Intercontinental Real-Time Surround-Sound Full-Scr...

phrawzty writes "According to CBC, "Researchers, musicians and engineers at McGill University in Montreal, have made I nternet history. They set up the first intercontinental netcast of a live concert in surround sound and full-screen video, Wednesday night." " Thats a whole lotta buzzwords to basically say that we're one step closer to having actual good video over the internet. The freaky part is the long term goal: mimicing environments down to floorboard vibrations to allow musicians to perform together from around the world.

Comments

Re:Latency!

[Golias]

You could sync them up by having them hear a "click track" (i.e. a bunch of electronic metronomes that were synchronized in the same room and then shipped out to them) and not hearing each other. Then you would have all of the sound sources sent to a mixer that has delays built in to each track so they can sync up the incoming tracks according to the distance from the broadcast studio where each player is performing.

Of course, that would not at all be the same as "playing together", but it would be almost as good as a typical commercial multi-tracked recording, which would be good enough to produce plenty of hype.

Re:Making concerts easy for artists.

[gwernol]

I wonder if we're ever going to reach a point where artists just record a concert once and have it broadcast to venues all over the world, instead of actually travelling.

Also, it's not like being at a big concert is all that different from watching on a big screen - you don't exactly touch the artist.

I've got to disagree. There are a number of things that being at a live concert/gig/performance has over a recorded event. There's the reaction of the rest of the crowd. This is hugely important - experiencing the crowd dynamic, jumping into the mosh pit, digging the froody groove with the rest of the acid-washed hipsters. Being there in the company of like-minded fans. Absolutely essential.

Then there is knowing that what you are experiencing is a one-off performance. This band aren't ever going to sound quite the same as tonight. The vocals will be particularly raw because they're on zero hours sleep and pumped full of vodka. That happy-poppy solo is going to be particularly sweet because the keyboardist just got laid. That sort of thing. This is the essence of human contact between you and the performers.

You are never going to successfully reproduce this remotely, because the core of the experience is that you are right there at that particular time with that particular bunch of people listening to that particular group play that particular song. This is why listening to a live concert recording is almost exactly the opposite experience to being at the same concert.

Re:How will they deal with lag

[TheTomcat]

Ok, I've gone through this whole thing in my head again, and I'm pretty much wrong. Silly me.

Here's what WOULD work:
A guitarist is playing his guitar in Japan. As far as he knows, nobody else is playing with him. He is the leader. He can't hear the other musicians.

It's possible for other musicians to join in. That is, I can play with any musicians who are within the lag period of the guitar.

Example: guitarist plays in Africa. 5 seconds of lag between him, and me, in Canada. Some dude in South america joins in on drums. He's only 3 seconds lag from me, and 2 seconds lag from the guitarist, so he can hear himself, and the guitarist (albeit, 2 seconds AFTER the guitarist plays). He can't hear me. I, though, can hear both of them, 3 seconds after the drummer plays, and 5 seconds after the guitarist, so I can play my bass along with them. Neither of them can hear me.

I know that this really isn't an ensemble, or a 'band', but it would work, so long as you don't try to pump bass back to the guitarist, which would be 10 seconds too late.

Sorry for being dumb earlier (-: I wish it was Friday.