Old 02-27-2021, 04:55 AM   #1
BEHOLD
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 31
Default Recording Directly to the Network

Has anyone done this? How does this work? Do I have the right idea?

I understand ReaMote and it's uses. I don't want help with VST load.

I'm thinking of it in this manner: Jazz Big Band

About 40-50 Mics', each could have some effects(VST).
Maybe some routing through some analog gear.

Host machine is plenty fast and capable, maybe an audio interface card @ 0.5ms or 1ms latency. Low samples. Maybe a 20GbE, 40GbE, or 50GbE NIC. The RME MADI FX says about 2.5Gb/s Line Speed (PCI-e).

Possible configurations:
Host Machine ---> Direct 50GbE NIC to NIC ----> Slave/NAS/Backup
Host Machine ---> 50GbE Switch ----> Slave/NAS/Backup

Now when I press record with every track armed. Let's say, 50 total tracks. Let's say Reaper's configured path happens to be:

//Network//SLAVE-PC//RECORDINGS//

Will the Slave PC/NAS require a World-Clock card to sync the MADI FX/interface? Is that the proper usage?

There is obviously going to be some level of added latency, I'm assuming saving directly to another PC over a network.

Does Reaper have the ability even when given proper permissions to create a folder structure over the network? (I'm not in much of a position to test this myself)

Say theoretically record 5-10minutes of a piece/frequency content to both machines at the same time, render it directly to the host machine. Open the project from the SLAVE PC, over the network, and render it again directly to the host machine. Will there be a difference in the information without a World Clock sync? With a World Clock sync?

The idea is I want the HOST MACHINE to be dedicated to processing and a network SLAVE for direct storage of all WAV information.

Anyone who can help me wrap my head around this idea would be appreciated. Overall, I don't want to have to run a script to back-up over the network, taxing my processing computer. I'd like to just save directly to a SLAVE, with the timings all correct.

Is there a better way than Ethernet/Fiber/etc? If the Master is Windows, will it bottleneck like File Transfer over Ethernet bottlenecks? Or does Reaper circumvent this?

I know there is a lot asked here, any help is appreciated. I'm far from an Audio Eng expert, maybe someone with experience recording large groups with the right knowledge can clear this up.
BEHOLD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 03:16 AM   #2
jrk
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,969
Default

I don't see any reason why you couldn't set the recording path to a directory on NAS. That's for the OS to sort out.
Your problem is going to be the NAS bandwidth. How many tracks you can push across this will depend on their bitrate.

I've not done it, but latest NAS should, in theory, be capable of doing what you want. It's used for video, after all.

That said, I can't see there's any particular advantage to it. Disk I/O workload is somewhat separate from audio processing. And besides, your HOST still has handle the data - even if it's now moving it to the network rather than a local drive.

Where I could see an advantage is the case where you have a machine dedicated to recording, and another for mixing. Or where the NAS is a big "secure" RAID thing, with automated backups / a team of cheerful ops staff.
__________________
it's meant to sound like that...

Last edited by jrk; 03-01-2021 at 03:35 AM.
jrk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 08:58 AM   #3
BEHOLD
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 31
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jrk View Post
I don't see any reason why you couldn't set the recording path to a directory on NAS. That's for the OS to sort out.
Your problem is going to be the NAS bandwidth. How many tracks you can push across this will depend on their bitrate.

I've not done it, but latest NAS should, in theory, be capable of doing what you want. It's used for video, after all.

That said, I can't see there's any particular advantage to it. Disk I/O workload is somewhat separate from audio processing. And besides, your HOST still has handle the data - even if it's now moving it to the network rather than a local drive.

Where I could see an advantage is the case where you have a machine dedicated to recording, and another for mixing. Or where the NAS is a big "secure" RAID thing, with automated backups / a team of cheerful ops staff.
Right, regular Windows 10 Pro file transfer is capped. Another question that comes to mind, is how is Reaper writing to disk? Would it act similarly writing over ethernet?

I have no clue what settings/configuration would cap that kind of throughput and require higher end Ethernet hardware. Or if gigabit could still get the job done. I'll have to do some recording with the system monitor up along with the reaper monitor.

If my question was to wordy: Would the receiving machine require a World Clock pci-e to compensate via link to the host?

I'm thinking of 2 machines.
1) Powerful, Audio Interface, Less but Fast storage. VSTs, Samples, Mixing, Recording.
2) Efficient, Archiving/Backup, More Storage.

Attempting to be more concise for others:
"Default Recording Path" to the network device/server/nas
"Default Project Path" to the Network Device/server/nas
"Default Render Path" = Network device/server/nas

Does it add unwanted latency? With high end networking devices, where would be possible bottlenecks?

Just want some form of boujee setup I can just wake up, hit record once. 10 hours later. Hit stop. Repeat. However it just dawned on me, Reaper waits until it is done recording to render. Which, still isn't a big deal and the 'default record path' should still be utilized.
BEHOLD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 09:59 AM   #4
jrk
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,969
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by BEHOLD View Post
Right, regular Windows 10 Pro file transfer is capped. Another question that comes to mind, is how is Reaper writing to disk? Would it act similarly writing over ethernet?
I've no idea. I guess Reaper uses regular system calls.
Bandwidth / throughput / latency would be something to check with the NAS vendor.

P.S. If you want to record a mix (render) while the tracks are recording you probably want to "Record Live Output to disk" (that's Ctrl-Alt-B by default)
You don't need to do a separate render step.

Although there will be a bunch of prompts waiting for you to save the files....
Unless you disable the prompt in Prefs.
__________________
it's meant to sound like that...

Last edited by jrk; 03-01-2021 at 10:12 AM.
jrk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 10:20 AM   #5
tspring
Human being with feelings
 
tspring's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Eastern shore of Maryland, USA
Posts: 1,484
Default

Why do you need an NAS? Why not an internal SSD for samples and the like and a multi terabyte inernal hard drive or two for streaming tracks for storage? Seems like you could avoid lots of uncertainty and possible bottlenecks using local storage, unless there’s some constraint that you have not articulated.
tspring is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 11:15 AM   #6
jrk
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,969
Default

Yeah, the OP hasn't "articulated" their requirement for NAS. Is why I raised the point.
ICYMI
Quote:
I can't see there's any particular advantage to it. Disk I/O workload is somewhat separate from audio processing. And besides, your HOST still has handle the data - even if it's now moving it to the network rather than a local drive.
__________________
it's meant to sound like that...
jrk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 01:04 PM   #7
BEHOLD
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 31
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by jrk View Post
I've no idea. I guess Reaper uses regular system calls.
Bandwidth / throughput / latency would be something to check with the NAS vendor.

P.S. If you want to record a mix (render) while the tracks are recording you probably want to "Record Live Output to disk" (that's Ctrl-Alt-B by default)
You don't need to do a separate render step.

Although there will be a bunch of prompts waiting for you to save the files....
Unless you disable the prompt in Prefs.
This is interesting and a functionality I was unsure of. I'll look over the manual on this one because I was un-aware of that use-case.

I felt like I was clear enough. There's no need to articulate WHY I need, when it's just a question of reaper's core and networked use cases. Just thought maybe someone along the way thought of something similar.

If I can archive/save every nonsense lick for 10 years. Why not? If I use 3 machines to achieve it, so be it. Upgrade one machine every couple years. Let the others just work horse and store data. Do some wake-on-lan type configurations.
BEHOLD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 01:35 PM   #8
jrk
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,969
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by BEHOLD View Post
I felt like I was clear enough. There's no need to articulate WHY I need, when it's just a question of reaper's core and networked use cases. Just thought maybe someone along the way thought of something similar.
The reason you tell the folks you're asking for help why you think you need a particular solution, is that they might have a better way of solving the problem than you've thought of. If it's just a question of archiving, then tspring's suggestion is good. If you want safety copies on a different machine, then there are loads of backup solutions that would work. Including ones that will save to NAS.

All the best.
__________________
it's meant to sound like that...
jrk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 03:29 PM   #9
tspring
Human being with feelings
 
tspring's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Eastern shore of Maryland, USA
Posts: 1,484
Default

Sorry if my question seemed intrusive. I was just trying to understand why you mentioned needing a world clock if all you were trying to do is archive tracks on the second machine as your description seemed to imply. I have found it’s never a good idea to give advice/info when you don’t understand the situation.

Well obviously I didn’t read the thread carefully enough, as on re-reading it is fairly clear that you want to do something akin to mirroring the hard drive on your primary machine to the secondary machine. Have I got that right?

T

Last edited by tspring; 03-01-2021 at 04:24 PM.
tspring is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-01-2021, 07:15 PM   #10
BEHOLD
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 31
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tspring View Post
Sorry if my question seemed intrusive. I was just trying to understand why you mentioned needing a world clock if all you were trying to do is archive tracks on the second machine as your description seemed to imply. I have found it’s never a good idea to give advice/info when you don’t understand the situation.

Well obviously I didn’t read the thread carefully enough, as on re-reading it is fairly clear that you want to do something akin to mirroring the hard drive on your primary machine to the secondary machine. Have I got that right?

T
Well. I'm making something more technical than it needs to be, but with purpose.

Machine 1, does the heavy lifting. Audio processing. Midi.

Machine 2 would just be where the file is actually located aside from locally.

I think unless I'm running another version of Reaper on the Target, Machine 2. I wouldn't require a world clock. That being said. IF I am recording directly to a networked server. Is it adding latency that WOULD NOT be there if I just saved/rendered/cached locally on Machine 1. Another question I implied (poorly) was if Reaper automatically compensated for such a configuration.
BEHOLD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-02-2021, 06:41 AM   #11
tspring
Human being with feelings
 
tspring's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Eastern shore of Maryland, USA
Posts: 1,484
Default

Lets assume that secondary computer is a typical off-the-shelf NAS, and that your goal is simply to write directly to it from Reaper. According to what I have read, transfer rates to this typical NAS will be about half of what you would expect when writing to a local hard drive. And obviously a local SSD would be faster still. But it is not clear to me how this would effect latency unless the size of buffers used by Reaper had to be increased as a result of the lower transfer rate. If you are simply streaming your tracks to a NAS type system, latency shouldn't be an issue anyway.
One other question to consider is whether writing directly over the network increases vulnerability to problems. My own personal experiences suggest that it might, but I have had to deal with some pretty crappy networks.

There is software that would allow any standard PC to serve as a rather advanced NAS. Would that sort of setup suit your needs? Or would a shared network W10 folder (no need for NAS software) on your secondary PC be better?

T

Last edited by tspring; 03-02-2021 at 10:31 AM. Reason: Clarify quesrion
tspring is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2021, 12:14 AM   #12
BEHOLD
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 31
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tspring View Post
Lets assume that secondary computer is a typical off-the-shelf NAS, and that your goal is simply to write directly to it from Reaper. According to what I have read, transfer rates to this typical NAS will be about half of what you would expect when writing to a local hard drive. And obviously a local SSD would be faster still. But it is not clear to me how this would effect latency unless the size of buffers used by Reaper had to be increased as a result of the lower transfer rate. If you are simply streaming your tracks to a NAS type system, latency shouldn't be an issue anyway.
One other question to consider is whether writing directly over the network increases vulnerability to problems. My own personal experiences suggest that it might, but I have had to deal with some pretty crappy networks.

There is software that would allow any standard PC to serve as a rather advanced NAS. Would that sort of setup suit your needs? Or would a shared network W10 folder (no need for NAS software) on your secondary PC be better?

T
The whole question I'm asking is completely hypothetical. I'm comfortable enough with computers and networking I could slap together a linux box with a 100Gbe NIC to gobble up all the data I can throw at it.

I think my limitation is Windows as a Reaper host. Unless Reaper comes with some extra custom file transfer, Windows would probably hold back all the throughput. I'd probably have to ask a dev.

I was just thinking, maybe I could keep my windows machine separate from my recordings with something far more formidable and stable, just for longevity sake. Preservation and archiving. While, using Windows for Reaper, for VST/software compatibility.

Came across these:
https://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/s...0-overview.htm

I've always been big on RAID 0 configurations. It got me thinking, where would it benefit most? Could I put this on a Linux box, slap a fatty NIC in it and just do everything over ethernet.

EDIT:
Or I would have to use Win Server 2019.

Last edited by BEHOLD; 03-03-2021 at 12:32 AM.
BEHOLD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2021, 07:46 AM   #13
tspring
Human being with feelings
 
tspring's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Eastern shore of Maryland, USA
Posts: 1,484
Default

My guess is that you know more about networking than I do. But I too am interested in the theoretical problem that you pose. You mentioned recording 50 channels simultaneously. Assuming 50 channels with 48kHz sampling rate and bit depth of 32 bits, this would mean that you would need to send about 77 megabits/sec over ethernet to your network storage device wouldn't it? That doesn't seem to me that it would stress either Windows 10 or a gigabit NIC. What am I missing?

T
tspring is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2021, 10:30 AM   #14
jrk
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,969
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tspring View Post
you would need to send about 77 megabits/sec over ethernet to your network storage device wouldn't it?
That is it, isn't it? Even a budget off the shelf item should cope. And if the round trip time is under 5ms (i.e. on the same LAN segment, to be safe, perhaps? Not cloud-based anyhoo) you'll be golden. Probably.
I still don't see the point.
__________________
it's meant to sound like that...

Last edited by jrk; 03-03-2021 at 10:56 AM.
jrk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2021, 10:11 PM   #15
BEHOLD
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 31
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by tspring View Post
My guess is that you know more about networking than I do. But I too am interested in the theoretical problem that you pose. You mentioned recording 50 channels simultaneously. Assuming 50 channels with 48kHz sampling rate and bit depth of 32 bits, this would mean that you would need to send about 77 megabits/sec over ethernet to your network storage device wouldn't it? That doesn't seem to me that it would stress either Windows 10 or a gigabit NIC. What am I missing?

T
I'm lacking in the audio department, the theoretical conversion helped connect the dots. I wasn't sure how much would be sent in a given scenario.


I'll have to set up something and tinker with it myself. Seems like pulling recordings down over the Ethernet within Reaper might cause some playback delay.

Do you know if Reaper stores .wavs of the current project in memory? Or accesses it each time from playback?

I'm leaning now towards something local then, and back it up with a script every couple hours/evening over Ethernet.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jrk View Post
That is it, isn't it? Even a budget off the shelf item should cope. And if the round trip time is under 5ms (i.e. on the same LAN segment, to be safe, perhaps? Not cloud-based anyhoo) you'll be golden. Probably.
I still don't see the point.
Well, if I'm recording. I don't really want to tax the system at the wrong time with an automated back-up. My scripting knowledge is limited, in my mind it would be easier to backup a storage device than the system doing the recording. I guess a sort of end-of-session/system shutdown script would be nice in this use case. A basic ATX motherboard tends to have it's limitations, nvme, sata. Just considering options for long-term permanence of media.

Last edited by BEHOLD; 03-03-2021 at 10:23 PM.
BEHOLD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-04-2021, 01:58 AM   #16
jrk
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,969
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by BEHOLD View Post
Well, if I'm recording. I don't really want to tax the system at the wrong time with an automated back-up.
You must sleep sometime?
__________________
it's meant to sound like that...
jrk is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 04:08 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.