The Merging Technologies VAD Premium RAVENNA/AES67 driver is a low cost way to use a Mac as a dedicated Dolby Atmos Renderer workstation in a Dante environment. Note that this configuration is meant to be used with the Dolby LTC Generator plug-in or equivalent on DAW output 128 typically at 48kHz.

The VAD Premium can be purchased directly from this link. It is highly recommend to read the macOS configuration guide linked on that page.

Further details on configuring the VAD Premium with the Dolby Atmos Renderer is in the Installation and Configuration Guide.

The information provided below is not intended to be a replacement for other resources but will get you up and running.

The basic steps are:

• Install and License the VAD Premium Driver
• Connect an recommended Network Interface to the Mac and Dante Network
• Configure the Network Interface in the Merging Ravenna/AES 67 settings panel in System Preferences
• Set the DAW and Monitoring Dante devices to AES 67 in the Dante Controller application available from Audinate.
• Create multicast transmit flows for the 128 outputs from the DAW Dante device in the Dante Controller application
• Launch the Ravenna/AES 67 advanced setting web page from the setting panel in System Preferences
• Configure the VAD inputs (Session Sinks) using the multicast flows from the DAW
• Configure the VAD outputs multicast flows (Session Sources) for the number of outputs required from the Renderer
• Route/subscribe the VAD outputs multicast flows to the Monitoring and/or DAW Dante devices in the Dante Controller application
• Set the Renderer input and output device to Merging RAVENNA/AES67 in the Renderer preferences

 

Installation + Setup:

Download and install the Merging RAVENNA/AES 67 VAD Premium

-Installation required physical power cycle to allow kernel extension on M1

Open System Preferences in MacOS and click on Merging Ravenna/AES67 icon to open Merging RAVENNA/AES67 Settings

Active and enable VAD Premium license and select RAV/AES67 Tab 



Note that the interface will blink red if no other Merging hardware is detected. This is normal and not a problem.

Connect and configure the Ethernet adapter

The Sonnet Thunderbolt AVB ethernet adapter is required. Note: the Sonnet Adapter will be displayed as the Broadcom NetXtreme in the Network Adapter panel of the Merging RAVENNA/AES67 Settings.

In Advance Settings set “Latency” to 10ms (480)

Set Sample rate to 48Khz, Inputs to 128 and Outputs to 128

Make sure to mark checkboxes Safe Mode and Follow DoP detection
 

Set the DAW and Monitoring Dante devices to AES 67

-Open Dante Controller

-Ensure Devices are set to AES67 Mode (may require reboot)

Create multicast transmitter flows for the 128 outputs from the DAW Dante device.

-Make a note of the channels assigned to each flow (flow order is usually reverse of channel order)



Launch the Ravenna/AES 67 advanced setting web page from the setting panel in System Preferences

-In Merging settings, double click computer icon (or right click and select Open Advanced Page) to open the VAD device in a browser

Configure the VAD inputs (Session Sinks) using the multicast flows from the DAW

-Navigate to the Session Sinks tab and create 16 new sinks. Rename them to the corresponding input channels

-For each sink, select the corresponding flow from the source selection drop down
-Verify that each sink is connected to the corresponding CoreAudio channels



Configure the VAD outputs multicast flows (Session Sources) for the number of outputs required from the Renderer

-Navigate to the Session Sources tab

-Configure an output stream ensuring the second octet of the multicast IP address is 69 to match the default setting on Dante devices.

-Create 8 configurations with Channel Count 16 and click Apply 


 

-Assign each 16 channels subsets to corresponding output like in following screenshot:

-Output channels 1-16 to output CoreAudio Output 1-16

-Output channels 17-32 to output CoreAudio Output 17-32 and so on



Route/subscribe the VAD outputs multicast flows to the Monitoring and/or DAW Dante devices in the Dante Controller application
 

- In the Dante Controller application, navigate to top menu Devices>Devices View and select the Monitoring or DAW Dante device

- Navigate to Receive tab and subscribe Session Sources (Outputs) from Available channels list to Receive Channels list by moving set of 16 channels to corresponding channels:

- Output 1-16 to Receive Channels 1-16

- Output 17-32 to Receive Channels 17-32 and so on



Set the Renderer input and output device to Merging RAVENNA/AES67 in the Renderer preferences