Waves SoundGrid Systems

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MikeQuell
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Waves SoundGrid Systems

Post by MikeQuell » November 25th, 2014, 11:51 pm

I was browsing Waves' website in the wake of Black Friday and I noticed that they now offer "SoundGrid Systems." This setup is new to me and I was wondering if anyone was actually utilizing it. It seems the plug-ins cost 50% more just to have it "SoundGrid" compatible. I'm very ignorant but it just makes me think of Avid and the potential hardware black hole it could eventually lead to.

http://www.waves.com/soundgrid-systems

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studio13
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Re: Waves SoundGrid Systems

Post by studio13 » January 16th, 2015, 2:16 pm

In 2006 I bought two Waves APA32 rack mount units essentially the predecessors to SoundGrid. What a friggin' waste of money. But it was a different time in computing where radical gains in desktop performance were happening every 6 months. I had these things connected to a Mac G4 running ProTools 6 with 2 TDM cards and Waves 5. Gosh it seems so silly now.

However if you're interested in distributed tools and workflows I'm currently using a Focusrite Rednet-5 which by using the Dante audio over ethernet solution allows me to network audio routings between 3 computers. I think waves SoundGrid is just one of many small custom solutions for networked audio systems I think there's a few more out there as well.

If you haven't tried it I recommend using a distributed tools / workflow on more than one computer system. I wince every time I see someone doing 'EVERYTHING' on one box.

DanCostello
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Re: Waves SoundGrid Systems

Post by DanCostello » January 17th, 2015, 11:29 am

I think the advantage of the Soundgrid system is not just that it allows for audio-over-ethernet (lots of systems do that), but that it allows you to offload your plugin processing to an external device. I don't quite know what the benefit of that is in a non-live setting unless you want to run huge sessions and don't want to use a pro tools hardware system.

Studio13, I'm also considering getting some Rednet gear for our studio. Would you mind sharing your opinions on it with me? (PM or off-site is fine)

-Dan.

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