Research & Development: Waves DiGiGrid DLS — Ethernet Audio Interface & SoundGrid DSP Server for Pro Tools
We confess – when we first encountered Waves’ DiGiGrid DLS solution at the 135th AES, we couldn’t get our heads all the way around it. On the surface, we could see that this was a particularly powerful audio interface, working alongside of a SoundGrid DSP server for Pro Tools|HD and Pro Tools|HDX, but we wanted to know more than we could learn that day in our lightning tour of the system.
Hence our latest “Research & Development”, where we gave Waves the opportunity to go deep into the inspiration and design of DiGiGrid DLS. Is this hardware/software hybrid, made with studio and live audio engineers equally in mind, for you? Let Mick Olesh, Waves EVP Sales & Marketing, enlighten you on the unique capabilities of this formidable black box.
Demystified: Waves DiGiGrid DLS
From the 10,000-foot level, how do you define DiGiGrid DLS? Is it a hardware solution, software solution, or both?
The DiGiGrid DLS is one piece of a larger infrastructure and solution named Waves SoundGrid, which provides processing and networking solutions to the Studio and Live Market place. This solution is comprised of both hardware and software.
The DiGiGrid DLS is an Ethernet audio interface and SoundGrid DSP server for Pro Tools|HD and Pro Tools|HDX systems. It provides DSP power for hundreds of SoundGrid-compatible plug-ins while also supporting 64 channels of audio from your Pro Tools hardware. A built-in network switch makes it easy to connect multiple workstations.
This specific hardware and software solution is tailor-made for various types of users.
The first solution is for Pro Tools HD /HDX and HD Native users, allowing it to maintain the operation and functionality of Pro Tools HD software and hardware and simply “add” on the benefits of Waves SoundGrid to an existing system.
The DLS hardware and accompanying SoundGrid Studio software work as a bridge/tie-line between these two systems. Once this connection is established, the end user will have the option to aggregate additional SoundGrid Compatible hardware devices to the system, stream audio between Pro Tools and up to eight different Host applications, and even offload plug-in processing to an external server.
The second type of functionality for a different user type, is utilizing the DLS as a standard audio interface and use it with almost any ASIO/Core Audio application. As the DLS does not have physical I/Os, it is paired up with third party I/Os who have analog/digital inputs and do the AD/DA conversions. Controlling these I/Os is accomplished through the SG Studio application and streamed through the Waves SoundGrid ASIO/Core Audio Driver.
Go with the flowchart (click to enlarge)
Waves is known in the audio community for its software. When did you start to get the idea that hardware offerings were needed, and why? What made DiGiCo the ideal partner to form DiGiGrid?
Waves has been manufacturing hardware and software solutions for several years: the L2 Hardware unit processing systems, MaxxBCL, the Y16 Yamaha card and MaxxBass, are all part of a long list of hardware products that we have created.
Waves, being a leading audio plug-in manufacturer, we recognize the needs of the audio market and fortunately have the ability to turn these dreams into reality. As the gap between Live and Studio engineers has become narrower and these jobs overlap, we wanted to provide a solution for these engineers to take their tools that they are so familiar with from use in the studio, on the road with them.
Waves SoundGrid was first introduced to the market place as a solution for live audio engineers (FOH and Monitor) who required real-time processing, through the application called Waves MultiRack. To accomplish this effectively and accessible to a wide market, Waves couldn’t rely on existing standards. Waves recognized the benefit of processing Audio on Intel-based servers as opposed to DSP solutions, lowering manufacturing and developments costs substantially, and realized the benefits streaming this audio over Ethernet.
Following a very smooth integration of the MultiRack solution into DiGiCo Live and Broadcast consoles, it seemed very natural to partner up with the leading manufacturer of the highest quality Live consoles and increase the offerings to the audio market of I/O and Processing both to the Live and Studio Market.
What was the hole in the audio networking market that you felt you could address with DiGiGridDLS? In other words, what did you sense that audio professionals and artists needed from their Pro Tools setups that weren’t out there yet?
The audio networking abilities/performance of SoundGrid exceed the abilities of our competition in terms of latency and channel count. Furthermore the SoundGrid infrastructure offers additional benefits besides networking – and this is all included in the same system.
The DiGiGrid DLS, gives an alternative for Pro Tools users to offload processing power from the Local CPU.
The Networking abilities allow additional inputs to Pro Tools at low cost.
SoundGrid allows you to share and allocate IO across the network – the physical location of the Box becomes less relevant, and a facility can have IOs and Preamps in a common share area, such as a live room and connect these IOs to multiple rooms with a single Ethernet Cable, thus substantially lowering construction costs.
Connecting an additional host and computer is very simple whether this is a stationary, floating or guest computer.
The DLS gives a solution to use existing third party interfaces such as Avid 96/192/Symphony with the latest version of Pro Tools, vs. the requirement of updating your entire system.
As you began to design prototypes of DiGiGridDLS, how did the project start to evolve? What new ideas did you start realizing were essential to incorporate, in order to completely solve your users’ problems?
The main goals for this project were to provide the user with Processing, Networking and Real-Time recording with a highly intuitive infrastructure coupled with quality hardware systems.
Can you explain some of these functions that you feel are revolutionary, not just evolutionary?
Evolution becomes revolution, when one takes the time to develop and lead this evolution and not keep it for themselves or wait for someone else to take responsibility.
Waves is expanding this platform on both the hardware and software side, partnering up with additional 3rd party manufacturers who see the benefits and future of this system.
The functions that are revolutionary are: first moving away from DSP processing to an Intel-based server processing, which immediately benefits the end user; networking in the studio that allows users to utilize their network port without the need of added hardware as I/O via dedicated drivers; low latency round processing trip; recording while processing with any qualified DAW in low latency and much more…
In terms of the GUI, what kind of experience did you want to ensure that the user has? How do they interface with it for maximum workflow efficiency and creativity?
Waves goes through many cycles developing controls and GUIs, trying to give the user maximum flexibility and ease of use. We try to hybrid new ideas with old conventions.
Finally, what’s the Big Lesson you learned from creating DiGiGridDLS? How is that going to help you and your team with the next hardware and/or software you design?
We learn from every project. We hear from the marketplace new methods and user cases of using this product in ways we didn’t necessarily think of, and we are sure that this will expand even more.
— David Weiss