Waves has been a leader in the plug-in technology for both live an studio applications for a long time. Every touring and studio engineer I know has at least one Waves bundle that they know and trust (I've got Gold and the CLA bundle). When they introduced SoundGrid it allowed even more processing power and broader platform access to their extensive plug-in collections.
Now they have gone a step further because Waves has just released what they are calling "The next generation of sound technology". The SoundGrid Studio System looks to provide powerful processing and connectivity for your current DAW. The system takes on all plug-in processing, freeing up your native system, at the same time the system connects your devices on a network accessible to multiple host computers.
The components of the SoundGrid Studio System include the following:
- The SoundGrid Studio Application runs on the host computer managing all software and hardware connected to the SoundGrid network. The system can be as small as single DAW with one SoundGrid I/O but the application can manage an entire network allowing sharing of I/O's between multiple host computers, each running different DAW's while assigning processing power to various available DSP servers.
- The eMotion ST Mixer designed for monitoring and creating headphone mixes. It has eight multipurpose inputs as well as 64 additional StudioRack input channels, two effect buses, six mix busses and a main stereo mix. Users have eight insert slots available for each channel providing low-latency monitoring while using any SoundGrid-compatible Waves or third-party plug-ins.
There are a lot of possibilities here for connecting the audio in your church building across a SoundGrid Studio network.
- StudioRack is a software rack allowing you to create plug-in chains and saving those chains as a single recallable instance. StudioRack is inserted in a given channel in your DAW (like you would with any other plug-in), but inside StudioRack users can have up to eight plug-ins in a given chain. Processing can be assigned to your host CPU or you can utilize SoundGrids processing for power low-latency monitoring while you track.
- The SoundGrid ASIO/Core Audio Driver connects any DAW to the SoundGrid network as a software I/O. This is what allows multiple host computers running different DAW's to access the same I/O and plug-in processing power.
SoundGrid Studio is not intended to replace the existing DAW your church might use; rather it is designed to work with it and give you more power and flexibility. There are a lot of possibilities here for connecting the audio in your church building across a SoundGrid Studio network. Your broadcast room using Logic could access the same inputs on your stage as your recording studio running ProTools. The worship pastor could monitor from his office a recording session happening in church studio on the other side of the building. The churches podcast could be recorded live by multiple host computers in different locations.
The possibilities here are pretty cool.
Another thing I really like here is the potential for this to breathe new life into an older recording system. By taking the weight of plug-in processing off my host CPU, I can get more life out of my recording system. At the same time I'm able to use those same plug-ins in real time with low latency. I took a look at the latency chart provided by Waves and most of the plug-ins latency comes in at 0 or 64 samples. These are great numbers suitable for any studio application.
The SoundGrid Studio is not a software suite that you purchase, rather it is something that you get at no cost with the purchase of various DigiGrid interfaces. The release of this product just gives churches one more reason to take a look at SoundGrid as their solution for audio networking throughout their building. One benefit here is that all audio is processed over Cat5 or Cat6 something that is probably already existing in your current building. Churches looking to make an investment in their infrastructure and longevity of their recording system consider this.
With all of the flexibility of using Waves plug-ins across different host computers and various DAW's my one concern for this product is that by investing so much into one plug-in manufacture a church would be committed to Waves for a long time. Waves has said that the system is open to third party developers so theoretically other plug-in manufacturers could create SoundGrid-compatible software for the system, but only time will tell who else might be interested in joining the party.
I'm also curious about the stability of the system and how quickly host computers, I/O's and DSP processing can be switched back and forth. If I were using this system to track live content Sunday morning I'd want to know these answers and also how to trouble shoot potential problems. For instance, if a host system goes down in the middle of recording how long before a user can switch to another host system on the network? This type of testing would be needed before making the plunge. Looking forward to getting my hands on this system and experiencing the possibilities here.
Waves SoundGrid Studio has just been released so check out more at www.waves.com or call your trusted Waves dealer to find out more.
