LIPS project: the best way to remotely connect live music events

This research consortium has presented a live online music event, demonstrating that this format is feasible to carry out productions that would not have been possible before.

Created in April 2018 to develop intelligent services for the professional production of cultural events, the project LIPS (Live Interactive PMSE Services) has gained even greater importance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the central questions in the development of this research project was: What do musicians need when working remotely to make music together from different locations?

In addition to investigating this issue, the project, co-financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), showed how the theory could be put into practice during his final workshop last October with a stunning live concert: musicians from the collaborating universities HMTM Hannover and HMT München played together from separate locations.

The audio manufacturer has participated in this project Sennheiser, whose consortium was chaired by Andreas Wilzeck, and thus explained the team's starting point: “There are many different and contradictory statements in the literature about what is required for networking events.”. The LIPS project decided to take a step back and provide a new look at what is really needed, creating a solid database for any network production”.

Besides, Companies from the AV and broadcast sector such as Arri participate in the LIPS consortium, TVN Mobile Production, Smart Mobile Labs AG, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Friedrich-Alexander University of Nuremberg-Erlangen and Leibniz University of Hanover.

an aspect (and obstacle) Important for these remote and networked productions is latency, and therefore the consortium partners focused their efforts on achieving latency figures comparable to those of a standard room.

In your model configuration, a fiber optic network played an important role, as well as 5G wireless technology as a potential option to bridge to a wired-based network infrastructure.

Other aspects included added value for the audience, For example, offering quality live hearing assistance premium, the result of which was that this jam session effectively demonstrated the current state of the art.

The two parts of the band could be seen in an immersive reality 'in a window', in which the sensation was as if the musicians were playing just a few meters behind the big screen, which was part of the configuration that had been made in each place.

“The concert was an impressive audiovisual demonstration of some of the LIPS technologies developed over a period of two and a half years,” highlights Wilzeck., the Sennheiser. Consortium partners are now considering future practical implementation of the findings to support live networked events, “a format that will allow bands to play together no matter where they are and will allow for productions that would not have been possible before.”.