Old 02-27-2021, 04:55 AM   #1
BEHOLD
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 03:16 AM   #2
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 08:58 AM   #3
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 09:59 AM   #4
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 10:20 AM   #5
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 11:15 AM   #6
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Yeah, the OP hasn't "articulated" their requirement for NAS. Is why I raised the point.
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 01:04 PM   #7
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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.
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Old 03-01-2021, 01:35 PM   #8
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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.
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