Dear Agustin&Leo,
question regarding Redundancy setup: If I’m running two Ableton/Ableset instances/Laptops in sync via Ablenet. Does Ableset/-net detect automatically if the first system is not working properly and is able to switch to the second one?
Application:
Behringer Wing. Laptop 1 is connected via Stageconnect to Wing with 16 in/out. Laptop 2 is connected via USB to the Wing. Ive got two snippets in the Wing, each defining the routing either Stageconnect to the correct signal path, or USB to the correct path. Wing is in network, and I could trigger switching from snippet 1 to snippet 2 via OSC command.
So if Ableset is able to detect that Laptop 1 is not working correctly, it could trigger an osc command send via network to the wing, which automatically switches to snippet 2, thereby changing the routing to the laptop connected via USB.
Hope that was clear….
Any idea for this? Would be a very cheap and easy way to have full and automatic redundancy if this would work….
Best,
Sebastian
Hey @Sebastian,
There are a couple of important things to clarify about how AbleNet and redundancy work in AbleSet:
AbleNet itself doesn’t detect system failures. Its job is to keep both computers in sync (playback, navigation, settings) and to automatically redirect remote devices (like an iPad) to the other host if the connected one goes offline. But the actual failure detection and audio switching is handled entirely by the audio interface.
AbleSet currently integrates with these redundant audio interfaces that have built-in failover detection:
- iConnectivity (PlayAUDIO12, PlayAUDIO1U, PlayAUDIO2U)
- DirectOut (EXBOX.MD, PRODIGY, MAVEN, ANDIAMO)
- DAD (Core256, AX64, AX Center)
These interfaces listen for a detection signal (like a pilot tone or BLDS) from both computers and automatically switch to the backup when the main signal drops. AbleSet can then read the current scene from the interface and react accordingly (e.g., switching which host a remote device follows).
The Behringer Wing is not currently supported as a redundant audio interface in AbleSet, so there’s no built-in way for AbleSet to detect a failure on Laptop 1 and trigger an OSC command to the Wing to switch snippets automatically.
You can also see the full AbleNet and audio interface setup in action in the official tutorial.
Hope that helps!
Hey Agustin,
okay, thanks - got it, the most reliable way to detect a failure is obviously monitoring at the output stage if signal is flowing correctly.
However I thought if there is a way to come at least close by monitoring within ableset. Ableset seems to “see” signal e.g. in the mixer page as well, so I though one could make ableset to “hear” for a) sinewave audio signal or similar, and realize if the sinewave plugin is sending signal correcty, and b) the correct connection of both computers via ethernet. In case one fails send a specific osc command to make the Wing switch to a specific snippet with different inputs.
Obviously that has some degree of uncertainty as giving the computer the role of detecting computer failure is kind of circular, but I thought as there are two instances of ableset running this could work 
And this would be a kind of universal way to indicate the user a potential problem, at least with a message like “sinewave signal from Laptop A was lost” or similar to indicate an Ableton problem independent from the network connection (right now its only “connection lost”).
Hey @Sebastian,
I don’t think reading volume meters from within AbleSet is a good indicator of whether Live is currently working as expected. If the sine wave drops, that often means Live’s audio processing thread is lagging/hanging, which would also mean AbleSet won’t receive updates on the volume meter of the sine wave track anymore and won’t know that the sine wave dropped.
Live could also be working as expected but there might be other causes for audio dropping out, like StageConnect losing connection to your computer intermittently, which AbleSet wouldn’t be able to catch either.
This is why having an external device like a redundant audio interface or an EXBOX.MD for monitoring the output is crucial.
I hope that makes sense