Avid Announces new 5.2 Software for its Venue S6L Live Sound Mixer and New Dante Option Card

Things move slowly at Avid, but they move. Announced at Prolight+Sound 2015 in Frankfurt, the DNT-192 Dante Option Card for the Avid Venue S6L digital live sound mixer, is now available one year after the promised shipping date. The Venue S6L started shipping end of 2015 and now receives a new free software update (5.2), which adds support for Dante network connectivity, as required by the industry, apart from several other “highly anticipated” features.
 
Like many other professional audio companies who have supported the AVB audio networking standard, Avid was stuck with an architecture that worked fine for what it was designed to do, but basically failed to excite the audio industry. In some ways, Avid anticipated this scenario and announced early on that its sophisticated Venue S6L live sound mixing platform would support Audinate’s Dante connectivity in order to be compatible with hundreds of other products already in use. In fact, the announcement was made at Prolight+Sound 2015 in Frankfurt and reiterated at NAB 2015, with a Dante option card - as well as a Thunderbolt recording option - promised to ship in the second half of 2015.
 

The Avid Venue 6SL is a sophisticated and fully modular live sound mixing system for front-of-house, monitor, broadcast and theater applications, featuring enough power to easily handle large, complex tours and events. The Venue S6L started shipping at the end of 2015 but apparently some essential options, including a MADI card, have been taking longer than expected to implement. Now, Avid has finally announced some news on that front, with the availability of a new version of software for the S6L live sound system. Enhancements in the Venue 5.2 software update include I/O sharing with Avid True Gain Technology as well as support for the new DNT-192 Option Card. In addition, a free standalone version of Venue 5.2 enables offline work on show files, including preprogram shows, without needing an actual system.

The DNT-192 is a 16-channel audio Dante interface card and is based on Audinate’s Dante Brooklyn II module which, as John Rechsteiner, VP of Global Sales and Support at Audinate states, enables Avid “to connect to the over 800 Dante-enabled products available today.” The card features three Gigabit Ethernet ports (one Control, one Primary, and one Secondary), supports multicast and unicast operation and sampling frequencies up to 192 kHz. The Venue S6L supports up to six Dante cards in a single Stage 64 I/O rack, (each DNT-192 takes two slots) for a maximum total of 64 inputs and 32 outputs per rack and it will work with the free Dante Controller software to configure the system.

I/O sharing and gain tracking enables the sharing of Stage 64 I/O racks across two Venue S6L systems, with automatic gain tracking, reducing I/O and cable requirements, set-up times, and transportation costs. Avid True Gain Technology automatically manages gain compensation to ensure the proper signal levels in each mix, providing all users on the network with the exact same experience, including fully independent control of all input gain levels.

Other enhancements in this 5.2 software update include support for up to four HDX-192 Expansion Cards in the E6L-192 engine, doubling the plug-in processing power of the Venue S6L; the ability to navigate, mix faster and take control of more parameters using the external GUI; and numerous system optimizations and improvements to device connectivity, discovering, pairing and audio signal integrity.
avid.com