapping mics straight off the preamps for recording and you want to include console processing in the recording, then those count as console generated signals, which means they need to be staged in a separate tab in the routing table, like LR was, but probably with a different tap point, eg Routing>Out>Output1: DirOut Ch01, pre fader will get you a direct out of the ch1 mic but with hpf, gate, eq, and compressor. If you've used that setup for the staging, then you need to dump that out1-8 block onto the card tab instead of the local block (the local block is straight off input sockets with no channel processing.)

As for getting Dante signals back into the console when you get your PC phone setup happening, that's just a matter of setting one of the Input blocks in Routing>Input to Card (make sure it's the right card block to capture the Dante signals from the PC phone setup.) Again, if you don't want to waste space you can use the UserIn tab to build your own block of 8 inputs, eg Routing>UserIN Inputs1-5:Local1-5 (mics,) Inputs6-7: AuxIn1-6\T 5+6 (Cell,) Input8:Card(X) where X is the Dante signal with the Phone PC on it. Then go Routing>Inputs and set Inputs1-8 as UserIn1-8.

BTW with the mainLR in the green room I'd do that as a matrix, with an extra talkback channel routed into it (use the M\C bus.) That way people in the greenroom can hear the main mix, but you can also make announcements to the green room that don't appear on the main mix.

HTH