Page 33 - Guildhall School Coverage Book 2020/21

Dante systems over any network infrastructure. Dante Domain Manager organizes a network
into zones called “domains” that each have individual access requirements, making it clear
and easy to know who can access any area of the system. All activity is logged, tagged, and
date-stamped so problems can be quickly identified and solved.

Dante Domain Manager also allows for use across multiple subnets on a single network –
allowing Guildhall to keep its robust network infrastructure intact.

“With Dante Domain Manager we can give access to students in very specific areas, and
without giving them access the rest of the network,” Halpin said. “We use 10 domains to
achieve the separation required, but still have a lot of shared audio channels to provide
feeds of room mics and other inputs to the SSL System T. Support from Audinate EMEA
throughout the project has been incredible, as always.”

“We really are performing together while apart,” Hepple said. “Because of Dante our entire
campus is now one big studio. We have 70 more live performances planned in the coming
months, available to watch online for free at www.gsmd.ac.uk/autumn_2020. Everything
from live music to dramatic performances will be enabled by this Dante workflow. The faculty
is emotional seeing performances return. The students are excited about this technology and
the creativity it can enable. And the families and friends and fans of the performers get to
see performances again. It’s beautiful what we’ve been able to create with Dante.”

Live Over IP

Back in the USA, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas has utilized
Audinate’s Dante in its music and sound recording technology programs since 2018. In that
time, Dante has not only become part of the curriculum, but has also enabled many of the
university’s major live productions – including its impressive jazz performances.

But in 2020, Dante took on an additional role for the music department: an enabler of safe
social distancing.

“When we looked at returning to classes in the Fall of 2020, we had to figure out how to hold
music practice with safety considerations related to COVID,” said James F. Adams,
Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Sound Recording Technology at the university.
“We knew we needed to separate students into individual rooms because of the nature of
many of the instruments. And, not surprisingly, it was Dante that came to the rescue.”

The network’s near-zero latency is crucial in live performance. At SFA, keeping the latency
under 7 milliseconds roundtrip across networked rooms allows students to perform in an
isolated space – all while still hearing others in nearly real-time.

“That meant vocalists needed their own room. Woodwind and brass players needed their
own space. But with Dante behind all of our signals in and out of these locations we were
seeing a sub-5 millisecond roundtrip delay in delivery from one room to another. For most
that delay will be imperceptible. And so far, it has worked excellently.”

Adams said the music department had already planned a move into a temporary space at
the start of the 2020 Fall semester. This was due to the planned construction of a new music
facility. The temporary space for the music department — while not a perfect setup for music
— did mean Adams and his team could plan for social distancing from day one of the retrofit.