MTRX Studio with Dante PCIe in a new Mac Pro

[joepopp]

We are considering an interface upgrade.

We need 16 Analog and 16 Digital connections.

Is anyone using the MATRX Studio with a hardware Dante PCIe card only (no DigiLink)?

I saw a thread regarding using the MTRX with DVS only and it appears the latency can be an issue.

Would the HD Native Firewire box be a lower latency option?

We have brand new cheese grater Mac Pros so I would have to adapt from Firewire 2 to 3 is we go with the Native HD box.

[creativecontrol]

Greetings,

I believe you are referring to Thunderbolt 2 and 3. Yes - you can simply use an Apple TB3 -> TB2 adapter to attach HD Native Thunderbolt to a qualified Mac workstation.

DigiLink and Dante (using something like a Focusrite PCIeR card) will give you good latency values. DigiLink can connect 64 channels at any sample rate. The IP Core chipset on the MTRX ST will also support 64 channels at any sample rate.

The Focusrite PCIeR card will work well for this application - however FF has announced that it will never work with new Apple silicon FYI. This may or may not be a concern for you.

DVS - Dante Virtual Soundcard is great for editorial - but not viable for many recording use cases due to latency starting at 4ms.

Using a FF based playback engine (Core Audio) would currently be limited to 32 channels of IO.

HDNTB with a low hardware buffer setting will give you very good latency values.

A new 7,1 machine could use HDX, HDN or HDNTB. HDX and HDN would alleviate the need for external adapters and connections.


best,


Jeff

[joepopp]

Jeff,

Thanks for the fast reply!

Yes I meant Thunderbolt 2 to 3.

[joepopp]

Jeff,
The HD Native PCIe Card has been discontinued correct?

But if I find a used one would the latency be lower than the HDNTB?

Would it be lower than Dante?

[creativecontrol]

You will see nearly identical performance and latency between HDN and HDNTB. I don't have a PCIeR card to test - so I will defer to the others - however I presume the latency is in the same ballpark as HDN and HDNTB.


Jeff

[uptheoctave]

Originally Posted by joepopp

We are considering an interface upgrade.

We need 16 Analog and 16 Digital connections.

Is anyone using the MATRX Studio with a hardware Dante PCIe card only (no DigiLink)?

I saw a thread regarding using the MTRX with DVS only and it appears the latency can be an issue.

Would the HD Native Firewire box be a lower latency option?

We have brand new cheese grater Mac Pros so I would have to adapt from Firewire 2 to 3 is we go with the Native HD box.

Not with the MTRX Studio but I do use the full fat MTRX both with a HDX card for Pro Tools and with a Focusrite PCIE-R card for native.

I get very low latency natively working this way: 1.8ms on output and 3.7ms round trip at 48kHz.

Because with Dante you can send an output to multiple inputs I have set it up so the same sources go to the same channel numbers in each DAW.

The only downsides: you can't have any outboard show up as inserts in both Pro Tools and Logic without rerouting in Dadman or Dante Controller.