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Old 09-06-2016, 07:59 AM   #1
Mr. PC
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Default Using a remote-desktop to control Reaper DAW

So I've been forever trying ways to use Linux as my main OS, and be able to also run Windows for Reaper at the same time.

Now I'm thinking... what if I buy a cheapo laptop, and just use TeamViewer or remote-desktop to control my DAW computer. This would be great, as my DAW computer is hot and loud.

The only problem is my audio-interface / headphone amp would need to be connected to the computer running Reaper, right?

Is there any way to do this?

Computer 1 -> Windows, Reaper, VSTi etc.
Computer 2 -> Linux, controlling computer Computer 1 using some remote-desktop. Audio out-put through Audio-interface.

The other problem would be the audio-monitoring quality... but there's no audible difference between wav and HQ mp3, so maybe it's fine for audio to pass through the wireless network as mp3.

So... maybe I need to own 2 audio interfaces? 1 to give me native-ASIO drivers, and one to drive my headphones for monitoring?
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Old 09-06-2016, 01:07 PM   #2
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I'm using ultravnc to remote-control another win pc (win pc to win pc) and am using audio-over-ip and midi-over-ip to make the two appear as an aggregate music production setup, simply connected via one cat6 cable - no special interfaces. Works flawlessly and extremely stable.

Have a look at Audinate's Dante Via and rtpMIDI.
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Old 09-07-2016, 06:40 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SonicAxiom View Post
I'm using ultravnc to remote-control another win pc (win pc to win pc) and am using audio-over-ip and midi-over-ip to make the two appear as an aggregate music production setup, simply connected via one cat6 cable - no special interfaces. Works flawlessly and extremely stable.

Have a look at Audinate's Dante Via and rtpMIDI.
Great! But I'm wondering, a Cat6 cable must have more bandwidth than WIFI, do you think this will be a problem?

My idea was to have the Windows computer in another room altogether.
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Old 09-07-2016, 06:59 AM   #4
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to set up a stable network for transmitting audio and/or midi over ethernet you need to use cat6 cabling. Dante is not specified to work over wifi as bandwith and stability of the wifi signal cannot be guaranteed and latency would be inacceptably huge. So, you need to run a cat6 cable from one pc to the other, regardless of where the other pc is located. You could use wifi to remote-control it via ultravnc but as there has to be a cable present anyway wifi doesn't really make sense and will probably slow down operation of the remote pc also.
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Old 09-08-2016, 06:36 AM   #5
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Shoot, is this true for any kind of remote-desktop, or only using Dante?

I don't think Wav audio would need to be transmitted, HQ mp3 is good enough for monitoring. All graphics effects can be disabled.

Having some (audio) latency wouldn't be an issue, how much would it be? 100ms?
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Old 09-08-2016, 06:55 AM   #6
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ultravnc is a tool to remotely access the desktop of a pc (via lan, internet or wifi). you literally sit in front of the desktop of the remote pc and can do anything. But the connection is only graphics, no audio! So it's just for remote-manipulation.

The second part is using networking infrastructure to transmit audio or MIDI. For MIDI, this is very easy and at no cost by using rtpMIDI. For audio-over-ip you'll need some sort of interface, converter or maybe a plugin like ReaStream that allows to stream audio over your local network. The restriction is, that audio-over-ip doesn't (currently) work over wifi due to timing problems (latency) and packet loss (caused by unreliable transmission/reception). Wifi transmission works very well for data where latency is not an issue but not for uncompressed audio that needs to be in absolute sync at 48k or even 96k.

I'm using several Dante-enabled devices. Those have a special LAN socket instead of "normal" audio connectors like ADAT, XLR or SPDIF. Their Dante connector can handle up to 500 channels of uncompressed audio (per direction!) over one cat6 cable. For more insight have a look at https://www.audinate.com and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...work_protocols.

Last edited by SonicAxiom; 11-22-2016 at 09:49 AM.
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Old 11-22-2016, 06:31 AM   #7
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So I'm coming back to this idea again, and it seems WIFI AC is 1300 Mbps, actually 300Mbps faster than Cat 5, so in theory, this should be totally doable over WIFI.

Dante looks nice, but it's Windows only, and I want to control things with a Linux laptop. I never thought it would be possible to pass-through a USB device (so I could have my audio interface connected to the client, and the server would be able to take advantage of the interface drivers? Is that really practical? Or would I be better off just using ASIO4ALL)?

{edit} I just saw you said CAT 6, which is 10 Gbps... so a lot faster than Wifi AC, but maybe 1300 Mbps is still enough for 24bit/48k?
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Old 11-22-2016, 08:01 AM   #8
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{edit} I just saw you said CAT 6, which is 10 Gbps... so a lot faster than Wifi AC, but maybe 1300 Mbps is still enough for 24bit/48k?
Do you have a 10Gb network (meaning all devices, switches, NICs) because if not that spec doesn't have much meaning. CAT5 can do 1 gigabit, it's just not 'certified' for it, meaning it isn't guaranteed to pass that much bandwidth at up to its spec'd maximum length of 100 meters.

As far as wireless bandwidth specs (just like wired specs), they are absolute best case scenario that you'll never actually see in the real world. That doesn't mean don't use CAT6, do use it but it doesn't make anything faster on it's own unless you already have a 10GB network and the CAT5 isn't performing well enough to pass it.
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Old 11-22-2016, 08:58 AM   #9
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CAT6 gigabit in practice is around 650 Mbps one way. With tuning it can do better.

Wifi 1.300 megabit, gives 300 Mbps one way, tops. And it still adds a lot to latency and chances of dropouts. It'll probably work at home and fail in other spots.

It is not the bandwidth, it is timing. And that's called QOS (Quality Of Service). So you need a switch with audio-over-ethernet compatible QOS settings.

OTOH, if there is nothing else on that network (PC-to-PC), without even a router or a switch in between, you can easily get 750 Mbps out of CAT6 with a less than 2 msec added latency. You just need the right network cards. That should be ample bandwidth for 64 channels 48/24.

And audio streaming is cross platform. If you can start a stream on REAPER/Windows, your Linux box can receive it. There's plenty of software around to do that.

I used a similar system years ago, with an old Powerbook G4 to record 8 channels and send these too another Mac. It wasn't with REAPER, tho.

ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) was the remote control app of choice. When controlling a Windows box, I would go for one of the MS Remote Desktop clones. Less messy than VNC, imho.

There's a lot of stuff to read on Ethernet AVB. There is finally some agreement between the industry, the EBU, the AES and a couple of others about a joint, compatible standard, called AES67, that would make machines like the X32 compatible with gear from other manufacturers. As it should be.

First off, there's the AVNU initiative:

http://avnu.org/

Then there is Ravenna, which is a large part of the new protocol:

http://ravenna.alcnetworx.com/techno...t-ravenna.html

And among the first compatible networks, is one from Wheatstone, a broadcast supplier:

http://wheatstone.com/blades-ip-audi...ology-overview

And the new standard is only possible because Ravenna is a mostly open protocol. Dante is closed, so others wanting to implement Dante, will have to pay Audinate for licensing.

There are still others, like Telos, who already have partial compatibility with AES67:

https://www.telosalliance.com/Axia/L...oIP-Networking

Being open doesn't exclude being compatible with closed standards...

And of course there are some smaller projects, like the EBU's ACIP:

http://www.ebu-acip.org/N/ACIP
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Old 11-22-2016, 10:02 AM   #10
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As cyrano stated, bandwith values are theoretical. I did tests with power lan adapters in a Dante network and got it running more or less. The power lan device was advertized to have 1.200 mbits but this bandwith value is a sum of both directions so it is only 600 mbits per direction (and only in theory). In my tests (connection via electric outlets in the same room incl. a cable roll of 10 m) it managed to transmit 2 channels of Dante audio but there were drop-outs constantly and the latency was above 20 ms, thus very close to the maximum latency which Dante allows before a connection is completely rejected.

btw: could this thread be moved into the general discussion forum as it is far from being spam?
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Old 11-23-2016, 09:22 AM   #11
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Quick question/assumption:

If I want to remote desktop from pc to android in close proximity wirelessly, but anywhere, e.g not on internet,
I presume I need to make the pc a hotspot, have android join that network, then I'm good?

Or is there a simpler method I'm missing..

Managed to find a vnc that's low footprint/cpu and want a headless pc to be 'remotable' any place I take it.
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Old 11-23-2016, 08:38 PM   #12
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The answer is yes Ben a hotspot is what is required..
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Old 11-23-2016, 11:29 PM   #13
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You can also do "ad-hoc mode", point to point, with only two devices on the network and no router.

A bit harder to set up, maybe. Both devices need a static ip in the same range and an according netmask.

What you require isn't a hotspot. It's called a router, or an access point. Hotspots typically do a lot more, like billing fi.
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Old 11-24-2016, 05:50 AM   #14
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Ok, cool.

So I only need 1 channel/track of audio.

Basically I'm only sending keystrokes *to* the server, and *receiving* 1920x1080 video and 24bit/48k audio to my laptop. I want to mix in 96k, or even 192k if possible, because I get a lot of aliasing, but I only need to 'hear' 48k, and rather than making the host do extra computational work down-sampling the master out, if there's enough bandwidth for 1080p video and, 24bit/192k audio, without noticeable latency, then my plan is gold.
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Old 11-24-2016, 08:52 AM   #15
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Cheers Cyrano, i have achieved what I wanted by making this pc a hotspot set to no internet sharing, and I just switch my tablet to that network and launch the vnc app, and am away.

is the ad-hoc method likely to be better in terms of memory footprint or cpu ? As I need to keep an eye on that.

Apologies to mr pc for muddying up his Q's..
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Old 11-24-2016, 01:54 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by Mr. PC View Post
Ok, cool.

So I only need 1 channel/track of audio.

Basically I'm only sending keystrokes *to* the server, and *receiving* 1920x1080 video and 24bit/48k audio to my laptop. I want to mix in 96k, or even 192k if possible, because I get a lot of aliasing, but I only need to 'hear' 48k, and rather than making the host do extra computational work down-sampling the master out, if there's enough bandwidth for 1080p video and, 24bit/192k audio, without noticeable latency, then my plan is gold.
Ouch. Back to reality.

A VLC or RDP connection is nothing like you describe. It's a protocol and the video from the server will be encoded - even vectorized in RDP. That saves bandwidth, but costs CPU on the server. It doesn't really matter, it's just to make the distinction from streaming.

I hope you're recording and storing the audio on the server. That was how I was seeing your setup.

But with only 1 channel there shouldn't be any problem streaming that to the client computer, even at 192 kHz.

With REAPER on the server, you could stream with ReaStream and "record" on the other computer with VLC, or REAPER. I've never tried it with REAPER, tho...
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Old 11-24-2016, 02:01 PM   #17
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is the ad-hoc method likely to be better in terms of memory footprint or cpu ? As I need to keep an eye on that.
A little bit.

But I seem to vaguely remember MS has dropped ad-hoc from the latest Windows versions. From Win 8 i believe. Anybody with a better memory? There's probably a workaround for it.

It doesn't make that much difference, but it's simpler, faster and more reliable. With a wired network, it's just settings. With Wifi, it's a special mode. It's more robust, because the stations don't need to watch for packets from other stations.
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Old 11-25-2016, 09:41 AM   #18
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Ouch. Back to reality.

A VLC or RDP connection is nothing like you describe. It's a protocol and the video from the server will be encoded - even vectorized in RDP. That saves bandwidth, but costs CPU on the server. It doesn't really matter, it's just to make the distinction from streaming.

I hope you're recording and storing the audio on the server. That was how I was seeing your setup.

But with only 1 channel there shouldn't be any problem streaming that to the client computer, even at 192 kHz.

With REAPER on the server, you could stream with ReaStream and "record" on the other computer with VLC, or REAPER. I've never tried it with REAPER, tho...
As for recording, I'd likely record onto the laptop, and then save it to a USB, copy it onto the server. I wouldn't record through WIFI.

Mostly I use samples and VSTi.

So... If I just use vanilla RDP, will it 'encode' the audio before transmitting it? I guess it depends which software I use specifically.

But you're saying I should have no problem receiving 1080p, and uncompressed 24b/192k audio over Wifi AC, so there's not really much to worry about?
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