Envelop (https://envelop.us/) is a great plugin that lets us use the 12 channel audio system we have in the audio room as a simple spatial/ambisonic sound setup through Ableton. This guide lets you get setup on the HELIOS computer that is stationed in the sound room.
A first time setup can take approximately 20 minutes, while it can go as quickly as 5 minutes once you know what you’re doing.
The Envelop plugin expects the 12 channels to be setup as stereo audio pairs in Ableton, so we need to take some steps to ensure that all of the audio channels are mapped as virtual outputs in the computer. The sound room uses a Dante audio network to control the 12 speakers, so we have to route the audio through Dante Virtual Soundcard with the RME Digiface Dante.
The steps will be:
We will need to locate 3 things:
Connect these as shown in the diagram to the right. The Dante Network Switch might also be plugged into more things (the Ferrofish Pulse 16 and/or MELIAE), these should stay plugged in as well.
graph TD
A[HELIOS] <-- USB --> B[Digiface Dante]
B <-- Ethernet --> C[Dante Network Switch]
C <-- Ethernet --> A
Open RME TotalMix on HELIOS if it is not already open. The button is located in the system tray in the bottom right.
The RME Totalmix software looks like the screenshot below.
On the right side, under the “snapshots” section, click on the rectangle to the left of the Dante Passthrough snapshot. It should become highlighted blue.
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Open Dante Virtual Soundcard if it is not already. There should be a shortcut on the desktop or it can be accessed via the Start menu.
Ensure that it is enabled. If it is, the button in the bottom right will read “Stop” and the dropdowns will be greyed out.
If the button in the bottom right reads “Start”, click start to enable DVS.
Open Dante Controller if it is not already. There should be a shortcut on the desktop or it can be accessed via the Start menu.
