2023 Spring Final Network Music Performance at Salen
For our final concert this semester we collaborated with composer Doug Van Nort as part of his intercontinental performance "Dispersionology and Other Tales".
Tuning Meditation by Pauline Oliveros Intonation piece based on breath cycles. While listening to each other, every musician picks a tone and tries to reproduce it.
Dispersionology by Doug Van Nort An improvisational piece whereby all locations and performers were directed/conducted/cued by Doug Van Nort. This happened either via a system of gestures which referred to a location or grouping of musicians (layers), their volume, tone vs. noise, which musical "palette" they should respond to, as well as "sound painting", whereby musicians freely interpreted Van Norts physical actions.
And Other Tales by Doug Van Nort An improvisational piece whereby all musicians responded to a variety of randomised on-screen prompts and images.
Measurements have been done beforehand on two different jacktrip servers with a loopback. We used the same setup we had been utilizing for other concerts. Server 1 had a Roundtrip latency time of 188ms whereas server 2 came in on 261ms RTT. High latency times were expected and did not really affect performance since the concert and musical pieces were planned to be a latency-accepting. The final concert happened over server 1 with a global sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and a buffersize of 256 ms.
We performed with variety of instruments and techniques covering a wide spectral range in addition to the balance between tone and noise. Some of the instruments ran through laptop-based effects and then out to the mixer via audio interfaces, while others directly connected to the mixer. All were routed to JackTrip to be sent to the performers and audiences in other locations.
| Performer | Instrument |
|---|---|
| Fabian | No-Input Mixing |
| Aysima | Accordion |
| Emin | Ney Flute |
| Alex | Electronics |
| Nino | Vocal with effects |
| Kristian | Experimental Guitar |
| Kristin Nordeval | Vocals |
No-input mixing - A no-input mixer was used. The signal from the mixer was sent out through the headphones output to a DI-box. On the midas mixer the signal was heavily limited since the no-input mixer is quite uncontrollable and is prone to suddenly jump in volume. To minimise this problem we engaged the compressor on the Midas for this channel, setting a very high ratio for it to essentially be a brick wall limiter.
Accordion - Was miked with a dynamic microphone
Electronics - Alex used a small Eurorack modular synthesiser system running through delay and reverb pedals.
Vocal - Nino's vocal were run through an effects chain in Ableton
Guitar (Extended Techniques) - Kristian explored unorthodox techniques for acoustic guitar, laying the instrument flat, using a bottleneck to slide along the strings, tap the body of the instrument etc. This was run through an effects chain in Ableton Live. Because of the low output and high noise floor of this signal, it was necessary to use an upward expander/gate to ensure the instrument did not generate background noise while not being played.
Ney - We miked up the Ney with a shutgun microphone running into a laptop with Ableton Live with a combination of Reverb, Tremolo, Grain delay, and stereo panning effects.
Vocals - Kristin Nordeval's clean vocal input was directly routed to the mixer.
The audio for this performance needed to be routed via Jacktrip to the central server for the event. Feeds from all participants were sent via Jacktrip and then both routed to the live-streamed event. As we were not responsible for the event as a whole, we needed only send a feed of our instruments over Jacktrip. Routing for this performance however, had to allow for several requirements:
- Creating and sending a stereo sub-mix of our instruments to the JackTrip server
- Receiving the remote signal from JackTrip
- Sending a master mix to the audience in Salen
- Locally monitoring our own signals for foldback
- Monitoring remote signals via foldback
- Sending the local sub-mix to a portable recorder
This diagram sets out the audio signal routing for this performance.
The key difficulty here was allowing for a local FOH mix, sending signals over Jacktrip and monitoring all at once without creating a feedback loop. A sub-mix, with only our local instruments had to be created on a stereo bus and sent to the NMP mixer. This was then routed to the GROUPS on the NMP mixer. Groups 1 & 2, containing only the local instrument sub-mix, were then sent to the inputs of the ADA8200 to be sent over Jacktrip. Groups 3 & 4 were used to record a feed of the local instruments. The Jacktrip monitor signal, which is normal to inputs 15 & 16 were sent to the MAIN OUTPUTS of the NMP mixer. This was then connected to inputs on the Midas. In practice, we could have bypassed use of the NMP mixer and simply connected directly to the ADA8200 from the Midas. Indeed, using two mixers made the audio routing much more complex and care had to taken to not create feedback loops within the system. However, it was practical to use many of the pre-routed connections in the kit, as well as being able to easily tap a second feed of the local signals from the groups for recording. With this routing in place, FOH mixes, monitor mixes, and the mix sending to Jacktrip could be controlled on faders and bus sends as per normal audio engineering practice.
In the below picture, it is possible to see the Midas mixer with 8 input channels for our instruments (red), a stereo channel for the Jacktrip return feed (green) and the bus for the sub-mix of our local instruments to be sent via Jacktrip (blue).
The video element of this performance was handled predominately through a Zoom call. Our video feed was sent via the webcam in Salen. For our performers' and audience's viewing needs, we needed to see Doug Van Nort's conducting for the Dispersionology piece, as well as the online randomised graphical score for And Other Stories. As can be seen in the picture below, we were able to use the projector screen behind us to show both of these to the audience.
Pointing back at the performers is also two screens, one logged into the Zoom call from another computer to show the conducting and another showing the score via a browser.
Much of this project had to happen very close to the event's date. Much practical information was only available to us after the rehearsal and technical test during the Sunday evening prior to the event. As such, while we prepared as much as possible ahead of time, the reality was we had to remain versatile and open to things changing. The rehearsal was instrumental in trialling and troubleshooting our required audio routing, as well as understanding the parameters of the performance. Despite difficulties however, we were able to successfully participate in the event without technical issue.