LS9-32 with Rio 32/24D & 2 x MY16-AUD Cards Guide

[MarkBarl]

I thought that I would put together a guide for using a Rio 32/24D with 2 x Dante MY16-AUD cards with an LS9 from my recent experience. Most of the Yamaha guides I came across only used a 16ch Rio and 1 card. Hope someone finds it useful.

 

As most of the instructions for setting up an LS9 with Rio are with single dante cards, I thought that I would share some of the experience we recently had for setting up an LS9-32 with 2 x Dante cards and a Rio 32-24D stage box.

 

What you will need:

 

• · LS9-32

• · 2 x Dante My16-AUD cards

• · 1 x Rio 32/24D

• · 1 x Gigabit Ethernet Switch

• · Ethernet cables

• · PC or Mac with Dante Controller installed

• · Latest firmware and software for LS9,Cards and Rio

It is worth noting at this point, that unlike the QL and CL the LS9 has no native knowledge of dante so the dante patching has to be done with dante controller software.

 

Network switch.

 

 

We used a bog standard TP-Link gigabit Ethernet switch bought from Maplin that was dedicated to the dante network. It worked for what we did, I make no guarantees for any network switches used.

 

Install the cards into the LS9. Make note of the mac addresses for the cards and which slot they are in. Head amp control is all via the card in slot 1 so you need this info.

 

The Rio needs to be set to into AD8HR mode rather than native. This is set by dip switch 5 in the down position.

 

At this point, make sure the firmware and software for the LS9, Rio and Cards are all up to date. There are excellent guides on the Yamaha Pro Audio website for these that I recommend following. Please note for the Rio, there are 2 firmwares that need updating, the Rio firmware and the dante firmware. I recommend only having the computer and the dante device being updated connected to the network switch during the update process.

 

Once firmware all up to date.

 

Connect the Rio to the network switch from the Primary socket and the cards individually to the network switch from their primary sockets

 

Connect your PC/Mac to the network switch and open Dante Controller. You should be able to see the 3 dante devices (2 cards and the Rio) identify the card in slot 1. Open the properties window of the device and find the tab that lists the mode. You will need to set this card to Mode 2 (Network HA control no Serial) The other card can be set to no HA control.

 

Word Clock:

 

This can cause some problems. It can be a bit trial and error. We set the word clock master to the Dante card in Slot 1 and it worked fine.

 

Patching the Dante:

 

Within the Dante Controller the devices are Transmitters and Receivers. You need to patch the Rio Transmitter channels (1-32 for the Rio 32/24) to the receiver channels on the MY16 cards. 1-16 to the card in slot 1 receiver channels 1-16. Rio Transmitter channels 17-32 to The card in slot 2 receiver channels 1-16. Please note, that this is just the patching of the dante to dante, not the channels within the LS9. It is my advice to keep this dante patching simple and consecutive.

 

To complete the input setup, you will need to assign the input channels on the LS9 to the slot inputs. E.g. Channel 1 to Slot 1:1 Channel 2 to slot 1:2 up to Slot 1:16, then Slot 2:1 etc up to Slot 2:16

 

Top tip. I set up an initial scene with the LS9 analogue inputs on layer 1-32 and the dante inputs on layer 33-64.

 

Outputs:

 

The Rio 32/24D has 16 analogue XLR outputs and 8 AES outputs on 4 XLR sockets. Personally unless this is for an install or you really need to use AES I would suggest avoiding it. Although it uses standard XLR connectors you cannot use a standard XLR cable for AES it is a bit fussy.

 

The MY16 cards are capable of 16 outputs so using the Dante Controller, you can configure all 16 transmitter outputs on the card in slot 1 to the receiver inputs on the Rio.

 

On your LS9 configure the outputs on slot 1 for the output bus you require. E.g. ST-L – Slot 1:15, SR-R – Slot 1:16

 

Hopefully this should all work fine now passing audio and headamp control.

 

Note: Using the Dante Controller software, save the patch to a file.

 

Virtual Sound check.

 

Of course one of the great benefits of using Dante, is the really easy ability to be able to do virtual sound checks. To be able to record to a PC/Mac you will need to have installed the Dante Virtual Soundcard (DVS). Each Dante MY16-AUD card comes with a code to obtain a license for DVS. You will also need to have install suitable software to record from. Waves Audio Tracks Live is a suitable free application, available for PC and Mac. It is simple, can arm all channels to record with a single button press and can switch between stereo output and multi-channel output with a single click.

 

On the CL and QL this is easy as you can modify the dante patching from the console. Using an LS9 you have to have a computer running the Dante Controller software to make these changes.

 

Note: A dante transmitter can simultaneously transmit to multiple receivers, a receiver can only receive from one transmitter at a time.

 

With your PC/Mac connected to the Dante network start DVS and select mode 32:32 when prompted. Your PC/Mac will appear as a Dante device. Using the matrix patch the 32 transmitters from the Rio to go to the receivers of your DVS. Note they should also be sending to the 2 cards on the LS9. This is now configured to send the Rio inputs to your PC/Mac as well as the desk.

 

Save the Dante configuration in the controller software. E.g. "Dante config Rio-LS9-Recording"

 

For playback, you need to configure the transmitter outputs of the PC/Mac DVS to the inputs of the MY16-AUD cards in the LS9. This will steal the patch to the desk from the Rio.

 

Note: If you are using Tracks Live, when channels are armed for recording and multi-channel playback is configured, it will pass the input channels to the desk.

 

Save this configuration within the Dante controller on you PC/Mac. E.g. "Date config Rio-LS9-Playback"

 

Now you can record the sound check by loading the "Dante config Rio-LS9-Recording" and then playback for virtual sound check using the "Date config Rio-LS9-Playback" config.

 

I hope this has been useful to someone. If anyone has ideas to improve this guide, let me know and I'll edit it.