Audio-Technica Mic Networking Considerations

Audio-Technica

The Audio-Technica ATND971, ATND8677 and ATND8734 enabled microphone makes use of a dedicated Dante mic Component processing object in Tesira software.

Audio-Technica Dante mic Networking Details

The Audio-Technica Dante enabled microphones have some unique requirements which must be observed for use on the Dante network. Currently the ATND971, ATND8677 and ATND8734 are supported by Tesira.

Latency Settings

Users are required to use Dante Controller to change the network latency settings of the Audio-Technica Dante mic as needed to match Tesira, as such, they are beholden to the range of latencies allowed in Tesira (1 or 2 ms for Dante as configured in the Network_Latency section of the Document Settings in the Tools Menu). Tesira software provides no interface for changing the audio latency for an Audio-Technica Dante mic. An interface for changing the latency for the Dante mic is found in Audinate’s Dante Controller software.

Slave

An Audio-Technica Dante mic will always be a “slave to external word clock” device in the Dante network, referencing the Tesira DAN-1 clock.

IP Addresses

The network IP address of the Audio-Technica Dante mic can be modified using Audinate’s Dante Controller software.

Tesira Hardware Requirements and Compiler Implications

Dante mic Input Blocks may only be placed into SERVER and SERVER-IO's that contain a DAN-1 card. Block functionality depends on the ability to communicate with the ATND971, ATND8677 or ATND8734 mic over the Dante network.

The compiler will track each Dante mic Input block channel as a Receiver channel used on one of the DAN-1 cards in that server, in the same way it tracks channel usage for Dante Input and Output Blocks. Each Dante mic block channel will be assigned to a Dante DAN-1 card during compilation. The network settings of the assigned DAN-1, and the network settings of the Dante mics on the network, will dictate which mics may be assigned to that block channel from Dante Controller.

Number of microphones per Dante Card

The Dante API is used to implement a conmon (Con(trol)/Mon(itoring)) subscription between the Tesira Server device and the Audio-Technica Dante microphone. A maximum of 32 Dante mic channels can be assigned to any individual DAN-1 card and 16 Dante mics to a TesiraFORTÉ Dante enabled device, although, if AEC processing were to be required, this would exceed the number of available AEC channels. As the Audio-Technica mic processing block is allowed to be up to 64 channels in size (depending on the Equipment Type selected in the Initialization dialog), the compiler will allocate this to two DAN-1 cards in a single SERVER-IO chassis. A maximum of 32 channels are available per Dante enabled TesiraFORTÉ.

Locate

This feature allows the user to locate the physical microphone. When pressed, the LEDs on the microphone flash. Pressing and releasing the User Switch on the microphone will stop the flashing of the LEDs and return the value of Locate to false.

Block incompatibility with other Dante devices

It is expected that the user will route the correct Dante transmitter channel to the Dante mic input block channel in the Tesira Server. However, when using Dante Controller software the user has the ability to route any Dante transmitter channel to the Dante mic Input Block receiver in the Tesira SERVER or SERVER IO, including one from a non-Audio-Technica Dante device. The firmware will dynamically discover the manufacturer name and model for the Dante devices transmitting to the Dante mic Input block channels and validate accordingly. If any non-Dante mic (ATND971, ATND8677 or ANTD8734) transmitters are discovered, or if the Dante mic component object contains a different mic selection that the mic model being used the firmware will take the following actions:

Raise a minor fault "Unsupported device routed to Dante mic channel. Route an appropriate device using Dante Controller". Please refer to the System Status and Fault Reporting section for more details.
Mute audio for the affected channel(s)
Inhibit using Tesira’s Dante API to send further commands to the device. Note that Block attributes may still be changed, however, the changes will not have any effect until a supported device’s output flows to that block channel.
Publish “<invalid device>” to deviceName attribute subscribers. The “Device Name” field in the software control dialog will display this string. Please refer to the System Status and Fault Reporting section for more details.

The user recovers from the “<invalid device>” state by using Audinate’s Dante Controller to re-route that channel’s source from a device compatible with the block.

Note

Connecting one Audio-Technica Dante mic to multiple Tesira Dante mic inputs is not allowed.

Tesira firmware only supports routing any single Audio-Technica Dante mic transmitter to one Dante mic block channel. Fan-out (routing one transmitter to many receivers) on the Dante network is not supported for the Audio-Technica Dante mic.

Tesira firmware will mute duplicate input channels and deactivate their control functions.
Also, a minor fault will be raised: “Unsupported Dante mic fanout detected”. Please refer to the System Status and Fault Reporting section for more details.

The user recovers from this state by removing the fanout by rerouting in Dante Controller. The user may also look in the <deviceName> fields of the control dialog to see which channels are offending.