Connecting a Behringer Wing to Waves SuperRack Performer

There are productions where a console's built-in tools no longer deliver that last few percent — and that is exactly what SuperRack Performer by Waves is for. With the right card it runs directly in the Wing's signal path: signals out to the computer, through the plug-ins, back into the desk.

The setup is a one-off bit of work and, in several places, anything but self-explanatory. When I set up my own console I found surprisingly little about it online — the pieces are scattered across manuals, forums and support articles, and for connecting SuperRack Performer to the SoundGrid network I couldn't find a single guide that covered the whole path.

Hence this article: the complete route, exactly as I walked it.

Why run Waves on the Wing?

In short: you send signals from the Wing to your Mac over a network card, process them there with Waves plug-ins and send them back into the desk. To the console this looks like an external effects unit — one that happens to contain the entire Waves arsenal.

Why SuperRack in the first place?

Honestly: the Wing ships with very good effects. For the majority of shows you don't need anything on top — and anyone claiming you can't get a good mix without Waves is simply wrong.

It gets interesting when you want more control or more creative effects. Two things in particular are attractive for live work:

• Dynamic equalizers — they only step in when the signal calls for it, instead of bluntly filtering out a frequency for the entire show. Exactly the tool for a voice that sounds different in the loud passages than in the quiet ones.
• Emulations of well-known compressors — studio classics that bring a character to the stage that the onboard tools don't have.

Why the card instead of USB?

You can also patch plug-ins in over the Wing's USB connection. The card is the better solution on three counts:

• More robust. The connection is built for exactly this purpose and behaves far more reliably under show conditions.
• Lower latency. On a path that every signal travels twice, every millisecond counts.
• The USB port stays free. And that's the underrated advantage: you can run a full multitrack recording over USB on a second computer at the same time — Waves on one machine, the recording on the other, without the two getting in each other's way.

What you need:

• A Behringer Wing (here: Wing Compact) with the AoIP-WSG card installed
• A Mac running SuperRack Performer and the SoundGrid drivers
• A USB-C to Ethernet adapter and a CAT5e cable (or better)
• A valid Waves licence for the plug-ins you want to use

The Waves card: AoIP-WSG

The Wing doesn't have the Waves connection from the factory — you need the AoIP-WSG card, which goes into the console's expansion slot. Fitting it is manageable, but you are opening up a four-figure piece of equipment.

My clear recommendation: have it done by a professional. A misplaced connector, a static discharge or a card that isn't seated properly will cost you more in the end than the installation would have. Behringer has documented the procedure in a video — if you still want to do it yourself, watch it all the way through first:

• Behringer's video guide: installing the card (YouTube)

Installing the software on your Mac

All Waves software runs through Waves Central. That's where you install not just SuperRack Performer but also the drivers that make the console visible in the first place — and those are well hidden.

1. Open Waves Central and sign in Then go to Install Products in the left-hand sidebar.
2. Switch to “All Products” The drivers don't appear in the normal product overview — only here.
3. Search for the drivers Type ASIO into the search field, or look directly for SoundGrid ASIO / Core Audio Rec/PB Driver.
4. Mind the version This is the single most important point of the whole installation. On macOS 26 (Tahoe) I recommend V16 or V17. The wrong version either won't run at all or will cause problems that are hard to trace back later.
5. Add the remaining components
   • SoundGrid QRec — mandatory
   • Behringer Wing Driver — optional, but handy
   • SuperRack Performer — the application itself
6. Install everything Only then move on to the system settings.

Approving the macOS extensions

The SoundGrid drivers are system extensions — and macOS blocks those by default. This is where most people get stuck, because the installation appears to have completed, yet the console never shows up.

1. System Settings → Privacy & Security Scroll down until you see the notice that Waves Inc. attempted to install extensions. Approve it with your password.
2. Restart your Mac Without a restart the extension won't be loaded.
3. System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions Enable the entry for Waves Inc. there as well. This is mandatory too, not optional.

Network, adapter and cable

SoundGrid is a network protocol — the audio travels over an ordinary Ethernet cable between console and Mac. The catch: hardly any current Mac still has an Ethernet port.

I use a USB-C to Ethernet adapter rated at 2.5 GbE from Ugreen (available on Amazon). CAT5e is enough as a cable; anything higher certainly doesn't hurt.

Connect the first Ethernet port on the Wing — the left-hand port when you're looking at the I/O panel from behind — straight to the adapter on the Mac. No switch needed, nothing else in between.

Setting up SoundGrid

Now the driver needs to know which network adapter to talk through. For that you need your adapter's internal device name — which macOS doesn't show you in the normal network settings.

1. Find the adapter name System Settings → Network. The adapter is usually called USB 10/100/1000 LAN.
2. Look up the BSD device name Hold the Option key and choose System Information from the Apple menu. In the app that opens, go to Network, select your adapter and note the value under BSD Device Name — in my case en8.
3. Open the SoundGrid Driver Control Panel After installation it sits in the Dock. Select the adapter with the name you just noted.
4. Open SoundGrid QRec Under I/O Devices, select the Wing in position 1. The application detects the AoIP-WSG card automatically and sets the channel count and sample rate for you.

Connecting SuperRack Performer

The final step is the shortest: open SuperRack Performer, go to Setup and, under Audio Setup, pick the newly available Waves SoundGrid option for Device.

That's it. From here your Mac remembers all the settings — adapter, device, sample rate. Before the next show you only need to open SoundGrid QRec and SuperRack Performer; everything else stays put.

Routing: channels and buses

This is where it gets fun. You can send practically any source in the Wing into the Waves module, process it there and bring it back:

• Local I/O
• AES50
• USB audio
• Wing-Live
• StageConnect

For individual channels, send the signal into the module, process it in SuperRack and route it back to the channel in question.

For buses I recommend going via an insert. Here's how: in the Wing's effects, create an External Insert for the bus in question. Then insert that effect into the bus — the signal goes out to Waves, gets processed and comes back into the bus. Clean, easy to follow, and one click away from being bypassed at any time.

On show day

Two habits I've picked up:

Test the bypass deliberately. During soundcheck, pull the insert out and listen to what the show sounds like without Waves. If you like what you hear, you have a safety net. If you don't, you've made your core mix too dependent on the computer — and that's exactly the situation you don't want to be in when something fails.

Leave the computer alone. No system updates on show day, no energy-saving automation, no sleep. In that moment the Mac is part of your signal chain — treat it like a device in the rack, not like a laptop.

Once it's up, it's a remarkably stable workflow. And on demanding productions, the difference between “sounds good” and “sounds like the record” is exactly what this chain makes possible.