Dante Loopback

[gustebeast]

Is it possible to plug the dante expansion card back into itself and have it function as a loopback without being connected to any other devices? By loopback I mean you could send output on dante channel 1 and have it come back as input to dante channel 1.

[tbskoglund]

No, this isn’t possible. Dante devices need to have their routing configured using the Dante Controller application.

You could do this using Dante Virtual Soundcard and Dante Controller, but that involves using a computer.

[gustebeast]

Gotcha, thanks!

[gustebeast]

@tbskoglund could I configure the routing using Dante Controller but then disconnect the computer and take the H9000 on the road with just a short ethernet cable plugged into two of the dante card slots? The only info I can find about loopback like this is here

https://www.getdante.com/support/faq/can-a-dante-device-route-audio-back-to-itself/

But playing around with two computers using the dante virtual soundcard I don’t see a way to do audio loopback, it only lets me connect one computer to the other, not to themselves.

Also curious whether this would be possible using two dante cards, one plugged into the other.

 

For context, I’m hoping to have 3 FX chains that output to different Dante ports (1-6), then a 4th chain that takes the Dante ports and mixes them down to a single pair to be used for monitoring (7-8). I assume the same restriction of “outputs cannot be used across multiple chains” applies to Dante like it does for any other output, hence the need for the FX chain mixing.

[John Baylies]

@gustebeast In Dante Controller, you can route any of the Dante card’s inputs to any of its outputs. For example, you could route input 32 to output 32. Then in Emote you can send audio out of an FX Chain to Dante Output 32, and receive it in a different FX Chain thru Dante Input 32.

You can take the H9000 on the road without a computer, and you don’t have to plug the Dante card into itself to get loopback functionality, but you’ll still need to have the Dante Card plugged into a router for it to start properly.

I once asked a Dante representative if they could make Dante cards fully boot without having to be connected to a LAN but they didn’t seem to be very interested.

[gustebeast]

Are you sure it requires a router and not just another Dante enabled device? I’d be curious to know if it would boot when directly connected to another piece of Dante hardware like an interface (assuming connections are prepared in Dante Controller before hand). Also curious if it would boot when directly connected to a PC.

[John Baylies]

I believe that Dante devices require a connection to a router to establish their IP addresses, and won’t fully boot otherwise. I don’t think there’re any Dante devices that have a built-in router. Maybe you could get two Dante devices to work without a router if you manually set their IP addresses in Dante Controller, but I doubt it.

If you set up a VLAN on your PC then a Dante device can boot when directly connected to the PC. I’ve done that before with my macbook.

[gustebeast]

Got my dante card today and so far so great. I connected it to my local network and configured a loopback with dante controller, then disconnected it completely from any network (no ethernet cables plugged into the H9K or dante card) and it worked like a charm! At least for me, the dante card works great for loopback, you just need to link a computer for a one time setup.

[Author]

Posts