Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well. I can see we have quite a few viewers already That's very nice to see quite a few people that we know already and quite a few new ones that we have not been in touch with yet. Welcome back to to another KLANG:webinar in our strange new times, where we cannot do that face to face how we are used to doing it... but as mentioned in our last few events: we want to use the time for all of us to get in touch to update our skillsets and possibly find some new and creative ways to use the technology that we have at hand.
Today's topic is KLANG:streaming - strategies for an immersive streaming experience. That's a little bit of a 26 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:28,000 side use or a different kind on how you could use our tools. The KLANG tools in this case not for In-Ear monitoring directly on stage for the musicians, but for streaming concerts live.
Right now of course we cannot do any concerts, we cannot do any touring and also Houses of Worship are not able to gather their congregations like they used to do it. Everybody's looking right now to find new and interesting ways to to stay in touch with fans and their congregation, To get the best out of the situation that we're in right now. - KLANG:streaming - What a lot of churches are doing right now and also bands and artists of all kinds, are remote and webstream concerts. The goal is to bring whatever is happening with the musicians on stage to the listening devices of the listeners at home in the best possible way. There are ways that we can immerse the people in a better way then it would be possible with just a stereo or a mono stream. I want to start off with showing you two examples.
One of them would be an artist from israel who did a concert a bit more than a week ago from Zappa Club and that was live streamed through KLANG. Let's start with that one. If you don't wear headphones yet now would be a good time to do that. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] That was a really cool concert and the advantage that the artist had by streaming through KLANG - in this case it was a DMI-KLANG was, that the the listeners are not just monitoring as bystanders but they're actually immersed in the concerts. So stuff is happening all around them. It feels more natural, it feels more like a concert experience and atmosphere than it would be possible in a pure stereo way. I want to show you one other example, that's from actually a few years ago.
A recording studio in germany - one of the really old, legendary ones - did some live stream concerts where musicians and bands were invited to play there. The audience in the room was only 10 people. Just friends and some other people, but also the concert was streamed live to the internet and the reason why i want to show you that one is that it can show you how a sound engineer can actually become a little bit more creatively involved in the sound experience there, by using the extended panning capabilities of a binaural system. Let's listen to it! [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] As you hopefully have heard through your headphones the guitar and the vocals and some effects were just spinning around the head, to create a little bit more of an stronger experience on on the way that the performance was done. Especially with the more edgy and quite crazy end of that song. Let's talk about how we can actually make that happen.
There are several ways: There's not one way that is the correct way, but there are different ways that give you different possibilities and options, to work creatively with the streaming concerts Let's go back to the start. The easiest way to do it is by just replacing the PA with a streaming server. We would get the signals from the band into our mixing board and the output of the mixing board would be connected to the streaming server.
So far so easy but as mentioned before that will only be a stereo mix and even if that would be more or less the same stereo mix that we would send on a PA it's not the same thing because a PA resonates in the room. It creates a room, it creates an atmosphere and that is one big part of the charm of having live concerts. A simple way to integrate a KLANG product there would be to send the signals from the band into our console like we always would do and then we use direct outs or submixes, or a combination of direct out and submixes and send them into our KLANG devices and put them there.
Usually we would do that as post fader signals. The reason for that is quite simple: we would be able to work in the main layer of our mixing board in exactly the same way that we would do in a standalone version. Moving a fader up would also of course affect the direct out level that is going to KLANG. Then the output of KLANG is simply connected to a streaming server. Very simple and that's where we get our spatialisation and actually are able to to bring everything around us.
A slightly more flexible approach would be very similar: we're sending the band signals into our console, we're sending our direct outs into the KLANG device and now we return the KLANG mix that we that we put into the console and from there we send it to the web stream. The difference there is basically that we can use some summing processing on on the KLANG mix. It could be some some compression, it could be some saturation, whatever we want to do. It's also a good way to be able to add other signals that are not going through KLANG into the stream that could be, for example, an announcer, it could be a pastor it could be any sound effects, or whatever we want to do with that. A more advanced option would be this one here: so again we're sending the band channels into the console.
The console is sending direct outs into KLANG and now, since every KLANG device is able to feature multiple mixes, we can treat those mixes like subgroups and those subgroups we send back into the console and mix them together. We can apply some bus processing so like compression for example into those sub mixes and from there we sum them together and send them out to the web stream. I have visualized that over here: so you can see multiple channels from drums are going into the board. The direct outs from each of those channels are going into the KLANG mixes and the KLANG mixes, that i have assigned in here, are basically a drum subgroup, a bass subgroup, a keyboard subgroup, a guitar subgroup and a vocal subgroup. There can be completely different applications and different ways to to do that of course. That is basically only limited by your creativity in there.
But what we can do here are a lot of the tricks and tools and little ideas that we know from the studio world and some from some parts of the broadcast world, where not only we are using bus compression and all those tools on the mixes but we can also work with ducking and and all kinds of other things to make it even more immersive and more solid and you know: 'post productiony'-sounding. And then those mixes return in the mixing board. It could be - depending on the kind of mixing board you're using - input channels, it could be group inputs, or it could be merge inputs. Especially
if we're using a DiGiCo SD or Quantum console it would make sense to use merge inputs. I will get back to that in a little bit. I've prepared a little example.
Let me show you how this could possibly be set up for example. As you can see i have a drum submix where i have placed all the drums in a way that i like, or the musician, or the producer likes. There's a parallel compression group for the drums which is basically the same mix minus the cymbals and the hi-hat, where we can just compress it as hard as we want to to just mix that together and have a parallel compression. There's a bass group - quite simple. There's a band group, in this case they're just the keyboards and the guitar in there.
A vocal group and an fx group. Now effects that is quite an important part of the whole thing. Not only the vocal reverb and the drum reverb or whatever we want to use, we can place in there. We can also use some kinds of ambient reverbs or ambience reflections, to just create a little bit more of a room feeling that we have in here. And since we can just place them completely freely, we can design how we want that virtual room to sound and those effects can just come externally from the mixing board, from an external reverb processor or whatever we want to do.
But even more important would be ambience microphones. Don't forget about those, because even if we don't have an audience in a room necessarily, we still get a lot of the room's energy, the room's response and the way that the room reacts to the music into the whole thing. In this case i only have two ambience mics in there, but there's no rule that says you should only use two. You can use multiple ambient microphones in there and place them in different regions of our head to just use the natural acoustics as much as we can, which is always cooler than just using a digital reverb that we can use.
Let me show you how i set that up in the mixing board: Aas you can see i have created six auxes in this case which i'm using as my subgroups. My drum group, my parallel group, bass group, band group, vocal group and effects group. Let's go to the input channels: i have two layers here. My drums are over
here, my bass, my keys and my guitar and on the second layer i have my vocals, my ambience mics and all my effect returns. As you can see i have activated KLANG. We're using the DiGiCo integration in here. You can see that with those little KLANG icons here. The drums are going to my drum group and my parallel compression drum group, my bass is going to the bass group, my keys and my guitars are going to the band group and my vocals are going to the vocal group and the effects to the effects group.
Quite simple! The audio workflow basically is, that we're sending direct outs from each channel into KLANG and then in our auxes which i'm using as a kind of subgroup. In this case we're returning them into the merge inputs. If you want details on that feel free to check out www.KLANG.com/DiGiCo that gives you a little bit more of an impression on how the integrated workflow is working. And of course we will follow up with a full integration setup video in the next couple of days. There we can go into more details with that.
I'm showing it with a DiGiCo console right now and this is the most integrated way that you can work with it. Especially since you can control every single parameter directly from the console surface, but you can replicate that workflow also with an S-series which does not feature the KLANG integration and even with any other mixing board. In this case you would just send out the direct outs from each channel in the same way. You would return the mixes into empty channels or whichever format you're using there and you would control the placement with an ipad or with KLANG:app on your computer. That's a very simple way to integrate any kind of technical setup that you have.
Let's go back to the mixing board. I did not mention one factor: those auxes in this case, since they are not able to go directly to the aux master, i'm just combining them with a matrix and the matrix is then going out here on my matrix channels, which are connected to the streaming server. Why don't we just listen to this example for a second. Don't forget to put on your headphones again! Back from the listening session I think you all heard when we did the A/B comparison there, that the stereo mix was alright.
You know we can work with that, but it's very dull and and boring and lacking life compared to the immersive mix, that we did in there. Are there any questions that we have for this part of this seminar? Hey i got one nice comment from Zeke He loves the depth that you get when KLANG is engaged. I would totally agree with that! You get much more detail out of all the signals in there, because simply they are not masking each other. And in the same way that's what stereo signals which are laying on top of each other and basically are frequency wise in the way of each other would do. So with KLANG you just get much more openness with all that By the way the two examples that we heard at the beginning - the second one from the recording studio streaming concert that was basically using this simple version that i was mentioning before.
That would be this one here. While the first example that i showed you before was using the submix and bus version of of all that. Back to the questions: i think some questions are coming in already. James is asking Can you run redundant KLANG systems? Yes, that wouldn't be a problem at all. So basically you would just
add two KLANG systems in there, send the direct outs to both of them and if you are using a standalone version you would basically just copy the mixed settings to both of them. If you're working with the DiGiCo integration, you can create a cascaded version of two units with that. You would assign the same mixes or auxes that i have in this case to both of those servers or to both of those KLANG systems and that would just keep both of them at the same state at all times. The only thing you would have to do in case of a failure on one side is just switch the audio around.
Which you could easily do with a macro. I hope that answers the question. Could you also use it as inserts? Not really because you would need a stereo insert, which mono channels would not feature in this case. But basically what we're doing right now is a very similar way to how an insert would work. The only thing is, that the insert return is not directly in the channel, but is coming into the merge input of the aux master. Can KLANG only be used on DiGiCo? No, absolutely not! With digico you get the deepest integration.
You get all the controls directly from the surface of the console. With every other console brand, you would just use an external software to control the panning and possibly the level if you do that. But of course you can use it with all kinds of consoles. Todd says: I see you have like 10 subgroups? Not really, but i see why you get to that idea.
Let me just switch over here. So those auxes here, those six auxes that i have in here, are what i consider my subgroups in this case, while these are just reverb sendsor effect sends, so they are basically using similar paths, but they're used in a different way, Marco says: Okay, so you didn't have the perception from the front. We cannot go into all the details in here but what you're probably referring to is that every human being has a little bit of a different head shape. So for 95 percent of people of all users the KLANG HRTF or the KLANG binaural processing will give you very exact positions already. There are some cases where you would have a little bit of a different perception with that. However our brain is very good in adjusting to that within a couple of minutes.
Let me explain to you why our brain does that constantly: Let's say - as you can see i'm completely bald right there's no hair anymore - so if i go out and it's cold outside, i would probably wear a hat or a cap and that might bend my ears a little bit. By bending my ears, my natural spatialization or the perception of angles around me would be slightly distorted. So my brain needs to be always able to adjust to all kinds of changes to that so it takes a few minutes and after that it gets much more precise again.
The same effect happens when you're using KLANG devices. Another factor that comes into play with that, is that you're probably using over ear headphones. I don't know the model that you're using, but if it's over the ear it gives you a slightly less precise positioning. In-Ears. even iphone pods, are already much more precise with that, but again: all those factors for the natural adaption of our brain to different specializations comes into place.
So that comes right away and of course the last point, that is very important one is that this is just a quick mix that i threw together here as an example. If you would be the engineer, Marco and you would do the mix in there and you would feel that this is not the way that it should be or you would like to have some stuff somewhere else, you could always do that. That's the easiest thing to do.
If you use plugins is latency a problem with this tool? No, i wouldn't know why. Especially if you're using plugins we're talking about very small latencies. Generally at least. So i don't see why this would create any issue, especially when we're talking about streaming.
Even if there's like a millisecond extra on one channel, that wouldn't make any difference in a negative way. However, as with all things audio, your ears are the boss so if you insert a plugin and you feel something is happening that you don't like, then just remove it or use something else. That gets me to another point i will get back to that in a second. No front perception: that's an interesting one. We can we can go back
to the to the example again and play around with it a little bit more in a second. Loads of compression: yes, there's quite a bit of compression in this example and that brings me to the point that i was just about to mention before: the stuff that you do or can do or should do or would want to do with those KLANG submixes that we have in here you can pretty much be creative with everything that you want to do if you use compression like a bus compression you can do that. Just make sure to just verify with your ears.
If it actually works well in a way that you like it. But a very important point is that you make sure that left and right channel of that compressor are linked otherwise it would do weird stuff. Another point is if you use saturation. Saturation can milden the effects that transients have in your audio and transients are quite important for perception of placement. So if you use to much saturation, the perception of placement might become a little bit less precise, so watch that. Another point,
what a lot of people tend to use on mix busses, are stereo wideners. I would not use them in this case, because i mean it's quite clear: since we can place everything all around us, where do you want to widen stuff if it's already everywhere? So usually those stereo wideners might have some weird effects. That said again, as i mentioned before, your ears are the final reference point of that, so if you use a stereo widener and you feel that it has a cool, or interesting, or positive effect on that why not use it. You're the engineers.
That's an interesting one: The DMI card with the orange box of DiGiCo will also work with other consoles? Yes of course, absolutely! The orange box is basically just a host for DMI cards so if you have a DMI card for KLANG and then a MADI, or Dante, or other input card in there, you can just combine it with every kind of mixing board. How many busses can i use at one time? That depends on the mixing board of course, but let's say we're using a big board and we have enough busses there. It depends on the KLANG device so there are three immersive processors in our product line the smallest one would be KLANG:vier which can feature five mixes. The next bigger one would be KLANG:fabrik which has a flexible I/O. It can for example work with 56 inputs and three mixes but it also could work with 24 inputs and eight mixes, so it depends a little bit on that.
DMI-KLANG is featuring 16 mixes, so that would be the maximum that we could be using here. If you have a KLANG:fabrik for example and you want to use more mixes then it can do at one time in a single device, you can easily cascade multiple devices to get more mixes out of it. There's another question in here: Which device is used to respect the panning of the musicians on stage? I assume you meantrack the position of musicians on stage.
Well, yes and no: there are a number of trackers that are used in theater applications and most of those speak OSC. KLANG also speaks OSC so it would probably be relatively easy to combine those systems. Another thing that is on the menu for KLANG is a head tracking device, but that is not tracking the positioning on stage but it would basically just be an interactive panning for the whole mix for one musician, which is not so much an application for what we're talking about today. The regular In-Ear monitoring application is a different story. That's a very good point by Zeke: Download the demo and play with it yourself.
Just go to our website www.KLANG.com You can download the app for your Mac, for your PC, you can find the link to the AppStore to download it to your iPad or iPhone. We integrated a couple of multitracks in the demo version, so if it's not connected to a hardware unit of ours, it would switch to the demo mode and you can just sit on your couch in the evening, plug your in-ears into your device and just play around with positioning.
This way you will get a feeling for what you like and what you don't like and how you will be working on this. Are you working on features that could allow individualization of HRTF? It is possible already. There are two ways: you could come to to our labs and get a measurement of your head and we would basically give you a custom HRTF for KLANG. That would be quite expensive probably, so as a salesperson i have to say: Please do that, you're very welcome! Putting my sales hat off again. That's not necessary. As i mentioned before,
with the adjustment how our brain is basically adjusting to different HRTF's, no matter if real, or real bend, or emulated like it would be in KLANG. Using it for just a few minutes would actually adjust your perception of that in a positive way very quickly. Leonardo: Will this video be available online? Yes, that will take a little while. Once we did a couple of the next episodes of our KLANG webinars, we will um put them on facebook & youtube So yes, that will be coming. There's another question about DMI-KLANG Simple answer: DMI-KLANG is always 64 inputs and 16 mixes. No matter even if it's on 48k or 96k.
Okay, so that were the questions so far, unless there are any new ones coming in. So feel free to play around with the app If you have any streaming concerts coming up or if you have any events like this coming up and you already own a KLANG device: Integrate that into the network/your system and just try it out and play around with the possibilities that you have in there. I'm sure you're going to like it! Let's listen to the system again, because there were some wishes coming if i didn't miss them completely. We can just listen to it for another couple of seconds and play around with some of the possibilities. Please wear headphones again! i cried for you so I hope i was able to give you some more ideas on how to creatively using our tools. Please stay tuned,
follow our Facebook page, because we're far from being done with webinars. We are completely set on just using the time as much as possible and make it worthwhile for you guys um who are able to educate themselves on some new things. We already did a couple of webinars. One of them was Binaural Basics, where i go much more into the detail on the binaural side and the science side behind our products. We will definitely repeat that a few times over the course of the next days and probably weeks There's also quite a few other webinars on the way for example an App walkthrough, where i just explain all the details about KLANG:app in both the application as a monitor engineer as well as a personal monitoring system.
There will be an in-depth and detailed video about how to set up the console integration with digital consoles and there will be a whole bunch of of more topics. If you have any ideas, if you have any wishes, if you have anything that we could not really address in detail now in this webinar here, please feel free to comment and to send us a message. Generally just be in touch with us we are always very, very curious to hear more about how you are working with our systems, or how you're intending to do that. I see there's one more question coming in. Yes, totally agree with you and basically all the techniques that i mentioned today also work in the studio and in post-production, because if you just record the output that you have in there, the binaural information, the spatial information is encoded into the audio, so you can just replay that and listen to it in all kinds of scenarios and situations. Zeke you have to come to Germany soon.
Right now we cannot come visit you in the US, but yes please! Food, beer - it's all waiting for you over here, so don't be late! Thank you very much for your attention! I hope you're all doing well, please stay healthy, take care of everyone around you and wash your hands. I'm sure you heard all of those advices before, they're all very correct and very important, but i don't think i have to repeat them again. Just stay on watch, be careful and watch everyone in risk groups and let's make sure to do whatever we all can to just make this mess blow over as fast as possible, so we can finally get back on the road. I think we all miss that like hell, so yeah let's do that. Thank you very much and hope to see you all in the next webinar that we're doing and don't forget to just comment your wishes and follow us to get the dates for the next webinars. Thank you guys, stay safe, stay
healthy
2021-02-08