Networked Music
The blog posts of this section relate to the courses MCT4024 Networked Music Performance Tehcnologies 1 and MCT4025 Networked Music Performance Tehcnologies 2 (from 2021), and to the discontinued courses MCT4021 Physical-Virtual Communication and Music 1, MCT4022 Physical-Virtual Communication and Music 2, and MCT4023 Physical-Virtual Communication and Music 3 (2018 to 2021).
These courses aim to provide theoretical and practical knowledge on advanced audio-visual systems for online synchronous musical collaboration and hybrid communication settings. The students also learn to operate, maintain and experiment with the physical-virtual Portal, a laboratory for network-based musical communication.
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Digital Signal Processing Basics
Virtually any song you can listen to on the radio has examples of Digital Signal Processing.
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Introduction to Open Sound Control (OSC)
This post contains a brief overview of OSC and a tutorial on how to make a connection and send data between devices.
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Formatting WebPD Projects: An Introduction to WebPD, HTML and CSS Styling
Styling your WebPD application can lead to greater user experience and accessibility.
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We Are Sitting In Rooms
Recreating the most famous piece by composer Alvin Lucier as a network music performance
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Documenting Networked Music Performances: Tips, Tricks and Best Practices
Effectively documenting networked music performances can lead to better experiences for physical and digital audiences, and your academic explorations.
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Sync your synths and jam over a network using Sonobus
A quick start guide to jamming over a network. Designed for instruments which can synchronize using an analog clock pulse.
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Music Between Salen and the World
We played in a global NMP concert. Check out our experiences.
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Basics of Computer Networks in NMPs
Crash course on computer network used in Network Music Performances.
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Audio Codecs and the AI Revolution
I dove headfirst into the world of machine learning-enhanced audio codecs. Here's what I found out.
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NMP kit Tutorial
A practical tutorial on the NMP kits.
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Spatial Audio with Max-Msp and Sonobus
This post's video tutorial aims to introduce readers to the many uses for which the Sonobus can be implemented as a VST in Max-Msp.
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SonoBus setup - Standalone App and Reaper Plugin
Check out my tutorial on how to use SonoBus for your networked performance.
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Integrating JackTrip and Sonobus in a DAW
How you can integrate both JackTrip and Sonobus into your DAW
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Pair Programming Over Network
Pair Programming from different locations, is it possible?
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Audio Engineering for NMPs: Part 2
A deeper dive into mixer work for NMPs
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Playing Jazz Over Network
A live performance by Edvard Munch High School students with collaborative networked music technology.
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Jazz Over the Network at 184,000km/h
We worked with local high school students to put together a jazz concert over the LOLA network. Here's a retrospective from Team RITMO.
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Testing Two Approaches to Performing with Latency
We tested two approaches to dealing with latency in network music. Read all about it!
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Designing DFA and LAA Network Music Performances
Music Performances in High Latency
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JackTrip Vs Sonobus - Review and Comparison
Low-latency online music performance platforms
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The MCT Audio Vocabulary
Click this post if you need some explanation on jargon, mainly related to the Portal and the NMP kits.
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Making A Telematic Concert Happen - A Quick Technical Look
Background of A Telematic Experience
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Live Streaming A Telematic Concert
Whys, How-tos and Life-Saving Tips on Telematic Concert Streaming.
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Blackhole, Open Source MacOS Virtual Audio Device Solution for Telematic Performance
MacOS guide to Blackhole
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The Optic-Fibre Ensemble
Folk inspired soundscapes + No input mixing=True
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Bringing the (Optic) Fibre Ensemble to Life - Behind the Scenes of a Telematic Music Performance
What does it take to put on a telematic music performance? Cable spaghetti of course!
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Telematic Concert between Salen and Portal - Performers’ Reflections
Reflections on semester's first Telematic Concert
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Music Mode for Online Meetings
It is possible to use popular meeting products for music!
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Performing & Recording with JackTrip
Performing and recording network music at home? Thanks to JackTrip, now you can do it too.
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Audio Engineering for Network Music Performances
How much more difficult could it POSSIBLY be?
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Rehearsing Music Over the Network
My experiences with rehearsing music telematically and some tips.
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The impact and importance of network-based musical collaboration (in the post-covid world)
The Covid-19 pandemic offered a unique opportunity (and necessity) to focus on the creative usage (and further development) of the technological tools used for network-based musical collaboration.
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Norway's First 5G Networked Music Performance
We played Norway's first 5G networked music performance in collaboration with Telenor Research.
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One Last Hoorah: A Telematic Concert in the Science Library
In which we go over the most ambitious telematic concert of our MCT careers.
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Spring Telematic Concert 2022: Portal Perspectives
Guitar and MoCap in the Portal + behind the scenes documentary!
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Setting up a controlled environment
Taking advantage of light-weight control messages to do Networked Music Performances
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Ambisonics: Under the Hood
What happens when we encode/decode Ambisonics
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How to Set Up Hybrid Learning Environments
Learn how to set up a hybrid learning environment, ranging from simple to complex, serving as a starting point to help your classroom catch up to the digital age.
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Managing Network Performance
Managing Network Performance using Python
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5G Networked Music Performances - Will It Work?
In collaboration with Telenor Research, we explored the prospects of doing networked music performances over 5G. Here are the preliminary results.
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Mastering Latency
Testing two techniques to work with latency when playing music telematically
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Latency: To Accept or to Delay Feedback?
We tested two of the solutions—the Delayed Feedback Approach (DFA) and the Latency Accepting Approach (LAA)—so you don’t have to!
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The Granjular Christmas Concert (Portal View)
A report on our telematic performance in the Portal.
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The Telematic Experience: Space in Sound in Space
A report on our telematic experience in Salen
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Setting Levels in Virtual Communication
Inspired by how virtual communication has been adopted and integrated in daily life around the globe, this post looks at how simple control messages might help prevent acoustic feedback.
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Audio-video sync
Due to the fact that sound travels a lot slower through air than the light, our brain is used to seeing before hearing.
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Video latency: definition, key concepts, and examples
This blogpost is made after the video lecture on the same topic and it includes a definition of video latency and other related key concepts, as well as concrete examples from the MCT portals.
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Latency as an opportunity to embrace
How can we turn unavoidable latency into an integral part of telematic performance?
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Audio Latency in the Telematic Setting
Latency and its fundamentals in the telematic performance context.
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Room acoustics: what are room modes and how do they influence the physical space?
This blog post explains what room modes are, how they affect the physical space and what can be done about it. It was made together with a video lecture.
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Audio-Video Synchronization for Streaming
This approach considers a streaming solution from multiple sources and different locations (Salen, Video Room, Portal)
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Touchpoint that can potentially improve the audio latency in a communication system
Quick tips for future MCT-ers or external partners who will be using the MCT Portal for the first time: this article gives you practical information to start with improving audio latency.
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A short post about feedback
Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedback
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Telematic Conducting: Modelling real-world orchestral tendencies via video latency
A conductor in one portal. An orchestra in another. What could go wrong?
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EarSketch (Or How to Get More Python in Your Life)
A review of the asynchronous music production software 'EarSketch'
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SkyTracks: What’s the Use?
A review and critique of the online DAW SkyTracks for asynchronous collaboration
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Satellite Sessions - Connecting DAWs
A review of Satellite Sessions, a plugin that connects digital audio workstations and creators.
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Soundation Review: What to Expect
A concise review on the collaborative online DAW: Soundation.
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A Brief History of Improvisation Through Network Systems
A glimpse into the evolution of online improvisation and shared sonic environments.
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Embodiment and Awareness in Telematic Music and Virtual Reality
A discisson about what Embodiment and Awareness means, and how its beeing used in Telematic Music and VR.
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Telematic Reality Check: An Evaluation of Design Principles for Telematic Music Applications in VR Environments
7 steps for better virtual reality music applications!
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Applying Actor-Network Methodology to Telematic Network Topologies
An inquiry into the application of an actor-network theory methodology to Gil Weinberg's telematic musical network topologies.
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Telematic performance and communication: tools to fight loneliness towards a future of connection.
With telematic interaction on the rise during a global pandemic, we should explore telematic performances to help prevent loneliness and feelings of isolation through art.
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Approaches Toward Algorithmic Interdependence in Musical Performance
Is it possible to program interdependent algorithms to perform with each other?
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Fight latency with latency
Alternative design approaches for telematic music systems.
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Internet time delay: a new musical language for a new time basis
Logistical considerations for large-scale telematic performances involving geographically displaced contributors still remain strongly present. Therefore, if networked performers are still to the vagaries of speed and bandwidth of multiple networks and if latency problems remain a significant issue for audio-visual streaming of live Network Music Performance (NMP), one can rather reflect on trying to find a new musical language for a new time basis.
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Concert preparations: exploring the Portal
What we learned about the Portal and telematic performances in general while preparing our musical pieces for the end of semester concert. Details about our instrumentation and effects.
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Preparing NTNU portal for the spring 2021 Concert.
How the NTNU Portal was setup for the spring concert.
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End of semester reflections for the Portal experience
The first physical portal experience during the pandemic
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The collision of Jazz and Classical
The rehearsal experience for our telematic performance.
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The MCT Portal through the eyes of a noob
The experiences I had in the MCT Portal during the spring 2021 semester and my evolution from a complete beginner to an almost-average user of a technical and awesome room like the MCT Portal.
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End of Semester Concert - Spring 2021: Audio Setup
As part of the audio team for the end-of-semester telematic concert, Pedro and Anders spent several hours in the portal, exploring different ways to organize audio routing. They also found time to experiment with effect loops. Check out the nice musical collaboration between two different musical cultures.
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Cross the Streams
When performing in two locations we need to cross the streams
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Dispatch from the Portal: Dueling EQs
How do I sound? Good? What does good mean? How do I sound? Sigh...
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Spring Concert 2021: Team B's Reflections
We'll do it live. Team B gets its groove Bach.
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Tele-A-Jammin: the recipe
Our portal experience mapped on a delicious Jam recipe
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First Weeks Of Portaling With Team B
Starting to figure out the Portal and what we did/found out in the first weeks using it. How to play and some feedback fixing.
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Liebesgruß or we can put that 'Liebe' aside
It's simply a gruß from Team C with our first telematic setup.
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Twinkle Twinkle (sad) Little Mars
Finally the B-boys found some hours one evening to spend in the portal, Willie up north, and Pedro, Henrik and Anders down south. This was the first day on their Mission to Mars. Enter our B-oyager, and join us.
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Zoom here & Zoom there: Ambisonics
A more natural way of communicating online, wherein it feels like all the members are in the same room talking.
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Ambisonic as a ‘mental’ management tool in Zoom?
An immersive audio as a tool to keep our state of mind peaceful.
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Zoom + Ambisonics
Talking together in an online room is an interesting topic, as the mono summed communication in regular Zoom can be tiring when meeting for several hours a day. Could ambisonics in digital communication be the solution we're all waiting for?
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Musicking with JackTrip, JamKazam, and SoundJack - Presentations
The class of 2021 presented on JackTrip, SoundJack and JamKazam and their networked musicking potential. Presentations are included in this blog post as pdfs.
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The Joys of Jitsi
Jitsi is a venerable open source chat and video-conferencing app thats been around since 2003. It's multi-platform, and runs pretty much everywhere. We were given the task of testing the desktop apps on MacOS and Windows, and the mobile apps on Android and iOS.
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Zoom - High Fidelity and Stereo
For the members of Team B, Zoom meetings are an everyday occurrence. Like most people during the covid era, we spend much of our professional time communicating from the comfort of our living rooms. These days, using Zoom feels akin to wearing clothes; we’re almost always doing it (sometimes even at the same time).
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Pedál to the Metal
Another week, another audio-streaming platform to test. Here is Team A's impressions of Pedál. According to their website, Pedál is a cross platform service to stream audio, speak, share screen, and record high quality audio together and the simplest way to make music together online.
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Jamulus test session.
Can a physical metronome keep us in time? Experiences from the jamulus test session in the Physical-Virtual Communication and Music course.
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Jamulus: Can y-- hear -e now?
During the second session of the Physical-Virtual Communication and Music course from 2020, we had our first experience with telematic music performance. It was not the greatest jam we ever had, but we learned from it.
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Jamulus, or jamu-less?
Playing music together is not at all only about hearing, but also about the visual. Today the MCT students of 2020 experienced this in a “low latency jam session” in Jamulus.
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Audio and Networking in the Portal - Presentations
The class of 2021 recently presented broadly on networking and audio within the context of the Portal. Presentations are included in this blog post as pdfs.
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I scream, you scream, we all scream for livestream
Some cameras won't allow you to film for more than 30 minutes, don't use those.
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NINJAM, TPF and Audiomovers
During these last few weeks of “quarantine” during the COVID-19 outbreak, we have tested out several TCP/UDP audio transmission software’s from home to check for latency and user-friendliness. Our group consisting of Simon, Iggy, and Jarle, were tasked with looking into NINJAM and TPF.
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On communication in distributed environments
Photo by Dr. Andrea Glang-Tossing. At ISE Europe, a trade fair in Amsterdam ( 11.02.-14.02. 2020) I was presenting together with SALTO the MCT course at the AVIXA Higher Education Conference. Researchers and students were invited to highlight emerging innovative methods that enhance learning and teaching experiences through AV technologies. The ISE Europe is the world's biggest pro AV event for integrated systems, with 80000 visitors and 1400 vendors, spread over a dozens of halls. For the conference I was specifically asked to contrast the overall technically curated program with social aspects from a student perspective. A retrospective from current conditions.
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Zoom and other streaming services for jamming
One thing you can do is to enable the option of 'preserve original audio' in Zoom.
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Exploring SoundJack
SoundJack is a p2p browser-based low-latency telematic communications system.
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Smokey and the Bandwidth
Hijacking Old Tech for New Uses
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Testing out Jacktrip
As we have begun settling into the COVID tech cocoon of isolation, we test out a technology that might be able to fulfull our dreams of real-time audio communication.
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The Immersive Portal
The MCT portal is rigged for ambisonics to fit a virtual classroom in a classroom
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Camera Optimization in the Portal
On the quest for optimizing the visual aspect of the Portal
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Testing Latency in the Portal
We 'officially' test some the latency in the Oslo and Trondheim Portal
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Portal ideas
Instead of starting up the M32 every day, recalling the correct preset, adjusting the faders, turning on the screens, turning on the speakers, opening LOLA, connecting to the other side, pulling your hair out because nothing will work... Imagine just pressing a button and it all just works.
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The B Team Wraps up the Portal
We made it out of the Portal, now what?
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Reflections on the Christmas concert
Trondheim reflects on the Christmas concert 2019
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Microphone Testing Results
We've spent a few days (in addition to the many miscellaneous hours during class) reconfiguring the Portal and testing out new hardware and how it might improve the quality of our sound.
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Portal Flowchart
The MCT portal has been subject to many configurations over the last couple of months. In this post, we explore how flowcharts may help us see a brighter tomorrow (we need as much light as we can get here).
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The importance of sound quality
Reflections after several lectures with less sub-optimal sound quality
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UltraGrid
Exploring an alternative audio and video network transmission software in the MCT portal.
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Could DSP it?
Is polarity the solution?
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An introduction to automix
At first glance, automix might look like your regular old expander or gate, but what makes automix special is that it does not only work on a channel to channel basis, but links all the channels in an automix group together and opens up the channel that has the strongest signal, while ducking the others.
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Experiencing Ambisonics Binaurally
During the MCT2022 Physical-virtual communication course we have had two sessions where we explored multichannel and ambisonic decoding. The first session, on February 27th, was mainly about recording a four channel A-format stream with an Ambisonic 360 sound microphone. We converted the A-format mic signal into a full-sphere surround sound format which was then decoded to 8 loudspeakers layout we placed evenly across the portal space. We have used the AIIRADecoder from the free and open source IEM plug-in suite.
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Scenarios in the Trondheim Portal during the spring semester-2019
We have had numerous scenarios set up in the portal in the period of January-May 2019. Each of the scenarios are unique and therefore serve specific functions. This blog presents four of such scenarios with a bit of discussions on the advantages and challenges with the set ups.
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Augmented Reality
In the final Portal workshop of this semester we were looking at Ambisonics as a potential way to create an augmented auditory space from the perspective of sound.
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Repairing scissors and preparing the portal for talks
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Ambisonics!
On 27 February 2019, we had a workshop on Ambisonics in the portal course. Anders Tveit gave us a lecture on how to encode and decode sound inputs from Lola, using the AIIRADecoder in Reaper.
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Documentation and recommendations from the latest Portal Jam
As the Portal is still in its infancy, pushing and exploring its technical possibilities is an ongoing process. We still encounter different issues while actually seeking a smooth and standardized setup of the signal routing and performance space. At the end it is about optimizing the telematic experience but not getting stucked in technicalities at the same time.
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How to stream content from the portal
In this blogpost, we will try to explain in more detail how these streams have been set up using OBS, Open Broadcaster Software and Youtube Live while being connected between Trondheim and Oslo. This can be of use for anyone looking to set up a co-located stream of a speaker or performance.
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Portal Jam 23 January 2019, Documentation from Oslo Team
On the 23 of January, we were testing out to jam together through the Portal.
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Christmas jazz concert between Trondheim and Oslo
A short trailer from the multi-cam set up, in Oslo. For now, it will have to do with the sound from the GoPro camera mounted on the keyboard.
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A-team - Getting the portal up and running...again
Final week before christmas. After months of experimentation with microphones, lectures with _TICO_, workshops with _Zoom_, jams with _LOLA_ and routing on the _Midas_ mixer - the portal is in disarray.
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Mutual Concert Between Oslo and Trondheim - Personal Reflections
The mutual concert between Oslo and Trondheim at the schools on November 27th, and it’s successful end result represents the end of a long process which we were trained in the many aspects of playing together over the portal. We have learned about sound and acoustics, about amplification and mixing, video, audio, and network systems, cognition, perception, and last and not least, team work. I feel that the team worked very well and pulled through considering all the technical difficulties. In a way, I feel we all took part in a small historical event, where two groups of high-school students, in two separate locations, managed to play together.
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Group B, LoLa multichannel audio
The objective this week was very clear from the start, we had to set up multichannel audio for LoLa. There was just one problem: our great LoLa supervisor, Anders, was sick, and we were left to figure out things on our own. This was of course a great challenge, but we like challenges. It might take a little more time, but it's another experience when you are forced to try and fail on your own. Often you also learn much more when you're not being fed all the answers from an expert.
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A-team - week 44
It is very important and professional to keep the signal chain (physically) clear and cabling clean and tidy. We thus decided to tidy up the portal, making it easier for everybody to see the signalchain and able to troubleshoot. Epecially in the way that MCT students are supposed to work together (in 3 teams, in charge of modification and doing the portal job, in order, every week). This will also help a lot if we are to modify or move the components in the future; otherwise it would be very hard to follow what is what.
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Group B, Short cables and LoLa
A few weeks ago we worked on setting up LoLa in the portal. This blogpost got a bit delayed, but we are back!
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A two week wrap-up of Group C
We've learned a lot in those two weeks. But due to our tight schedule with a big workload there was hardly any time left to improve on our teach/study environment in the portal. In Trondheim we got a handover from group B on how to deal with LOLA. Our task was then to reinstall the LOLA system, but with some important extra package that was missing.
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Group D: LATE POST 'Jamming in the Portal'
We were responsible for the portal during week 39 (Sep 24th-28th).This was the week we decided to explore playing music over the portal between the two campuses (UiO-NTNU) through TICO.The need for experimenting with playing music online came from both students and teachers. Many of us were eager to share the things we like to do the most (playing music). Also, there was a need to play music together for demonstration during 'Music Cognition' course. During the first jam on Tuesday the 25th, we played ‘Fly me to the moon’, a random blues number and ‘Wonderful Tonight’. During the music cognition jam, we experienced more difficulties with hearing oneself and hearing each other. Perhaps the best solution might be using headphone during those sessions.The connection itself regarding latency was not such a problem, although we did feel like we are slowing down at times.
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Group A - Setting up for a joint group presentation
Our portal has been suffering from both audial and visual issues since the beginning of the MCT program. We solve one problem and the next is just waiting in line to show itself. NOW, we all had an exam just around the corner, an exam where we were going to hold a presentation in the portal across campuses. The importance of a working portal now felt very crucial With this in mind we started working on visibility, audibility and reliability.
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M.A.D.E - setting up Tico
The number one priority this week was to get Tico up and running. The previous week, all lectures and communication between the two campuses had been through Zoom, and quite a lot of time had been consumed by solving technical problems and issues regarding the Zoom connection.
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A-team - first week
The first week at The Portal was interesting. Most of the equipment was not ready for use, and the TICO system network card crashed two days before opening ceremony. Our group, Jørgen, Espen, Sam and Juno, started working on Monday 27. August, and tried to set up the Polycom system as a backup for the week in the Portal.