SoundGrid is a networking and processing platform audio application made by

Waves Audio Waves Audio Ltd. is an Israeli developer and supplier of professional digital audio signal processing technologies and audio effects, used in recording, mixing, mastering, post production, broadcast, and live sound. The company's corporate headq ...

and developed in cooperation with

DiGiCo DiGiCo is a British company based in Chessington, England that designs, markets, and manufactures Digital mixing console, digital mixing consoles and other audio technologies for the Live sound mixing, live sound, musical theatre, Broadcasting, ...

. It consists of a

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

-based server that runs the SoundGrid environment, compatible plug-ins, a

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

control computer, and an

audio interface An audio interface is a piece of computer hardware that allows the input and output of audio signals to and from a host computer or recording device. Audio interfaces are closely related to computer sound cards, but whereas sound cards are opt ...

for

input/output In computing, input/output (I/O, i/o, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, such as another computer system, peripherals, or a human operator. Inputs a ...

(I/O). It provides a low- latency environment for audio processing on certain hardware audio mixing consoles, e.g., DiGiCo, Allen & Heath, and Yamaha.

Audio

SoundGrid is a proprietary Ethernet Layer 2 protocol and

EtherType EtherType is a two- octet field in an Ethernet frame. It is used to indicate which protocol is encapsulated in the payload of the frame and is used at the receiving end by the data link layer to determine how the payload is processed. The same ...

. It routes audio between networked I/O devices and processes it on plugin servers connected to the same network. The I/O device converts SoundGrid packets to standard audio protocols. It splits output to record on a standard

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW ) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pr ...

(DAW). Using native processing, SoundGrid runs on standard CPUs under a modified

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

(OS). Waves Audio says this provides "predictability, stability, and low latency," previously exclusive to dedicated DSP-based systems. Separate computers provide SoundGrid processing: * One or more SoundGrid servers are dedicated to audio processing in a customized Linux OS optimized for audio processing. * A Windows or Mac computer runs SoundGrid Host, the host application, and the user interface. Audio interfaces with SoundGrid by integrating a SoundGrid-programmed

FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a type of configurable integrated circuit that can be repeatedly programmed after manufacturing. FPGAs are a subset of logic devices referred to as programmable logic devices (PLDs). They consist of a ...

(

Xilinx Xilinx, Inc. ( ) was an American technology and semiconductor company that primarily supplied programmable logic devices. The company is renowned for inventing the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA). It also pioneered ...

Spartan 3) into a mixing console's I/O ports. The FPGA receives I2S or other audio signal formats and converts them to the SoundGrid format. The FPGA also transfers control external messages between control nodes.

Control software

SoundGrid audio processing, system configuration, and monitoring are controlled by the SuperRack (previously MultiRack) SoundGrid control application, which runs on Windows and Mac computers, including embedded systems. SuperRack SoundGrid displays rows of virtual plugin chains, named Racks, each of which chains up to eight Waves plugins. A Rack processes audio from a user-selected input and sends the processed output to a user-selected output. SuperRack SoundGrid offers remote parameter control and navigation over

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

or an inter-application API by integrating with the console's host application.

Scalability

Users can configure SoundGrid systems and expand them by adding I/O or processing devices.

References

{{Reflist Broadcast engineering Ethernet Audio network protocols Digital audio

Audio

Control software

Scalability

See also

References