5G-Records - Live Audio Production

In a typical live audio production, such as a concert, musical, theatre or studio performance, one or several artists are performing (i.e., acting, dancing, singing, or playing musical instruments) live either to create content that can be used later or to entertain an interested audience that can be live on site or follow the content live via stream. Capturing and producing a live event for subsequent cultural and creative content use involves many wireless audio devices. For instance, artists on stage use wireless microphones to capture their voices or instruments’ sounds while hearing themselves via a wireless in-ear-monitoring (IEM) system. Consequently, content capture is expected to take place at the highest quality possible, with producers taking steps to ensure the integrity and robustness of content capture and delivery. For these reasons, the quality and reliability of the radio links are fundamental to professional wireless audio device users. For live audio productions especially, the commercial pressure on operators is significant as there is no opportunity for recovery. It is not possible to ask for repetition during a live concert, so the tolerance for quality of service (QoS) is extremely low. Furthermore, many artists rely on receiving a personalised audio mix of the event streamed back to their IEM device. This self-feedback loop has very strict latency requirements from microphone to IEM, which is mainly determined as double the transmission latency for up- and downlink (UL/DL) and the audio
processing time, e.g., mixing and filtering. It is a critical parameter because, above a certain threshold, the artist can no longer perform. Depending on the sort of music, the instrument, and the musician’s skills, this threshold varies widely, but in most cases, it must not exceed 4 ms. Mixing and filtering audio signals can take up to 2 ms, leaving only about 1 ms for wireless transmission in one direction.